Arcade Game of the Year – 2002

This year sucked. Oh sure, there’s a Metal Slug and a number of decent bullet hell titles, but it’s mostly music/rhythm stuff and not a whole lot of ingenuity. Where there IS ingenuity, it’s either pervy or just plain bizarre for the sake of being bizarre. I know some people are going to be annoyed I didn’t include a very specific title in my top 5, but I was never a huge fan of them, so whatever. There are only 58 games this year.

Arcade Game of the Year – 2001

There are only 78 titles this year, which sounds depressing until you realize that it more than makes up for the year 2000 being kind of a dud. Really, the toughest part about this year was finding a fifth. I already knew what my top 4 were going to be, so it was kind of a coin toss regarding the fifth entry. That might seem entirely random, but overall I’m pleased with how this turned out.

Arcade Game of the Year – 2000

There are 98 games this year. I’m not going to lie, this year simply was not so great. There were good games this year, but there was an overabundance of rhythm/music games that don’t matter that much and way too many clones. There simply wasn’t enough originality this year and even though I like the games in my top 5, I was honestly expecting for something better to blow them out of the water.

Arcade Game of the Year – 1999

Welcome to the end of the 90s! There are 117 games this year. After everything I’ve seen, I’d say the 80s and 90s are pretty evenly matched. I think the sweet spot had to be somewhere in the years between 1985 and 1995. I say that mostly because there are a lot of years where the top 5 are GREAT titles, but many runner ups are just okay. About the same could be said for this year.

Arcade Game of the Year – 1998

Only 92 games this year, but man was this a fun year. 4 out of 5 of my picks this year are games that I could literally play again and again and again. I would argue they are some of my all time favorite arcade games, period. Should be pretty obvious what they are as I go into it, but yeah. And actually, there were a fairly decent amount of cool runner ups this year, so it more than makes up for the whimper that was 1997.

Arcade Game of the Year – 1997

There are 105 games this year. Picking a top 5 wasn’t hard this year because it really wasn’t that great of a year. Sure, it was great for consoles (Final Fantasy 7 GYOHMAHGAHHHD), but it was just kinda ehh for the arcades. Still, there were a number of decent runner ups and I’m confident in my top 5 this year. This truly is the year of Capcom, by the way.

Arcade Game of the Year – 1996

This was a really tough year to select a top 5. There were almost 15 that I had that I REALLY wanted to be in the top 5 and pruning them down was especially tough. You’re going to see a lot more 3D as the years go on, which isn’t always a good thing as you’ll find out. All the same, these top 5 are ones you especially need to check out, although there are a lot of great runner ups this year. There are 115 games this year, so let’s do this!