Top 25 Games Turning 25, part 4

You may have already heard that 1994 was one of those big years in video game releases.

Sure, it was the year that brought us Rise of the Robots, Shaq Fu and Super 3D Noah’s Arc, but it was also the year of Doom II, System Shock, TIE Fighter and Street Fighter II: Turbo.

…not that any of those seven games are eligible, because I’ve not played a one of them.

So, just to belabor the point, here is the fourth batch of the Top 25 video games turning 25 this year (that I played; you’ll note it’s light on fighting games and Windows games) presented in alphabetical order. Because I
a) am a coward; or
b) have spent too much time on this already to agonize over ranking them.

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Sim Tower

A double-dip for Maxis and their desire to simulate all things in this world. I didn’t come to Sim Tower until long after my days of Sim City 2000. But nevertheless my favorite Sim game helped me get into the swing of things by realising I was slowly but surely erecting an arcology.

The towers started simple enough. Put in some stores, some office space, stairs and (eventually) elevators and escalators. But as your bank account and fame grew, your options expanded too. Add in parking garages, movie theaters, luxury apartments, helicopter pads and everything else a partially functioning society would need.

I you were keen and experienced, you could turn s small stack of shops into a colossal ziggurat made out of regular ziggurats. A truly tremendous metropolis unto itself that makes the Chrysler Building look like a toothpick in comparison. And then you write a series of novels about how critics are the lowest of the low and can’t understand your singular genius that will push society forward through acts of design. And then you build a troop transport out of balsa wood and try to sell it to the military. And then you gold-plate the entire thing, because bronze is for losers. And then you build giant rockets under it and blast it off into space so you can get your electric car back.

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Skyblazer

In an odd coincidence, AVGN spinoff (and all-around good time) James and Mike Mondays just posted a Skyblazer video yesterday. Check it out to see this game in action.

I consider Skyblazer to be something like the Ninja Gaiden of the SNES. It’s fast-paced action with a lot of different kinds of attacks and movement tech while the hero powers through an army of tough-as-nails enemies. When things are going well, it’s immensely satisfying. But it’s going to take some effort to get things to go well. It’s worth it.

Skyblazer also looks, sounds and plays great, as should any SNES game of this vintage. It’s a little short, but you’ll spend a lot of time mastering its challenges. There is always a way through if the hero can rise to the occasion.

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Sonic the Hedgehog 3

I’m a little torn, here. Sonic 3 is a great, but nonetheless flawed game. It deserves its spot on the 1994 list, but in the bigger picture it was a step back from Sonic 2.

While Sonic 2 threw out the thrown-together platforming of Sonic the Hedgehog in favor of long, curvy runways designed to showcase the character’s speed, Sonic 3’s design instead demanded exploration of expansive levels. It’s predecessors rules of do fast, grab rings and try to stay on the top path was thrown out in favor of find secrets, find the end, beat a miniboss.

The game was filled with expansive and time-consuming stages. Collecting rings and dodging enemies was not enough to get the MacGuffins necessary for a good ending; you had to find the hidden paths to the special stage. As Sonic 2’s core gameplay change, the spin dash, fit its level design to a T, Sonic 3 introduced a double jump, allowed players to fly as Tails and changed the shield power up to give it a variety of movement-based effects.

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Sonic & Knuckles

Now, I love Sonic 3, but it’s level design was kind of crap for the most part. While Sonic & Knuckles doesn’t represent a turn to the Sonic 2-style “Oh yeah, we should probably design levels around our fast character being fast,” it seems they got a lot more polish than the zones in Sonic 3. There are more interesting bits of platforming, the vast size of the levels don’t feel as padded, the bosses are more interesting and that horrible bug where you go so fast you clip into objects and become permanently stuck is all but squished. And the Doomsday Zone is the all-time best ending to a Sonic game. Ever.

Pair that with the lock-on technology, which allows you to play as Knuckles in Sonic 2 and Sonic 3, but also get a dizzying number of extra iterations on the chaos emerald stages in a bonus title known simply as Blue Sphere. It was an odd, yet completely logical way to do an expansion pack for a console game in the age of cartridges.

Rights issues stemming from the Michael Jackson-consulted music have also made this difficult to find on Sega’s collections, it’s worth hunting down as the second-best Sonic game on the Genesis and the best Sonic game in 1994.

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StarTropics II: Zoda’s Revenge

Didn’t think you’d find two NES games on this list, did you? Hard to believe that with two years to go until the N64, it’s grandfather was still getting fresh, new releases. And first-party releases, no less.

Still… why, oh why was Wario’s Woods the swan song for the NES? In North America, at least, they could have dropped the NES mic (sold separately) with this much-improved (though less-remembered) sequel to the cult-classic Startropics.

While there was no denying the charm of the first game’s island hopping, the sequel’s epic scope across time and the globe gave Mike Jones all sorts of environments to adventure through with new, themed enemies and gear. Oh, and he can move diagonally, jump freely and doesn’t get stuck on every tile he finds.

This game holds a special place in my heart, and its main character would serve as my own sprite-based representation on the internet back when that was the cool passable thing to do. A particularly enterprising reader could use that clue find and identify something very embarrassing from my past that’s still out there…