CCIV: Game of the Year 1997 Round Seven

[Neon Ignition]

New week, new poll with another list of titles taking us into the latter end of the releases. We've had some big titles already come up in previous rounds, does 1997 still have more to offer?


Which of the above games is amongst the best of 1997 and why?

[Cepp]

Quake 2 easily stands amongst the best games 97 had to offer.

[Asura]

Probably the only vote it'll get, but RPG Maker was one of the most important games released that year.

There are several really big media franchises that grew out of the doujin game scene which RPG Maker helped usher in, most notably Fate, but also others such as Corpse Party. The engine has continued right up to modern day, with releases every few years. And while technically the modern console versions aren't made in RPG Maker, there are several hugely successful games which may not have existed without it, such as Stardew Valley and To the Moon.

[QualityChimp]

I either didn't play any of the games on this list or not enough select them, but can see how Quake II would be popular.

[CMcK]

Some great shmups on that list but I’m going to highlight The Reap. It’s an early Housemarque (Resogun, Returnal) game on the PC. Probably heavily inspired by Viewpoint it’s a stunning looking isometric shmup. Needed a beefy system to run well and was pretty challenging. But it showed some serious progress from the Stardust games.

[Mr Ono]

Quake 2 is special for me as it was the first game I ever played multiplayer online. It is indeed, how I got my online name of "Ono" as I use to be called "Oh No" in Q2.

[Asura]

Some great shmups on that list but I’m going to highlight The Reap. It’s an early Housemarque (Resogun, Returnal) game on the PC. Probably heavily inspired by Viewpoint it’s a stunning looking isometric shmup. Needed a beefy system to run well and was pretty challenging. But it showed some serious progress from the Stardust games.

Wait - is Resogun by the people who made Stardust on the Amiga?!

[wakka]

Probably the only vote it'll get, but RPG Maker was one of the most important games released that year.

There are several really big media franchises that grew out of the doujin game scene which RPG Maker helped usher in, most notably Fate, but also others such as Corpse Party. The engine has continued right up to modern day, with releases every few years. And while technically the modern console versions aren't made in RPG Maker, there are several hugely successful games which may not have existed without it, such as Stardew Valley and To the Moon.

I voted for this before reading the comments, and spotted you voted for it too.

I went for it for different reasons. I spent a TON of time playing around with RPG Maker when I was a kid. Me and my friends at school were always cooking up grand plans for RPGs on it that never really came to a whole lot of fruition, but it was fun. My magnum opus was, I believe, called Dante's Quest.

The concept was that Dante - I have no idea why the character was called Dante, I guess I thought it sounded cool - started off in his village, progressed through a wood, to a castle, and beat a bad guy at the end of it. So I don't think you could say it was startlingly original.

However the game entered development hell when I spent months crafting an insanely detailed starting village with tons of houses, characters and optional dialogue, and I never actually got as far as making the woods part, let alone the castle. It was my own personal Duke Nukem Forever.

Me and my friends also spent a bunch time playing homebrew games that other people would make and release. It was a lot of fun.

[jonathan_ingram]

Warms my heart to see other folk having voted for Silhouette Mirage, what a game that is!

[Cassius_Smoke]

Some good games there.
Porsche Challenge and Real Bout are the ones I remember playing.
Quake 2 is probably going to win, but like with the other lists, I'm only picking games I actually played at the time.

[Cepp]

Some good games there.
Porsche Challenge and Real Bout are the ones I remember playing.
Quake 2 is probably going to win, but like with the other lists, I'm only picking games I actually played at the time.

Not played Porsche Challenge in years, would be cool to go back to it and see how it holds up.

[Asura]

However the game entered development hell when I spent months crafting an insanely detailed starting village with tons of houses, characters and optional dialogue, and I never actually got as far as making the woods part, let alone the castle. It was my own personal Duke Nukem Forever.

I loved reading this

Everyone who plays videogames should try making them, at least once, even if it's just in a level editor or something like Little Big Planet.

[Hirst]

Rampage World Tour is a game I'll continue to champion, even though I can barely convince anyone to look at it. It's great!

[dataDave]

Quake 2 is special for me as it was the first game I ever played multiplayer online. It is indeed, how I got my online name of "Ono" as I use to be called "Oh No" in Q2.

Quake was the first ever game I played online, but Quake II was the first game I ever played over LAN.

[dataDave]

Porsche Challenge was a ton of empty hype. 1997 was a weird point for me in gaming in that I was happy enough with my N64, but I was falling out of touch with everything else as I didn't quite have the funds for full-on importing (which is where the PSX and Saturn shone, at that particular time especially). I was only just starting work on £250 a month - so importing took a few years to kick in.

All of the PAL PSX releases around then I found to be utterly luke warm, or worse. Perhaps playing them off the back of Super Mario 64, Pilot Wings 64, Goldeneye, Star Fox 64, etc. plus a huge PC back-catalogue I was catching up with (or even 1996's 32-bit releases) didn't exactly exacerbate their qualities.