Your year of the game?

[Hrafn]

Specifically, the single best year for gaming, based solely on what games came out during that calendar year. We're ignoring hardware releases for this, typically. Seemed a good time for it now that 2010 is over (and shaped up to be a legitimate contender, in my eyes).

As I mentioned in another thread, I go with 2004 for this. This is my top 10 list from then, but I'd say what's telling about the quality of that year is what I didn't include. Great games that missed the cut, like Escape From Butcher Bay, Halo 2, the GBA remakes of the original Pokemon games, Star Wars Battlefront, and although I personally don't give a squirt about MMO games, there was that whole World of Warcraft thing as well.

[John Mora]

Re: Your year of the game?

1998. But this year has been competitive.

[Hrafn]

Re: Your year of the game?

1998. But this year has been competitive.

That one was probably my runner-up. I am a major Tactics fan, after all.

[John Mora]

Re: Your year of the game?

FFT, Xenogears, Zelda, MGS, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Resident Evil 2, Starcraft, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Half-Life, Parasite Eve, Baldur's Gate...

[DarkwingChuck]

Re: Your year of the game?

1981.

First I played this insane massively multiplayer undewater racing game where I was competing against 10s of millions of other players.

Then I played a game that was sort of like Spore or Flow where I had to develop a single celled organism into a fully functioning human being. Kinda played itself though, I just had to sit back and not screw it up. Took almost a year to finish though but no replayability.

I remember one game about escaping from a small, dark cave without the use of my arms and legs. I guess you could call it a dungeon crawler.

Then I spent the last few months playing a game where I had to make sure the needs of an infant were met with only the most rudimentary controls that were harder to get a handle on than QWOP's.

All in all it was a year of some crazy games and I've never played anything like them since.

[Hrafn]

Re: Your year of the game?

1981.

First I played this insane massively multiplayer undewater racing game where I was competing against 10s of millions of other players.

Then I played a game that was sort of like Spore or Flow where I had to develop a single celled organism into a fully functioning human being. Kinda played itself though, I just had to sit back and not screw it up. Took almost a year to finish though but no replayability.

I remember one game about escaping from a small, dark cave without the use of my arms and legs. I guess you could call it a dungeon crawler.

Then I spent the last few months playing a game where I had to make sure the needs of an infant were met with only the most rudimentary controls that were harder to get a handle on than QWOP's.

All in all it was a year of some crazy games and I've never played anything like them since.

I laughed at the dungeon crawler bit.

Parasite Eve sticks out of that list a little. It was a good game, but not on the level of RE 2, MGS, or Tactics.

[ErikaFuzzbottom]

Re: Your year of the game?

1991. The Super NES had one of the best lineups of year-one releases out of any game console, including Super Mario World, F-Zero, Pilotwings, Final Fantasy II, and Gradius III.