1990, Game of the Year

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The 1990 game of the year is Super Mario World.
The runner up is The Secret of Monkey Island.
The master thread for all of these contests can be found here.

What do you believe to be the "Game of the Year" for 1990 and why?  Also, vote on "Game of the Year" for 1990. 

Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker (Arcade/Genesis/Home Computers)
In 1990, three completely different versions of Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker were released: one for the arcade, one for the Genesis and a third for home computers.  Sega developed and published both the arcade and Genesis version while U.S. Gold published the version for home computers.  All versions of the game were in some way inspired by the Smooth Criminal video that came from the Moonwalker movie.

Arcade version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku8oaK_iEwk
Computer version:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0xPDFxlN0I
Smooth Criminal video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_D3VFfhvs4

Sid Meier’s Railroad Tycoon (Home Computers)
Another hit game from the guy who puts his name on everything.  It was also the first game with the word Tycoon in the title.

Wing Commander (PC)
Chris Roberts brings combat and flight simulation to outer space.  Wing Commander was about 5 times more expensive to create than most other computer games at the time, and inspired many other computer games of the era to increase their budgets.  This first version of the game had 2 expansion packs and inspired 4 more sequels.  It also inspired competitors to make space combat games like X-Wing.

The Secret of Monkey Island (Home Computers)
Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer design this hilarious adventure game from LucasArts.  The Secret of Monkey Island went on to release 5 more sequels. 

Dr Mario (NES/Gameboy/Arcade)
After Tetris, the next biggest action puzzle game of this era was Dr Mario.  Dr Mario would go on to sell 5.34 million copies on the Gameboy and 4.85 million copies on the NES.

Dragon Quest 4 (NES)
Dragon Quest mania continues in Japan with Dragon Quest.  DQ4 is often considered the best RPG on the NES as it’s gameplay and storytelling seem much more sophisticated compared to other NES RPG’s.  However, it wasn’t released in North America until 1992 making it overshadowed by the 16-bit systems by that time.  DQ4 went on to sell over 3.1 million units in Japan alone.

Mega Man 3 (NES)
The Blue Bomber returns with his canine sidekick, Rush.  Mega Man 3 would sell over 1 million copies on the NES.

 

F-Zero (SNES)
Why fool with F-1 racing when you can play F-Zero?  This SNES launch game is still popular today with the recent release of F-Zero 99.  F-Zero went on to sell over 2.8 million copies worldwide.

Super Mario World (SNES)
Mario goes 16-bit and gets Yoshi.  The original Super Mario team of Shigeru Miyamoto, Takashi Tezuka and Koji Kondo are joined by several other members as team sizes grow for the 16-bit era.  This launch title was commonly bundled with the SNES and went on to sell over 20.6 million copies worldwide.

TV Commercials:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utkuzMlw8Dw

Other (please specify)
If you think another games deserves to be "Game of the Year" other than one of the 9 I listed above, then please vote “Other” and say your game in the comments.  If the "Other" category takes at least 2nd place and no other game gets at least 50% of the vote, then I will do a runoff vote including the most mentioned game(s) from the comments.

The winner of this vote will be decided Saturday, Sept 30 at 11:59 EST.

 

 

 

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 01 October 2023