Alright, I'll be real with you. I'm only using Space Wars as an excuse to talk about Space War(!). My personal Game of the Year winners list starts with 1970, because I want to start it with a nice round decade-starter and because the 60's do not have enough games. I consider there to be exactly one victim of this decision, and that's Space War. Not only is it arguably the most important video game in history by default, it is, in all seriousness, a damned good first showing.
Space War was so good, right out of the gate, that it pretty much inspired an entire form of media, or at the very least, the action game mega-genre and the whole concept of a multiplayer video game. I don't just want to talk about Space War because it's historically important, I want to talk about Space War because it's ACTUALLY GOOD, and it deserves to be represented on this big, stupid list of mine, somewhere, somehow.
So, I'm hitching a ride on Space WarS, the fourth version of a game that was complete over a decade earlier. 1977 sucked. The leading competition for this spot by most standards is Zork, a game that I consider to be worse than Colossal Cave Adventure, its direct predecessor. The previous game I had in this spot was Heli-Shooter, one of Sega's crazy electro-mechanical contraptions which one could argue is "not a video game", is not something I have actually played, and isn't ACTUALLY that fun, just one example of a general genre of thing that was kind of impressive and already represented on the list elsewhere. The original version of Space War(!) is out of bounds, as explained. The next two are a prototype from 1971 that never "came out", and Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space. I already refused to give Bushnell any credit for stealing Pong, so I'm certainly not going to do that here, and I'm not about to let that other prototype beat out the original version of Oregon Trail for '71. After that comes OrbitWar, the networked PLATO computer replacement for the original which I can't imagine possibly ran well, in a year whose spot I'm also happy with.
So here we are, letting a very late, faithful remake of Space War(!) win 1977, a year where the competition sucks. Good job I guess, Space Wars!
EDIT: Oops! Turns out Oubliette (PLATO, 1977) is really, really cool, so now I have to actually talk about Space Wars as a separate entity from Space War! Space Wars takes Space War and cranks the speed up. This is both a blessing and somewhat of a curse. On the Vectrex version, with a much smaller play area and a completely ruthless AI opponent, the game is simply way, way too fast. All game modes tone down the central star so that it doesn't dominate every second of every battle in such a suffocating way, but on Game 9, The Only Correct Choice, it is still a threat and it has influence over the fight, making it an accommodator of trick shots and fancy flying. Space Wars also allows for each ship to take a few hits before the battle is lost, a change that allows for comebacks. Space Wars is, honestly, so frustratingly close to being incredible. If the arcade version had a single player option with decent AI and the star were just a little stronger and the ammo was unlimited and the shots were just a little bigger, we'd have a happy medium that I would boot up on a whim even today. Alas, we do not, and so Space War!'s potential continues unfulfilled.
And OOPS! Turns out Zork is a lot cooler than I was giving it credit for too.
Space War was so good, right out of the gate, that it pretty much inspired an entire form of media, or at the very least, the action game mega-genre and the whole concept of a multiplayer video game. I don't just want to talk about Space War because it's historically important, I want to talk about Space War because it's ACTUALLY GOOD, and it deserves to be represented on this big, stupid list of mine, somewhere, somehow.
So, I'm hitching a ride on Space WarS, the fourth version of a game that was complete over a decade earlier. 1977 sucked. The leading competition for this spot by most standards is Zork, a game that I consider to be worse than Colossal Cave Adventure, its direct predecessor. The previous game I had in this spot was Heli-Shooter, one of Sega's crazy electro-mechanical contraptions which one could argue is "not a video game", is not something I have actually played, and isn't ACTUALLY that fun, just one example of a general genre of thing that was kind of impressive and already represented on the list elsewhere. The original version of Space War(!) is out of bounds, as explained. The next two are a prototype from 1971 that never "came out", and Nolan Bushnell's Computer Space. I already refused to give Bushnell any credit for stealing Pong, so I'm certainly not going to do that here, and I'm not about to let that other prototype beat out the original version of Oregon Trail for '71. After that comes OrbitWar, the networked PLATO computer replacement for the original which I can't imagine possibly ran well, in a year whose spot I'm also happy with.
So here we are, letting a very late, faithful remake of Space War(!) win 1977, a year where the competition sucks. Good job I guess, Space Wars!
EDIT: Oops! Turns out Oubliette (PLATO, 1977) is really, really cool, so now I have to actually talk about Space Wars as a separate entity from Space War! Space Wars takes Space War and cranks the speed up. This is both a blessing and somewhat of a curse. On the Vectrex version, with a much smaller play area and a completely ruthless AI opponent, the game is simply way, way too fast. All game modes tone down the central star so that it doesn't dominate every second of every battle in such a suffocating way, but on Game 9, The Only Correct Choice, it is still a threat and it has influence over the fight, making it an accommodator of trick shots and fancy flying. Space Wars also allows for each ship to take a few hits before the battle is lost, a change that allows for comebacks. Space Wars is, honestly, so frustratingly close to being incredible. If the arcade version had a single player option with decent AI and the star were just a little stronger and the ammo was unlimited and the shots were just a little bigger, we'd have a happy medium that I would boot up on a whim even today. Alas, we do not, and so Space War!'s potential continues unfulfilled.
And OOPS! Turns out Zork is a lot cooler than I was giving it credit for too.