1995 was the year we in North America finally saw what the Japanese had been playing with for nearly a year, the Sony PlayStation. I remember getting one for Christmas of that year. It still holds the record for being the longest-surviving Sony console in the Walker household, at an impressive three and a half years… damn thing died when I brought Resident Evil 2 home from Blockbuster.

Also in 1995 SEGA released the Sega Saturn, and Nintendo both released the first (of ultimately very few) Virtual Boy consoles, and the produced the last NES in North America.

Two companies you may have heard of were founded in ‘95, as well. Mark Jacobs and Rob Denton founded Interworld Productions, which would later become known as Mythic Entertainment (Warhammer Online), and a couple of doctors named Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk (along with Augustine Yip) founded BioWare up in Edmonton, eh.

A few games released in 1995 that you won’t see on this list include: Donkey Kong Country 2, Heroes of Might and Magic, Warcraft II, Command & Conquer and Phantasy Star IV.

And remember, if you want to get caught up with all the other years we’ve recapped up to this point, just click one and tell JW just how wrong he is for not including Final Fantasy VI in ‘94:
Top Ten Games of 1994
Top Ten Games of 1993
Top Ten Games of 1992
Top Ten Games of 1991
Top Ten Games of 1990

10.) Full Throttle

Those of you who have been keeping up with this series has probably figured out by now that Tim Schafer has had his hands in a few of the all-time classics. One of these classic games is the adventure game Full Throttle, arguably Shafer’s best work.

And I’ve played Psychonauts.

Even though it was painfully short, the story was so excellently penned that players couldn’t help but play through a second or third time. The story was told through full voice-overs, many of which were done by well respected VO actors such as Roy Conrad, Maurice LaMarche (‘The Brain’, Pinky and the Brain), Tress MacNeille (various, The Simpsons, Futurama) and Mark Hammill (Luke Skywalker, Star Wars trilogy, ‘The Joker’, Batman: The Animated Series).

There have, at one time or another, been various Full Throttle sequels in the works. Full Throttle: Payback was the first attempt, canceled in 2001 because the team working on the game and “a particularly influential” management head had a disagreement on the direction the game should go in. The second attempt at a sequel, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels was announced for the PC, Xbox and PS2 in 2002, and at E3 ‘03 LucasArts even had a playable demo for the press. Sadly, the game was canceled in 2003 and, to this day, no official reason was given as to why.

Let’s hope we get a proper sequel in the future.

9.) X-Men 2: Clone Wars

X-Men 2: Clone Wars was, in a word, awesome. There really is nothing else to say, and I would be more than justified to move on to the next game but I fear some of you would raise hell, so here we go.

The Phalanx have returned to Earth seeking to conquer it, etcetera, etcetera, and it’s up to the X-Men with the help of their arch enemy Magneto to stop them, blah, blah. The story means nothing, it’s all about the gameplay, to which you are thrown immediately into. When the game boots up, rather than seeing the ever-familiar SEGA logo, you find yourself as one of the playable characters as they storm some kind of arctic base – again, I didn’t notice or care. After you beat the first level, you were then witness to the proper title and credit screens.

Oh, and Magneto, while awesome that you could actually play as him, was still nothing compared to Cyclops. Sure, Scott Summers may be a walking mangina in the comics, cartoon and film, but in X-Men 2: Clone Wars he was a total bad ass.

8.) Earthworm Jim 2

Speaking of games where story was secondary, we come to Earthworm Jim 2. Just like the first Earthworm Jim, which was on our 1994 list, EJ2 really leaves me kind of speechless as far as trying to describe the gameplay. The game played almost identically to its predecessor, with some significant improvements in level design. Each stage in EJ2 had its own aesthetic styling to it, from wastelands where rabid goldfish threatened to eat you alive to underground sewers you had to burrow through.

This will be the last Earthworm Jim game you see on this list, I’m afraid. Once the series hit the third dimension, it all went sour. And don’t bring up ClayFighters, either… just don’t.

7.) WipeOut

Our first of what will surely be many PlayStation games, WipeOut holds the distinction of being the first non-Japanese game released for the platform. It’s mixture of blazing speed, gorgeous (for its time) 3D graphics that had never been seen to that point, and a fully licensed soundtrack were just a few of the things that made the original WipeOut an immediate hit.

WipeOut was released on a wide array of systems, from the original PlayStation to the PC, and there was even a port to the SEGA Saturn, although it was somewhat dumbed down for the weaker platform.

If you want to relive old memories, and really don’t have anything better to spend your money on, you can pick up WipeOut HD over the PlayStation Store.

6.) Star Wars: Dark Forces

It’s easy to say that Star Wars: Dark Forces is a Doom clone, but really that would be an insult to the hard work put in by the team at LucasArts who put this gem together. The prequel to what would become the Jedi Knight series, Dark Forces had you playing as Rebel mercenary Kyle Katarn. He and his girlfriend compatriot Jan Ors are tasked with learning more about the Imperial’s secretive “Dark Trooper” project.

For its time, Dark Forces was a technical marvel. The proprietary game engine used for the game, the Jedi engine, was lightyears ahead of id’s Doom engine. Why was this? Well, it was because the Jedi engine allowed the designers to build truly 3D worlds that had multiple stories to explore. The Doom engine didn’t allow this. Was it perfect? No. But it was leaps and bounds beyond anything people had seen prior.

In the years that followed, Dark Forces received several sequels and expansions, allowing the player everything from online multiplayer to lightsaber battles to even being able to play as Mara Jade.

5.) Comix Zone

As X-Men 2: Clone Wars proved, a game doesn’t have to be groundbreaking to be one of the all-time greats. Sometimes, a game just needs to be plain, simple fun.

Comix Zone is that game.

