"In the year 2097, steel will bend and sparks will fly as you control a 90-foot robot in a futuristic fight of Epic proportions. OMF 2097 will rip your heart out with full screen, ultra fast fighting action."
http://www.epicgames.com/omf_story.htm
While all the other kids on the block had their Sega Genesises (Genesii?) running Mortal Kombat, you knew the score -- you knew you needed something more than some namby-pamby chick in spandex bitch-slapping some fat, four-armed goon. Oh, yes, you needed something much stronger,
Enter OMF and enter the arena as an inexperienced 98,000 pound weakling. Blades. Bolts. And Ball-Bearings of steel.
For me, OMF was the first 'fighting game' I ever got into... and the only one since. MK Just didn't do it for me, and then I downloaded the demo.. and I was hooked. I saved up my lawn-mowing money for weeks to get a Gravis Gamepad. I still have it, and I can still kick ass on that old game. Though now I have to turn the 'speed' setting down to almost 0 'cause my current 'puter is much faster than the old 386dx/40 I first played OMF on.
The goal of the game creators was to make a fighting game that a) did not have blood, and b) did not have 'death', 'blood' or 'kill' in the title. Hence the idea of 4-story tall robots was born. Kinda like an interactive robotech. It was a very technically astounding result, too, winning numerous awards.
The demo can still be downloaded from "http://www.epicgames.com/omf_dl.htm", though you need to be running in 'real DOS' mode -- no DirectX here, folx.
I sincerly hope they will give us an OMF 2098 one day. Maybe built like Tekken Tag Tournament?