1995 in video games
Highest-renting console titles according to Blockbuster Video
Table:
Title	Publisher	Genre ( s )	# of charting months	Peak position

Donkey Kong Country	Nintendo	Platform	8	# 1

NBA Jam : Tournament Edition	Acclaim Entertainment	Sports ( basketball )	6	# 1

Killer Instinct	Nintendo	Fighting	4	# 1

Justice League Task Force	Acclaim Entertainment	Fighting	4	# 2

Spider-Man	Acclaim Entertainment	Action	4	# 4

Judge Dredd	Acclaim Entertainment	Run and gun	3	# 1

Mortal Kombat 3	Williams Entertainment	Fighting	3	# 2

Kyle Petty 's No Fear Racing	Williams Entertainment	Racing	3	# 3

Kirby 's Avalanche	Nintendo	Puzzle	3	# 4

EarthBound	Nintendo	Role-playing	3	# 4

Leveraging the tabular data together with the supporting evidence below.

Provide an answer to this question: For how many months did the game developed by Rare chart ? Return your answer as JSON: {"answer": "YOUR ANSWER"}. Use only the information given.

Donkey Kong Country [ α ] is a 1994 platform game developed by Rare and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System , as part of the Donkey Kong franchise created by Shigeru Miyamoto . The game centers on the duo of Donkey Kong and his nephew Diddy Kong , who are on a quest to recover their stolen banana hoard from King K. Rool and his henchmen Kremlings . Development began shortly after Rare founders , brothers Tim and Chris Stamper , ran experiments with a Silicon Graphics ( SGI ) workstation to render 3D sprites . Nintendo became interested in Rare 's work and acquired 49% of the company , leading to the production of a game for the SNES using Alias and SGI technology . The Stamper brothers expressed interest in creating a standalone Donkey Kong game and assembled a team of 12 developers to work on the game over 18 months . Donkey Kong Country is the first Donkey Kong game that was not produced or directed by the franchise 's creator Shigeru Miyamoto , though he was involved with the project . Following an aggressive marketing campaign , Donkey Kong Country received critical acclaim and sold more than nine million copies worldwide , making it the third best-selling SNES game and has been cited as one of the greatest video games of all time . It was ported to the Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance consoles , and was made available for Nintendo 's Virtual Console . Donkey Kong Country is the first game in the Donkey Kong Country series and was followed by two sequels on the SNES : Donkey Kong Country 2 : Diddy 's Kong Quest in 1995 , and Donkey Kong Country 3 : Dixie Kong 's Double Trouble ! in 1996 . In 2017 , the game was released as a part of the Super NES Classic Edition .
Nintendo Co. , Ltd. [ a ] is a Japanese multinational consumer electronics and video game company headquartered in Kyoto . Nintendo is one of the world 's largest video game companies by market capitalization , creating some of the best-known and top-selling video game franchises of all-time , such as Mario , The Legend of Zelda , Animal Crossing , and Pokémon . Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced handmade hanafuda playing cards . By 1963 , the company had tried several small niche businesses , such as cab services and love hotels , without major success . Abandoning previous ventures in favor of toys in the 1960s , Nintendo developed into a video game company in the 1970s . Supplemented since the 1980s by its major divisions Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe , it ultimately became one of the most influential in the video game industry and one of Japan 's most-valuable companies with a market value of over $ 37 billion in 2018 .
Platform games , or platformers , are a video game genre and subgenre of action game . In a platformer , the player controlled character must jump and climb between suspended platforms while avoiding obstacles . Environments often feature uneven terrain of varying height that must be traversed . The player often has some control over the height and distance of jumps to avoid letting their character fall to their death or miss necessary jumps . The most common unifying element of games of this genre is the jump button , but now there are other alternatives like swiping a touchscreen . Other acrobatic maneuvers may factor into the gameplay as well , such as swinging from objects such as vines or grappling hooks , as in Ristar or Bionic Commando , or bouncing from springboards or trampolines , as in Alpha Waves . These mechanics , even in the context of other genres , are commonly called platforming , a verbification of platform . Games where jumping is automated completely , such as 3D games in The Legend of Zelda series , fall outside of the genre . Platform games originated in the early 1980s , which were often about climbing ladders as much as jumping , with 3D successors popularized in the mid-1990s . The term describes games where jumping on platforms is an integral part of the gameplay and came into use after the genre had been established , no later than 1983 . The genre is frequently combined with elements of other genres , such as the shooter elements in Contra , Beat 'em up elements of Viewtiful Joe , adventure elements of Flashback , or role-playing game elements of Castlevania : Symphony of the Night . While commonly associated with console gaming , there have been many important platform games released to video arcades , as well as for handheld game consoles and home computers .