You are starving comic book artist and resident weight lifter Sketch Turner… not really, but in the game. Also in the game, you get sucked into your own comic and have to battle your way through the pages of your own comic before finally facing down the mutant that sucked you in to begin with.

It may very well be the coolest concept ever. It also plays pretty solidly as well, proving to be a more than capable 2D beat ‘em up, even if it’s incredible difficulty and short length ultimately work against it.

As of this writing, Comix Zone is currently available for the Wii Virtual Console, as well as several SEGA “Greatest Hits” collections… why it’s not on Xbox LIVE or PlayStation Network is a mystery to me.

4.) Killer Instinct

Before I start on Killer Instinct, I need to get something off my chest…

That felt good. Right, now as for the game… while Killer Instinct on the SNES was something to behold (if for no other reason than its black cartridge), there is simply no comparing the console version to the arcade classic. But what was so special about Killer Instinct that made it rape the faces of other arcade fighters like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat and Tekken? For starters, the implimentation of a double energy bar, rather than using the standard “round-reset-round” for fights was ingenious, and allowed for players who may have gotten off to a slow start to pick up the pace and dish out a grade A beatdown.

Another reason why Killer Instinct was the shit? I reiterate:

…that’s just epic, right there. Now, Rare (who developed the game) did lie to us in promising that we’d see KI on the Nintendo 64. Thankfully, a year later Killer Instinct Gold, a near carbon-copy of Killer Instinct 2, was released for the platform.

I tell you that because it won’t be on the list.

3.) Vectorman

SEGA’s answer to Donkey Kong Country on the SNES, Vectorman is without a doube the second most graphically impressive game to ever be on the Genesis – after all, Vectorman did have a sequel.

You play as Vectorman (duh), an orbot working to clean up Earth’s pollution in the year 2049. After your orbot boss Raster goes insane and is turned into the evil Warhead, it’s up to measly ol’ Vectorman to fight his way to and ultimately destroy Warhead and save the planet… so he can finish… cleaning… it? At least there was an environmentally friendly message.

Vectorman did have a sequel, Vectorman 2 that was released in 1996. In 2003, a new Vectorman game was announced but was quickly canceled due in no small part to a massive amount of negative fan feedback from taking the big V away from his roots, trying to turn a bright and colorful 2D action/platformer into a gritty, realistic 3D shooter.

Looking back and seeing just how well the ultra-gritty and realistic Bomberman: Act Zero was, perhaps it was for the best that the new Vectorman never saw the light of day.

2.) Twisted Metal

Not to take away from Scott Campbell, but David Jaffe is something of a twisted genius. The earliest example of this genius is with Twisted Metal on the PlayStation. If you never played a Twisted Metal game before (ALLISON!), let me sum up Twisted Metal for you:

It is the ultimate demolition derby. Even better than the PlayStation game of the same name. You take control of one of thirteen different vehicles and go to war with each other, using machine guns, rockets, and anything else that makes a big ol’ boom – and you’re doing this all for the entertainment of Calypso, the host of the tournament.

Twisted Metal is remembered for a variety of things, but what people will most remember from the game are the introduction of that killer clown, Sweet Tooth, and some truly awful live-action cutscenes.

What’s it tell you about the quality of the acting and visual effects when people remember cutscenes that never even appeared in the final product? …and does anyone else notice that Sweet Tooth looked a bit like The Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’? Awesome.

But even terrible, if unreleased, cutscenes can bump Twisted Metal into the top spot. Oh no, that title goes to another SNES classic…

1.) Chrono Trigger

In the past few years a debate has raged as to whether or not video games can be considered art, like music or film is. If that argument is ever rectified and video games do become a widely accepted art form, people will look back and say that Chrono Trigger is the earliest example of how video games can surpass being a simple game. Everything from the bright, colorful art style to the incredible story to a soundtrack that remains among the best ever composed for any entertainment medium, was head and shoulders above the rest. Even today, while the game has graphically been left behind, the writing and core gameplay can still stand toe-to-toe with the best being offered.

The game was also a huge hit in Japan, selling two million copies in just two months. Even today that would be impressive, but in 1995 it was absolutely unheard of for a game not packaged with a console to sell so quickly.

Chrono Trigger turned out to be Squaresoft’s biggest hit up to that point. That would all change a couple years later, with what would be widely considered one of the greatest games of all time. But, we’ll touch on that in ‘97.

Worst Game of 1995:
Slam City with Scottie Pippen

Like I said with Shaq Fu last year, there are certain video games that simply cannot be justified. Not only can Slam City with Scottie Pippen not be justified by anyone with any semblance of taste, it really has no excuse for even existing. At least Shaq Fu was trying to bank on the appeal of rapper actor basketball star Shaquille O’Neal. What the hell was SEGA trying to prove with licensing Scottie fucking Pippen, that some impressionable young kid thinks it’s perfectly okay to be number two? Kids looked up to Jordan, Bird, O’Neal, Johnson, and Barkley because they were pioneers of their sport. Kids wanted to be them. What, was Karl Malone unavailable or something?

Nevermind that the full-motion video was so grainy at points that you couldn’t tell what was going on. Nevermind that two of the “stars” of the game remind you of an Amazon Warrior and Kevin Garnett. Nevermind that Scottie Pippen has the charisma of a dying eel. The game was simply unplayable. The controls were unresponsive to the point of broken, the full-motion video actually worked AGAINST the basic mechanics of basketball that not even Pat Reilly Basketball could fuck up, and the “acting” was… yeah. You saw the video.

Amazon Warrior.

If you played Slam City with Scottie Pippen, I feel bad for you. If you bought Slam City with Scottie Pippen, I laugh at you. If you liked Slam City with Scottie Pippen… I fucking hate you.

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