PixlBit

Other than possibly VF3 vs Tekken 3, I've always liked Virtua Fighter better than Tekken. I like the game mechanics a lot better. I loved VF4 on PS2, it was my favorite fighting game of the generation. I just wish the series had been more successful in the US.

You can count me in as one of the people who like SM64 better than Sunshine. Sunshine was good, but I didn't enjoy it as much. Metroid Prime was my 2002 GOTY, but I kind of wish that the Prime games could have incorporated more of the game mechanics from the 2-D games, like the real Space Jump and Screw Attack, and the ability to freeze enemies into platforms. They did pretty good with the Morph Ball, though.

BMX XXX... that and The Guy Game were a couple of the lowest points the video game industry had seen since Custer's Revenge.

Gaming is a good way to recuperate from the flu. I got the flu right after my 21st birthday, and used one of my birthday gifts, Xenogears, to recuperate.

2003 was a great year for gaming. Wind Waker is an obvious winner of GOTY for me, and I also enjoyed Viewtiful Joe and SoulCalibur 2 on Gamecube. I do remember The Simpsons Hit 'n' Run, though it still didn't capture the same Simpsons magic for me that Konami's arcade game did twelve years earlier.  I played the PC version of Jazz Jackrabbit back in the 90s when it was new. Before they did Jazz, Epic MegaGames did a platformer called Jill of the Jungle that I played as well.

One other 2003 game I played was the first Xenosaga. Unfortunately, although KOS-MOS was an iconic character, the game itself didn't quite live up to Xenogears, as it played more like the second disc of Xenogears than anything else. Xenosaga was the weakest of the three Xeno series. :(

Stage Select:

1. Unlocking Cloud in Final Fantasy Tactics.

2. "ZELDA" in the original Zelda, which allowed you to skip to the Second Quest.

3. A subtle but memorable one, for me at least: In Tales of Symphonia, in the slums of Meltokio, you'll run across a girl selling flowers. My favorite Tales game references my favorite Final Fantasy game.

Pak Watch: Metroid

At the time, it was almost as amazing as The Legend of Zelda on the NES. The huge world, the multiple power-ups that unlocked more of that world, the secret passages, and the hunt for the bosses, Kraid and Ridley, even if Ridley wasn't as impressive as his later incarnations. Kraid, though, was actually much harder on the NES than he was on the SNES or GBA. The music was some of the best on the NES, especially Kraid's Lair, Norfair, and Ridley's Lair. Once I finished Zelda, I went into Metroid whole hog. Unfortunately, compared to Super Mario Bros or The Legend of Zelda, it's probably the least playable of those NES classics today. So many massive improvements were made to Metroid's graphics, sound, game mechanics, and controls on newer hardware, that it feels primitive and clunky by comparison. Super Metroid alone rendered Metroid obsolete, and its GBA remake, Zero Mission, renders the original game somewhat pointless. Still, it was a groundbreaking game and deserves to be recognized as such.

Lovin' Breath of the Wild. It's the best video game I have played in years.

I know quite a few 1UPers hang out on Twitter, but I never liked it and deleted my account. Now it just seems to be a forum where idiot politicians sling insults at their constituents.

Crazy Taxi was fun, and I enjoyed Skies of Arcadia... when the remastered version came out on Gamecube in 2003.

On the N64, I enjoyed Star Fox 64 and Mario Kart 64. Goldeneye was okay, but I've never exactly been into FPSs. But 1997 was overall a disappointing year for the N64. There were a few other gems like Mischief Makers, but it was also kind of sad watching Nintendo try to do damage control for the huge game droughts the N64 had.

For me, one game really dominated 1997. It could have been the only game released that entire year and I still would have called it a good year for gaming. You can probably guess which one it is.

That was pretty neat. Now they have emulators for all those old computers. I have emulators for TRS-80, Atari XL//XE, and TI-99/4A, which were the computers we had when I was a kid before I got my first IBM-compatible PC with MS-DOS.

1996 was all about Super Mario RPG and SM64 for me. SMRPG was kind of sad as it was the last game Square did for Nintendo before their messy divorce from Nintendo. SM64 was probably the most technically amazing game I'd ever seen up to that point. Too bad the N64 didn't live up to the promise of SM64. I did get both KI Gold and Shadows of the Empire. Wave Race 64 looked pretty neat.

I remember a lot of the arcade games here. I used to see Area 51 at truck stops. Tekken 2 was everywhere, but I prefered VF2 and didn't get into Tekken until Tekken 3. Tomb Raider seemed really stiff and awkward compared to Super Mario 64. Probably my favorite game of 1996 on PS1 was the first Resident Evil, but I didn't feel any urge to buy a PS1 until after Final Fantasy VII came out the following year.