NBA Jam is a basketball arcade game published and developed by Midway in 1993 . It is the first entry in the NBA Jam series . The project leader for this game was Mark Turmell . Midway had previously released such sports games as Arch Rivals in 1989 , High Impact in 1990 , and Super High Impact in 1991 . The gameplay of NBA Jam is based on Arch Rivals , another 2-on-2 basketball video game . However , it was the release of NBA Jam that brought mainstream success to the genre . The game became exceptionally popular , and generated a significant amount of money for arcades after its release , creating revenue of $ 1 billion in quarters . In early 1994 , the Amusement & Music Operators Association reported that NBA Jam had become the highest-earning arcade game of all time . The release of NBA Jam gave rise to a new genre of sports games which were based around fast , action-packed gameplay and exaggerated realism , a formula which Midway would also later apply to the sports of football ( NFL Blitz ) , hockey ( 2 on 2 Open Ice Challenge ) and baseball ( MLB Slugfest ) .
Acclaim Entertainment , Inc. was an American video game developer and publisher based in Glen Cove , New York . Originally formed by Greg Fischbach , Robert Holmes and Jim Scoroposki out of an Oyster Bay storefront in 1987 , the company established a worldwide development team through a series of acquisitions in the late 1990s and early 2000s . After poor financial returns in their 2003 fiscal year , Acclaim filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 2004 . Properties owned by Acclaim were subsequently auctioned off to various parties .
A sports game is a video game genre that simulates the practice of sports . Most sports have been recreated with a game , including team sports , track and field , extreme sports and combat sports . Some games emphasize actually playing the sport ( such as the Madden NFL series ) , whilst others emphasize strategy and sport management ( such as Championship Manager and Out of the Park Baseball ) . Some , such as Need for Speed , Arch Rivals and Punch-Out ! ! , satirize the sport for comic effect . This genre has been popular throughout the history of video games and is competitive , just like real-world sports . A number of game series feature the names and characteristics of real teams and players , and are updated annually to reflect real-world changes . Sports genre is one of the oldest genres in gaming history .
Killer Instinct is a fighting video game developed by Rare and published by Midway . It was released as an arcade game in the fall of 1994 and , the following year , ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System ( SNES ) and the Game Boy . The game 's plot involves an all-powerful corporation organizing a fighting tournament . The story was adapted in a limited comic book series published under the short-lived Acclaim Comics imprint . Despite a generic storyline , Killer Instinct featured more detailed graphics and more diverse characters than other games of its genre as well as some gameplay elements unique to fighting games of the time . Instead of fighting enemies in best-of-three rounds bouts , each player has two life bars . The player that depletes the other player 's life bars first wins the match . The game also introduced auto-doubles , a feature which allows players to press a certain sequence of buttons to make characters automatically perform combos on opponents . Also featured in the game are combo breakers , special defensive moves that can interrupt combos . Critically acclaimed , Killer Instinct was followed by a sequel , the 1996 arcade game Killer Instinct 2 , later ported to the Nintendo 64 as Killer Instinct Gold , as well as a 2013 revival of the franchise as a launch title for Xbox One . A port of the original game is included with the 2013 game under the title Killer Instinct Classic . Retrospective lists by various publications included it among the best fighting games of all time .
A fighting game is a video game genre based around close combat between a limited number of characters , in a stage in which the boundaries are fixed . The characters fight each others until they defeat their opponents or the time expires . The matches typically consist of several rounds , in an arena , with each player character having different abilities but each is relatively viable to choose . Players must master techniques such as blocking , counter-attacking , and chaining attacks together into combos . Starting in the early 1990s , most fighting games allowed the player to execute special attacks by performing specific input combinations . The fighting game genre is related to but distinct from beat 'em ups , which involve large numbers of enemies against the human player . The first game to feature fist fighting was Heavyweight Champ in 1976 , but it was Karate Champ which popularized one-on-one martial arts games in arcades in 1984 . The following year , Yie Ar Kung-Fu featured antagonists with differing fighting styles , while The Way of the Exploding Fist further popularized the genre on home systems . In 1987 , Street Fighter introduced hidden special attacks . In 1991 , Capcom 's highly successful Street Fighter II refined and popularized many of the conventions of the genre . The fighting game subsequently became the preeminent genre for competitive video gaming in the early to mid-1990s , particularly in arcades . This period spawned dozens of other popular fighting games , including franchises like Street Fighter , Super Smash Bros. , Tekken , and Virtua Fighter .
