My '95 Games

On 08/05/2015 at 03:37 AM by KnightDriver

Well, there were only three games I played that year: Warcraft II, Road Rash on PSone and Donkey Kong Country 2 on SNES. I mean, maybe I played them a year later, I don't actually remember, but these I played very close to their release dates.

Warcraft II I played on PC. I never played past level 10 in the game, but I would restart it over and over again. I figured out how to replace all the sounds in the game too, and had a lot of fun dropping sound bites into the game. I would put a victory song in the sound of an important building being destroyed so that it would play at the end of my battles. And all the Zug Zugs became Monty Python lines and such. Wild nerdy fun.

Road Rash on PSone was a blast. I must've played every last race on every last skill level. So much fun wacking a competitor off his/her bike with a chain right near the finish line. My friend Mark and I even recorded play-by-play commentary for each other's races. Too bad you couldn't play multiplayer. I also learned about Soundgarden through the soundtrack. Still can't get Road Rash out of my mind every time I hear their song Rusty Cage.

I played Donkey Kong Country 2 after playing the first one like crazy. DKC2 seemed really hard right from the start, and I didn't continue with it. I still haven't played DKC 3 yet. I'd like to remedy that.

There's a lot of games I missed from '95 of course. I have a list of 31 I'd like to play sometime, or play some more. Some I own like: Suikoden (played like an hour of it on PSN), Phantasy Star IV (played several hours on Xbox 360 in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection), Tales of Phantasia (played some of the GBA version), Comix Zone (played on SUGC), Star Wars: Dark Forces (on PSN a little bit), Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen (played a few hours of it on SNES, but now I have it on Wii Virtual Console), and board game Settlers of Catan (well, I have the Xbox Live verison. I want to play the board game sometime too).

All these games are great and all but I feel obliged to play Etrian Odyssey Untold 2 on 3DS because I just bought it. This weekend I might check out Marathon 2: Durandal on Xbox Live before I get back to Saint's Row: Gat Out of Hell. Ah, if there were only more time.

Super Step Contributing Writer

08/05/2015 at 04:13 AM

I remember playing Road Rash on N64. So fun.

DKC2 was fun and I think I also rented 3.

Never heard of Comix Zone til a Youtube video covered it.

Settlers of Cataan is apparently popular among GB Packers players.

KnightDriver

08/05/2015 at 04:28 PM

I'm not sure if I played the N64 version, but I probably did. I think Destruction Derby 64 overshadowed it. I played that one a ton.

08/05/2015 at 08:05 PM

Looking them up, they look VERY different.

PSX version is pixely, but has much more going on visually, whereas N64 has more polygonal models and is barren. I definitely remember N64 version more.

Cary Woodham

08/05/2015 at 07:24 AM

Donkey Kong Country 3 was one of the very first games I reviewed for The Dallas Morning News. I thought it was pretty cool that I got to review such a big time game right off the bat.

Don't forget about Yoshi's Island and Chrono Trigger!

08/05/2015 at 04:30 PM

What's the deal with Yoshi's Island? I saw there was a GBA version and that's the one on Virtual Console. Is that a good version, or is the original available somewhere other than the original SNES cart?

08/05/2015 at 07:24 PM

Well the SNES cart used a special chip for 3-D graphic effects and scaling and rotating sprites, so maybe the GBA one was easier to emulate?

08/06/2015 at 03:46 AM

i suppose. It is the same game though?

08/06/2015 at 07:07 AM

it is the same game, although strangely I prefer the original SNES version slightly more. The colors on the GBA look slightly washed out, and they replaced some of Yoshi's sound effects to make it more like Yoshi's current voice. It's silly, but I prefer Yoshi's 'bree-burp' SNES sound over his baby Yoshi voice he adopted after Yoshi's Story.

08/07/2015 at 01:03 AM

Ok, thanks.

goaztecs

08/05/2015 at 11:28 AM

Road Rash was such a cool game. My brother and I started playing it on the Sega Genesis. You know I always liked the 1Xtreme, 2Xteme games that were early PS1 games that I thought were similar to Road Rage but with X-Games sports.

08/05/2015 at 04:34 PM

Thos Xtreme games look cool! I'm adding them to my list.

Matt Snee Staff Writer

08/05/2015 at 12:13 PM

knocking some dude off his bike in Road Rash never gets old. Ah, life's simple pleasures!

08/05/2015 at 04:36 PM

I can't think of another game that really replicates that. I hear the Mad Max game coming in Sept for Xbox One being compared to Road Rash. I don't think I'll preorder it, but I'm going to keep tabs on it to see how it turns out.

08/05/2015 at 05:14 PM

yeah that shit was perfected and hasn't been replicated since.

Machocruz

08/06/2015 at 02:23 PM

Road Rash and Road Rash 2 on Genesis were my shit. It was as fun to just drive along as it was to do battle. Peaceful, meditative when you are way out in front and have nothing but road before you.

I'm still in the middle of DKC1 on emulator. I kept dying on the same jump in minecart level. I think it has to do with the 360 controller I am using.

08/07/2015 at 12:40 AM

I got into the series at the fourth game. I've played a little bit of each of the first three. I'd like to play them some more.

I got about 50% through DCK before it got too hard for me. It may have been in the wintry levels where all the platforms are icy.

SanAndreas

08/06/2015 at 11:02 PM

My 1995 was largely keeping up on games I missed from 1994, like Final Fantasy VI/III, Super Metroid, or Donkey Kong Country. Of new 1995 games I did play stuff like Judge Dredd and NBA Jam TE on SNES, as well as Mortal Kombat 3, Virtua Fighter 2, and Tekken 2 in the arcades. I didn't pick up Chrono Trigger until later.

08/07/2015 at 02:24 AM

I wasn't really conscious of game releases until later, maybe much later. I just kinda played what was around. Maybe with the Xbox I started getting into knowing what was out and what was coming out. Probably when I started reading magazines around that time - 2001 or so.

PixlBit