1998, Game of the Year

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The 1998 Game of the Year is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
The runner up is StarCraft.
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 1998.  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 1998 and post why.  Without further ado, here is the list of games.

 

Baldur’s Gate (PC)
Bioware begins making the first of several D&D real-time RPG games with Baldur’s Gate.  Even though it was only the second game that they had developed at this point, Baldur’s Gate became a massive hit selling over 2.8 million copies worldwide.

 

Half-Life (PC)
After porting Doom to Windows 95, Gabe Newell decided to quit Microsoft and form his own game studio, Valve.  Valve’s first game was Half-Life, their own more narrative take on the FPS genre.  Half-Life became a ginormous commercial hit for Valve, far exceeding their original expectations.  Half-Life sold over 9.3 million copies by 2008, and it was awarded Guiness World Record for “Best Selling First-Person Shooter of All Time (PC)” in that same year.

StarCraft (PC)
Originally it was simply called “Warcraft in space”, but over time people were singing a different tune.  StarCraft is where Blizzard took RTS gaming to the next level with an interesting story, cool Alien/Predator/Space Marine like factions, and an underlying Rock/Paper/Scissors gameplay.  StarCraft would go on to sell over 11 million copies worldwide including fanatical following in South Korea where it became their main official eSport.

 

Metal Gear Solid (Playstation)
Hideo Kojima started making Metal Gear games all the way back on the NES.  But it wasn’t until this first 3D entry that Metal Gear really started getting some serious recognition.  Not only was Metal Gear Solid highly acclaimed by critics, but it made Konami some decent money by selling over 7 million copies.

 

Resident Evil 2 (Playstation)
Capcom kicks it up a notch with Resident Evil 2.  Here you can choose between two characters, with each character having a different storyline.  Resident Evil 2 would sell over 5.7 million copies, exceeding the sales of the first game.

 

Suikoden II (Playstation)
Some storylines are so epic that they have to be completed by assembling the 108 Stars of Destiny.  Suikoden II was not particularly commercially successful when it released, and in fact it has several factors in common with Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.  Both were 2D games developed by Konami in an era when 3D gaming was considered the hot, new thing.  Furthermore, Suikoden II was only given an 82 on Metacritic originally.  It just wasn’t the time for people to be open to 2D games.  Over time, Suikoden II gained a cult following and is now considered one of the greatest games of all time.  The User Score on Metacritic is a 91, and GameFaqs ranks it as the #1 RPG on the Playstation, a system defined as being a console for RPGs.

 

Xenogears (Playstation)
Tetsuya Takahashi wanted to take Final Fantasy in a different direction, and his ideas for that series eventually turned into Xenogears.  Xenogears would sell over 1.2 million copies on the Playstation.  After the completion of Xenogears, Takahashi left Squaresoft to form Monolith Soft, the developers behind both the Xenosaga and Xenoblade series.

 

Banjo-Kazooie (N64)
Rare showed off what they can do in 3D platforming and continued to remind us how important they were to both Nintendo and the N64.  Banjo-Kazooie would sell over 3.6 million copies.

 

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
Miyamoto lead Zelda into 3D with Koji Kondo returning to provide the OST for Zelda.  Eiji Aonuma was one of the directors for Ocarina of Time, and would eventually become the face for future games in the Zelda series.  Ocarina of Time has often been cited as the best video game of all time, and it was also commercially successful selling over 7.6 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 Monday, Oct 16 at 11:59 EST.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 17 October 2023