1993, Game of the Year

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The 1993 Game of the Year is Doom.
The runner up is Mega Man X
The master thread for all of these contests can be found here.

Please comment on what you believe to be the Game of the Year for 1993.  You might even want to discuss/argue with other posters first before you vote.  Or maybe you just want to argue with yourself first?  Whatever.  Please vote for Game of the Year for 1993 and post why.  Without further ado, here is the list of games.

 

Mortal Kombat II (Arcade)
Mortal Kombat continues its reign of terror in the arcades.  MKII would end up being even more commercially successful than the first game.  The arcade version sold over 27,000 cabinets.  The console versions of MKII shipped over 2.5 million units at launch making it the most successful launch of a video game up to that point in time.

Doom (PC)
The father of first-person shooters.  In fact FPS games were originally called “Doom clones”.  Developer id Software initially used a shareware model to market the game, allowing people to play the first third of Doom for free.  It is estimated that 10-20 million people played Doom within 24 months of its launch.  Doom was ported to a large variety of other systems including SNES, 32X, Playstation and Saturn.

 

Myst (Mac)
Even though Doom was popularizing the FPS genre, the game in the early/mid 90’s that was generating the most buzz among computer owners was Myst.  Myst was originally developed for the Mac but ported to the PC six months later and eventually ported to Playstation and Saturn.  Myst was considered the #1 killer app for the CD-Rom which was at that time being introduced onto computers (and a little later onto consoles as well).  Myst sold over 6 million copies on the PC alone, making it the best-selling PC game of all time until it was surpassed in 2002 by The Sims.

 

SimCity 2000 (Mac/PC)
This next entry in the SimCity franchise proved even more popular than the first selling over 4.3 million copies total.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Gameboy)
Zelda makes it’s first entry onto handheld systems with Link’s Awakening.  It would go on to sell over 3.8 million copies.

 

Phantasy Star IV (Genesis/Mega Drive)
The final entry in the Phantasy Star series is considered by many to be the best.  (It definitely has a killer OST.)  The initial price for the game was almost $100 in the US.  Phantasy Star IV has repeatedly appeared on several “best games of all time” lists and is often at the top or near the top of “best Genesis games” lists.

 

Mega Man X (SNES)
Mega Man gets a makeover for the 16-bit era in Mega Man X.  It feels like Mega Man, but with improved graphics and some new gameplay elements like wall jump.  Mega Man X would sell over 1.1 million units on the SNES alone.

 

Secret of Mana (SNES)
Squaresoft releases this action, multiplayer RPG.  Secret of Mana is actually a sequel to the Gameboy Game, Final Fantasy Adventure (or Mystic Quest in Europe).  Secret of Mana would go on to sell over 1.8 million copies on the SNES.

 

Starfox (SNES)
Nintendo gives us a taste of what’s to come in the next generation in this 3D shooter with polygonal graphics.  Starfox also comes with some very catchy music.  The game would go on to sell over 4 million copies.

Other (please specify)
If you think another game 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 Friday, Oct 6 at 11:59 EST.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 07 October 2023