People sure did like to fight in the arcades. This year's top game is The King of Fighters, which is my first team fighting game. You select three characters for your team, pick their order of fighting, and see if you can outlast the other team.
I kind of, sort of followed my rule of three because I won my first two matches with the team above, but of course, in winning two matches I really won six fights. I met my end when the third challenge was facing my doppelganger team. I don't know if that's built into the game to happen the third time around or if it was just a wild coincidence, but either way you can see that my Robert was no match for the CPU Robert.
Next up is Final Fantasy VII, top game for home consoles on the PlayStation. I didn't know going in that this was a particularly beloved title in the franchise, complete with remasters and ground-up re-creations coming for years after its release.
After my short run through the beginning adventure, I was impressed by the scope of the story's world. Graphically, and even mechanically, I'd always heard about how the PlayStation system was superior to Nintendo's, and I can honestly see what people were talking about, even though it wouldn't have been the kind of stuff to sway me. It felt like a mixture between an N64 and a PC game.
Next up: before I even got into some gameplay of Age of Empires, top-selling PC game for the year, the emulator I used had a bonus surprise for me ...
Boy, it's been a while since I've seen that loading screen. I remember installing and uninstalling Windows 95 about a half dozen times as I slowly weaned myself off of Windows 3.1 in fits and spurts. It was fun just to see it in the loading screen.
I was reminded of Populous as I began my quest to ... well, I'm not sure exactly what. I explored, I gathered loads of gold, wood, and fruit, built some structures and a nice-looking dock, and then I was advised that all the relics had been discovered and the game would end in 2000 years if control of them didn't change.
That didn't sound good, but it also sounded like I had quite a bit of time to work with.
I eventually found another empire and was woefully unprepared for combat, so it turned out that I didn't really need the full 2000 years to throw in the towel. Would I play it again? Probably. Am I more likely to play Civilization? Probably.
In handheld gaming news, Pocket Monsters is still ruling the world, and is now just one year away from expanding into North America.
In the meantime, though, there's a new category to touch on - most played mobile phone game. Long before birds got angry or Pokemon would go, there was one clear, first champion of phone gaming, Snake: https://youtu.be/TJdKMFy7MEA
I found an old, stylized version on the Google Play store and had a pretty good run, but I'll bet I would still do better on an old phone with real buttons.
I don't know why I never considered this before, but it really is just a one-player Tron lightcycle game. No wonder I was immediately drawn to it. It's interesting to think back to these days of phone gaming and compare the technology to early Game & Watch titles; the games were simple but it was just so much fun to play on a new kind of system.
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