Justice League Task Force ( ジャスティス・リーグ ) is a competitive fighting game produced by Sunsoft and distributed by Acclaim for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Genesis in 1995 . The Super NES version was co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and the Genesis version by Condor , Inc. ( later known as Blizzard North ) . It involves characters from DC Comics ' Justice League , including Superman , Batman , Wonder Woman , Green Arrow , The Flash , and Aquaman . Additional Justice League members Martian Manhunter and Fire , as well as the supervillain Shrapnel , were also planned to appear , but had to be omitted due to memory limitations .
Spider-Man is a side-scrolling action game developed by Western Technologies and published by Acclaim and LJN in 1995 , based on the 1990s Spider-Man animated series . The game was released for the Genesis and the Super NES . The two versions of the game have the same basic story but have gameplay , level , and enemy differences .
An action game is a video game genre that emphasizes physical challenges , including hand-eye coordination and reaction-time . The genre includes a large variety of sub-genres , such as fighting games , beat 'em ups , shooter games and platform games . Multiplayer online battle arena and some real-time strategy games are also considered action games . In an action game , the player typically controls a character often in the form of a protagonist or avatar . This player character must navigate a level , collecting objects , avoiding obstacles , and battling enemies with their natural skills as well as weapons and other tools at their disposal . At the end of a level or group of levels , the player must often defeat a boss enemy that is more challenging and often a major antagonist in the game 's story . Enemy attacks and obstacles deplete the player character 's health and lives , and the player receives a game over when they run out of lives . Alternatively , the player gets to the end of the game by finishing a sequence of levels to complete a final goal , and see the credits . But some action games , such as early arcade games , are unbeatable and have an indefinite number of levels ; with the player 's only goal being to get as far as they can to maximize their score .
Judge Dredd is an action video game for the Super NES , Sega Genesis/Mega Drive , Game Gear and Game Boy originally released in 1995 . The game is loosely based on the 1995 film Judge Dredd , which was a spin off from the Judge Dredd strip from 2000AD .
Shoot 'em up ( also known as shmup or STG ) is a subgenre of video games within the shooter subgenre in the action genre . There is no consensus as to which design elements compose a shoot 'em up . Some restrict the definition to games featuring spacecraft and certain types of character movement ; others allow a broader definition including characters on foot and a variety of perspectives . The genre 's roots can be traced back to Spacewar ! , one of the earliest computer games , developed in 1962 . The shoot 'em up genre was later established by the hit arcade game Space Invaders , which popularised and set the general template for the genre in 1978 , and the genre was then further developed by arcade hits such as Asteroids and Galaxian in 1979 . Shoot 'em ups were popular throughout the 1980s and early 1990s . In the mid-1990s , shoot 'em ups became a niche genre based on design conventions established in the 1980s , and increasingly catered to specialist enthusiasts , particularly in Japan . Bullet hell games are a subgenre that features overwhelming numbers of enemy projectiles , often in visually impressive formations .
Mortal Kombat 3 is a fighting video game developed by Midway / Atari Games and first released into arcades in 1995 as the third game in the Mortal Kombat series . As in the previous games , it has a cast of characters that players choose from and guide through a series of battles against other opponents . The game avoids the tournament storyline of its predecessors , as various warriors instead fight against the returning Shao Kahn , who has resurrected his bride Sindel and started an invasion of Earthrealm . The third installment of the Mortal Kombat series retains the notorious extreme depictions of violence that defined the series . It also introduces new types of the finishing moves , including Animalities . Other features new to the series were combos , predefined sequences used to perform a series of consecutive attacks . A Run button was also added , allowing players to briefly dash toward the opponent , as were Kombat Kodes , an unlockable content system using various symbols that can be entered before two-player matches to achieve certain effects . Some characters from the previous games returned and new characters were introduced into the series . Mortal Kombat 3 notably omitted popular characters from previous games , some of whom were added in an update , Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 , released later in 1995 . The PC and home console-exclusive Mortal Kombat Trilogy ( 1996 ) added even more characters , as well as other new features .
