Game Scoop's Game of the Year '90s Edition
As some of you may know, IGN was founded in 1996 and we began handing out our Game of the Year awards in 2001, leaving years of top games uncrowned. We decided to remedy this as part of ’90s Week, and this week’s Game Scoop decided to go year-by-year through the decade to crown a Game of the Year for each year, starting with 1990.
Since IGN wasn’t around at the beginning of the 1990s, we had to be a bit freeform with the science behind our judgment. Some games were awarded based on their historical importance, while others were simply our favorite games to come out that year. Some games, as you’ll see later on, qualified because of both. And while Game Scoop won’t pretend to speak for the entire IGN team, here are our picks for GOTY 90s edition.
The year saw the beginnings of one of the most beloved and important RPG franchises of all time, but also one of the crowning achievements of the narrative-based, point-and-click genre. As such, we gave our Game of the Year in 1990 to both the first Final Fantasy and LucasArts’ Secret of Monkey Island.
Was there ever any doubt that Game of the Year 1991 would go to one of the best Mario games of all time, one of the best SNES games of all time, and maybe even one of the best games of all time? Super Mario World was the home console game of 1991 and remains a joy to play decades later. That said, we did have a hard time choosing it over other iconic games such as Sonic the Hedghehog and more importantly Street Fighter 2, which would change the fighting game genre forever.
A seminal moment for 2D Zelda games, Link to the Past beat out games like Mortal Kombat and Wolfenstein 3D for the timeless qualities that define all the best Zelda games. You’ll find our early 90s picks to be
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