CCIV: Game of the Year 1998 Round One

[Neon Ignition]

We're getting late into the 1990's now and we have been working through the golden era of having the 8-Bit, 16-Bit, 32-Bit and 64-Bit co-existing at the same time as each other but with this latest year the 128-Bit era also weighs in and presents a handful of choices for you to make as we search out the best games of the year.

Which of the above games are amongst the best of 1998 and why?

[Asura]

It won't win, but I want to big up Battlezone '98.

This was a really unusual game. Made by some of the team who made Activision's Mechwarrior games, it was a hybrid of hover-tank based first-person action game, and Command & Conquer-style real-time strategy game. Essentially it was an RTS game where you are also an individual unit on the battlefield, giving orders and manufacturing units.

Adding to that, the story was set in a hypothetical past where the Space Race in the 60s was really about obtaining alien technology that was scattered around the solar system, which rapidly accelerated American and Soviet technological development, told mainly in mission briefings and voice-overs.

Really unusual game, which fell for the genre-hybrid problem - the game was too much action for RTS, and too much RTS for action-players, meaning that it fell between two masters - but fantastic in its own way.

Also, to criticise one - Burning Rangers. Die-hard Saturn fans love this, but I've always felt it's crap. It's technically amazing, but in that way that it's amazing the T-88 calculator can run Doom; achievement, to be sure, but no-one wants to play Doom on that.

[Cepp]

I couldn't get into Burning Rangers when I tried it a few years ago. I love it's style but it's too much for the Saturn.

Baldur's Gate is top of the list for me. Black Isle managed to condense everything I wanted in a fantasy type game into one product. I'd never experienced anything D&D related before and it blew me away. The bitmap graphics and isometric viewpoint, the writing, the combat and spell effects, the atmosphere, every little thing was new and exciting and fun.

It still looks gorgeous today and holds up really well.

[QualityChimp]

I didn't play any of those at length, BitD, but blimey, Bomberman, chill out, yeah?

[Neon Ignition]

Banjo Kazooie not getting anywhere near the love it deserves

Also - I defy you!
Burning Rangers is amazing

[CMcK]

Burning Rangers all the way for me as well. Great game with bags of atmosphere. Nothing to do with what I’d like to do with one half of Scotland’s Shame.

[Cepp]

1080 with a strong showing there, wasn't expecting it to pull ahead so much.

[Atticus]

1080 is so good. My fave snowboarding game by far.

[Asura]

Yeah, talking about "genre apex" titles again like with the last thread, I think 1080 Snowboarding is the best snowboarding game, full-stop.

There are some other good games, like Snowboard Kids,and Microsoft's Amped 2 came close (especially when it was fully operational with XSN Sports), but I honestly feel nothing comes close to 1080, not even its sequel.

[dataDave]

It's such a sublime game. Even with the music off just listening to the wind and the noise of the board cutting through the snow.