See, this is the hard part of picking PC games for polls in the 90's.  Every year there are a bunch of great PC games, often they are roughly equally great.  And then people just vote for console games anyway, lol.  

tbf, I did vote for a PC game in 1993 and 1996. I also do plan on voting for a PC game for 1998 and depending on what year you decide to place Pokémon Gold/Silver, 1999 or 2000. 

Yep it's as you said in the 1994 thread "So yes, most of the old PC IPs are either dead or dormant." In this case Age of Empires, Diablo and Fallout are still going but a former shadow of themselves. MS, Blizzard and Bethesda have not handled those franchises well. Quake is dead, Ultima Online is forgotten and adventure games a niche nowadays.

I expect FF7 to take 1997 anyway. It's the most requested and anticipated remake, cut into parts to milk it for all its worth :/ Part 1 already sold 7 million copies while many people are waiting for the complete version. FF7 sold 14 million copies.
Maybe GoldenEye stands a chance as many people's first experience with multiplayer fps. (Plus maybe resentment for Sony stealing Final Fantasy)
Gran Turismo isn't dead yet but racing is niche nowadays as well. It should still get some votes!

Goldeneye vs FF7 is a major showdown, the top game on each console of that generation, head to head. Both games at the time had a wider appeal than their respective genres (minus Pokémon on the RPG front, which was another genre transcendent game).

THIS was the top 4 I forgot to mention Super Mario RPG beside :D

Again going with Other

Master of Orion 2: Battle at Antares (or MO2BA for short) is a masterpiece. Still know all my standard picks for race creation: Dic/Cre/Sub/Ric/Lar/Spy-/GrC-/ShD-.
Being Creative more than makes up for all the malus easily by the midgame, especially since subterrean already cancels out the ground combat malus at home. Subterrean also doubles the population limit, which means by the endgame my planets can out outproduce even UniTol races by al large amount.

Second spot goes to Civ II. I really missed the advisors in the subsequent civ games.

Third goes to the original Diablo. How is this one not even a suggestion??? Btw, there's a mod that restores all the cut content (of which there's a lot!), brings the graphics to HD level and makes it play much more like Diablo II (enemies respawn when loading the game and you always start at the town after loading).

Number 4 goes to Strike Force Centauri. In the past I thought it was linked to the BattleTech universe since the backstory is pretty much a carbon copy of those in the Mechwarrior series, but apparently there's no connection.

And finally on the 5th spot, we'll have Chaos Overlords, a quirky little turn-based stategy game where you hire gangs to take control of a city. Those gangs can be all kinds of things: Achitect guilds, Road Repair crews, Mutants, Killer Clowns, Martial Arts experts, and so on

A honorable mention to Commend & Conquer: Red alert at the end: While the game doesn't make it into my top 5 list, the soundtrack definitely does, especially the Hell March:

And it actually works as a marching song, unlike the Imperial March from Star Wars. Let's combine that with, say, Pokemon, shall we?

And you get the new Schock Troopers for the Japanese Blitzkrieg

Edit: Just found out that Diablo officially only released on January 3rd, though some apparently got their copy on New year's eve 1996.

Boy, 96 was full of hits.

Mario 64 running away with it is certainly no surprise, but man this victory is emphatic. It is certainly deserved though, the game truly revolutionised and popularised 3D gaming. Not just that, but it's alsl incredible and holds up to this day.

Still, I decided to go with Pokemon, mostly because SM64 certainly doesn't need my vote, but also because we shouldn't forget that Pokemon has been massively impactful in its own right by spawning the highest grossing media franchise of all time and kickstarting Pokemania. I also think the game holds up well, especially for a Gameboy gameand those og 151 will always be the goats. Definitely disadvantaged as a handheld game in this poll.

Elsewhere, I feel like the SNES capped things off very nicely with Super Mario RPG and a couple Japan only RPGs like Star Ocean and Bahamut Lagoon.

The PS1 started to pick up with the likes of Crash and Wild Arms being standouts (Tomb Raided was multiplat with Saturn!)

Finally, the Saturn had a great year and was probably the strongest platform overall imo. The likes of Nights into Dreams, Guardian Heroes, Dragon Force, and Panzer Dragoon Zwei and all amongst the greatest games of the generation and its a shame to see the latter 3 not even mentioned in the OP :( But alas, such is the fate of Saturn games here in the West... eternally overlooked

1. Duke Nukem 3D
2. Metal Slug
3. Tomb Raider

1996 was a very strong year; though Mario 64's gotta be the clear winner for me, there are plenty of greats.
While the spotlight was on the N64 and PS1, the twilight of the SNES was terrific in its own right; Super Mario RPG and Donkey Kong Country 3 were good enough to hold their own even next to their next gen rivals.