Looking back on it, 1994 was kind of a quiet year for video games.
16 bit and cartridge consoles were having their swansong. Not a lot happening on the new franchise front. There was still a lot of sprite based, floppy disc distributed PC games. Internet wasn't yet a thing, Windows 95 was still a year off, and 4th gen consoles were still a year out.
Year was kind of like the calm before the storm, right before 32-bit consoles, mass CD-ROM adoption, full 3D gaming, internet play, and generally the whole gaming explosion of the late 1990s.
Am I wrong? What were the big video game moments of 1994?
>>335080165
1994 gave us Earthbound, Doom 2, Super Metroid, Donkey Kong Country, Final Fantasy 6, and Warcraft 1, plus the Playstation & Sega Saturn were released in Japan.
All in all, the year was pretty frigging cool one, but like you kinda described, it was just the first waves of the bigger storm.
>>335080962
I guess I might just as well post the rest of these...
>>335080962
Technically, the game called "Earthbound" was released in 95, you only got it in 94 if you were Japanese.
Come to think of it, did anything notable happen in 1995? That feels like a quieter year than 1994 by far.
>>335081047
>>335081152
>>335081047
>>335080962
I think I'm seeing a pattern here...
>>335081152
...and done.
>>335081143
Well there was DKC2, Chrono Trigger, Worms, Warcraft 2, Suikoden, I have no mouth and I must scream, PS1 and Saturn come to west. All in all, the whole 90s was like a one long pipe of nothing but amazingness, with each year bringing out SOMETHING cool and new, the 3D era being the biggest turn in everything.
>>335081469
Don't forget, 1995 gave us the always amazingvirtual boy.
Well, Realms of Arkania 2 came out in 1994. World of Xeen too, sort of. So it wasn't a bad year at all, if nothing mindblowing.
>>335081047
>mortal kombat 2 gameboy 1st
wow that game was horrible and ridden with bugs jesus christ.
>>335080962
>implying anybody gave a single fuck about Earthbound in 94
>>335080165
>Unga bunga rockstop
>>335081152
>best buddie
>Interceptor
>the glitched dude that disapear a few hours into the game because of a critical bug
hey talk about disappointment for people who had the game
>>335080165
>>335081469
As much cool stuff as 94-95 gave us, nothing beats the amazing rollercoaster that was 1996:
>N64 & PS1 hit the shelves everywhere, finally
>Duke Nukem 3D,
>Pokemon R&G,
>Time Crisis,
>Super Mario RPG,
>Resident Evil,
>Final Doom,
>Quake,
>Super Mario 64,
>Tomb Raider,
>DKC3,
>Star Wars: Shadows of the empire,
>C&C: Red Alert
And then we entered this amazing golden era of late 90s - mid 00s.
>>335081901
it doesn't really matter what people thought back in the day. That thing's still a huge cult hit today.
>>335080962 >>335081047 >>335081152 >>335081469
Appreciate these. 1994 did have a lot of top quality 16 bit titles. Like I said it was the (glorious) swansong of the format. But I don't think the medium itself was experiencing much in the way of progression.
>>335081143
> did anything notable happen in 1995?
PC-CDROM franchises starting coming in in a big way. Command and Conquer and Mechwarrior 2 come to mind. Also you had the Saturn and Playstation coming in. I also recall that 3D games in arcades started to become big in and around that time. It was a turning point year for new technology.
I almost forgot; you had Windows 95 and basically the Internet took off around then too.
>>335082326
It matters in the context of 1994 being an interesting year.
If Earthbound didn't attract any attention on release then the year 1994 wasn't any more interesting because of it's release
>>335083263
it really depends where you were at the time.
In Japan, and in the smaller JRPG circles in west, the Mother series was already a big thing back in the days.
>>335080962
DK wins because of "Muh graphics"
Nothing has changed over the years.
>>335083901
Why is DK wearing amonkey suit?
>>335083409
Okay, I can see that.
>>335083901
Remember that COD4 won best graphics of 2007 over fucking UT3, game mags couldn't even tell what good graphics were.
>>335081469
Donkey Kong Country comes in 2nd for STORY?
>>335085136
might be a mind-boggling idea nowadays, but at that point, plot in games was still super simple, and like Carmac put it: "like a story in a porn movie; expected to be there, but not that important".
Considering that's also a Nintendo magazine, they only had quite limited pool of games to choose from that year.
With that in mind, games like Resident Evil and MGS were super "cinematic", story-driven games for the time.