1992, Game of the Year (Runoff)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The 1992 Game of the Year is Sonic the Hedgehog 2.
The runner up is Wolfenstein 3D.
The master thread for all of these contests can be found here.

Well it turns out the "Other" category got enough votes that there is a runoff including games voted on in the comments.  The results of this runoff will be decided Thursday, Oct 5 at 11:59 PM EST.  (There is basically only 24 hours to decide the winner.)

We are keeping 3 games from the original vote and adding 7 others.  First the 3 games that are being kept.

Mortal Kombat (Arcade)
Hot on the heels of Street Fighter 2 came this gory fighting game from Midway.  Mortal Kombat was also wildly successful, and it eventually lead to the creation of the ESRB in the US.  Mortal Kombat sold over 24,000 cabinets.  The home version of Mortal Kombat sold over 6.5 million units with the majority of those units being on the Genesis/Mega Drive.

 

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)
Sega released a second Sonic game causing Genesis sales to catch (and eventually surpass) SNES sales in North America.  Sonic 2 introduced Tails for potential 2-player gameplay, and went on to sell over 7.5 million copies making it the second best selling game on the Genesis after the first Sonic.

 

Super Mario Kart (SNES)
This first entry in the Mario Kart series would go on to sell over 8.7 million copies making it the 4^th best selling title on the SNES.  The series itself would sell over 175 million copies, a number that continues to grow rapidly to this day.

Now here are the 7 new games suggested in the comments:

Wolfenstein 3D (PC)
The FPS genre got its start with Wolfenstein 3D.  This is inspired by the 2 Wolfenstein games of the early 80’s even though those games had completely different developers and publishers.

 

RC Pro-Am II (NES)
Rare was making great games even back in the NES days.  In this case it’s the second game in the series about racing remote control trucks and cars.

 

Alone in the Dark (PC)
The first true 3D Survival Horror game.

 

Contra III: The Alien Wars (SNES)
Contra comes to the 16-bit generation on the SNES with Contra 3.

 

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (Gameboy)
This second Mario game on the Gameboy went on to sell over 11.1 million copies.

 

Streets of Rage 2 (Genesis)
This second entry is considered to be the best entry in the Streets of Rage series.

 

Looney Tunes (Gameboy)
A platforming game about the Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes characters.

Here are the games from the first run that didn't make the cutoff:

Virtua Racing (Arcade)
Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters (PC)
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss (PC)
Kirby’s Dream Land (Gameboy)
Shining Force (Genesis)
Dragon Quest 5 (SNES)

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 06 October 2023