WMS Industries , Inc. is an American electronic gaming and amusement manufacturer in Enterprise , Nevada . WMS traces its roots to 1943 , to the Williams Manufacturing Company , founded by Harry E. Williams . However , the company that became WMS Industries was formally founded in 1974 as Williams Electronics , Inc. Williams initially was a manufacturer of pinball machines . In 1964 , Williams was acquired by jukebox manufacturer Seeburg Corp. and reorganized as Williams Electronics Manufacturing Division . In 1973 , the company branched out into the coin-operated arcade video game market with its Pong clone Paddle Ball , eventually creating a number of video game classics , including Defender and Robotron : 2084 . In 1974 , Williams Electronics , Inc. was incorporated as a wholly owned subsidiary of Seeburg . Williams Electronics was sold as an independent company during the bankruptcy of Seeburg in 1980 . In 1987 , Williams changed its parent name to WMS Industries , Inc. when it made its public offering . WMS is a shortening of Williams , which it also selected for its NYSE ticker symbol . In 1988 , it acquired competitor Bally/Midway , which it spun off in 1998 , together with its video game business . WMS entered the reel-spinning slot machine market in 1994 . It closed its pinball division in 1999 .
Kyle Petty 's No Fear Racing is a stock car racing video game for the Super NES that was released in 1995 .
The racing video game genre is the genre of video games , either in the first-person or third-person perspective , in which the player partakes in a racing competition with any type of land , water , air or space vehicles . They may be based on anything from real-world racing leagues to entirely fantastical settings . In general , they can be distributed along a spectrum anywhere between hardcore simulations , and simpler arcade racing games . Racing games may also fall under the category of sports games .
Kirby 's Avalanche , known in Europe as Kirby 's Ghost Trap , is a puzzle video game co-developed by HAL Laboratory , Compile and Banpresto . It was released by Nintendo on February 1 , 1995 , in Europe and on April 25 , 1995 , in North America for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . It is the Western release of Japanese Super Puyo Puyo . There was not a Japanese release , and the game remains the only Kirby title not released there .
Puzzle video games make up a broad genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving . The types of puzzles can test many problem-solving skills including logic , pattern recognition , sequence solving , spatial recognition , and word completion .
EarthBound ( known as Mother 2 in Japan ) [ nb 1 ] is a role-playing video game developed by Ape Inc. and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . The second entry in the Mother series , it was first released in Japan in August 1994 , and in North America in June 1995 . As Ness and his party of four , the player travels the world to collect melodies from eight Sanctuaries in order to defeat the evil alien force Giygas . EarthBound had a lengthy development period that spanned five years . Its returning staff from Mother ( 1989 ) included writer/director Shigesato Itoi and lead programmer Satoru Iwata , as well as composers Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka , who incorporated a diverse range of styles into the soundtrack , including salsa , reggae , and dub . Most of the other staff members had not worked on the original Mother , and the game came under repeated threats of cancellation until Iwata joined the team . Originally scheduled for release in January 1993 , the game was completed around May 1994 . Themed around an idiosyncratic portrayal of Americana and Western culture , EarthBound subverted popular role-playing game traditions by featuring a real world setting while parodying numerous staples of the genre . Itoi wanted the game to reach non-gamers with its intentionally goofy tone ; for example , the player uses items such as the Pencil Eraser to remove pencil statues , experiences in-game hallucinations , and battles piles of vomit , taxi cabs , and walking nooses . For its American release , the game was marketed with a $ 2 million promotional campaign that sardonically proclaimed this game stinks . Additionally , the game 's puns and humor were reworked by localizer Marcus Lindblom , and the title was changed from Mother 2 to avoid confusion about what it was a sequel to . Initial reviewers had little praise for EarthBound in the United States , where it sold half as many copies as in Japan .
A role-playing video game ( commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or an RPG as well as a computer role-playing game or a CRPG ) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character ( and/or several party members ) immersed in some well-defined world . Many role-playing video games have origins in tabletop role-playing games ( including Dungeons & Dragons ) and use much of the same terminology , settings and game mechanics . Other major similarities with pen-and-paper games include developed story-telling and narrative elements , player character development , complexity , as well as replay value and immersion . The electronic medium removes the necessity for a gamemaster and increases combat resolution speed . RPGs have evolved from simple text-based console-window games into visually rich 3D experiences .