by slag
I've been cranking on a game spreadsheet for a number of years now and it's finally gotten robust enough that I could sort and filter it to show various neat things
I thought it'd be fun to see what my single favorite game of the year was from every year's slate I have play history with and this is what it spit out.
1 game per release year (some of these of these I didn't play till way later), some years have zero if I haven't played anything yet. I tried to stick to first United States release year for platforms I would have had access to (if I was around myself) when there was multiple possible dates. Usually that defaults to US Arcade releases for 80's stuff.
As an aside I don't buy the notion that games are a "young medium" anymore. Maybe they aren't old, but we're what?.... in Decade 5 now?... That's not young either.
Showing 1-10 of 46 items
1972 I've only played one videogame from the year 1972 so I can safely say that Pong is the best game I've played from that year and honestly Pong, while simple, remains a fun game to this day. Underappreciated
1976 I'm considering "blockade" to be representative of Tron, Snake and basically all of the variants which makes it the only 1976 game I've played and thus my favorite. Also a good simple game! Maybe not as good as Pong tho
1978- Stop me if you've heard this one already, but Super Breakout is the only game from 1978 I've played. And you know what that means
1979- finally a year where I've played more than 1 game but I can say Space Invaders is the best of the.... *checks notes*... three 1979 releases I've played
1980 Now we're getting somewhere finally and the first perhaps semi modern gamer type IP Pac-man is pretty dang legit, especially when you compare it to what came before (look above). Just a massive improvement in complexity, characterization, gameplay, sound and visuals. wasn't the king for long of the gaming world, but it was arguably the first one
1981 some playing card company named "Nintendo" made this one. I think they are Japanese. Seems like they might have potential to make more very good games! honorable mentions: Frogger
1982 Insert joke about your better half having a better video game. And the best part it's true! honorable mentions: Pole Position
1983- Hoo boy tough choice this year. Gotta give it to King's Quest due to the incredible for the time open ended nature of the game. Runner-up Dragon's Lair was like visually looking at the future tho. A playable cartoon was madness in 1983 Honorable Mentions - Dragon's Lair
1984 False Advertising, this game actually came out in 1984 in the Arcades not "1942". Still really good tho. I think I can look past that naming issue
1985 O Hey those Nintendo people made another one! This "Mario" guy should have brought his fireballs with him to fight that King Kong Ape, would have been a lot easier.