Games you love but nobody you know has heard of them.

[Weresquirrel]

While love is perhaps too strong a word, I have a special place in my heart for Advent Rising. It had a fairly interesting story going for it, and the super powers were great fun once you unlocked them. Problem was, the game was buggy as hell, and even though the super powers were undoubtadly the best part of the game, it took waaaaay too long to get access to them. Finally, it was evidently the first part of a trilogy that never got past the first episode, so it left on a cliff hanger and probably will never see any form of closure.

 

[shadowsandwich]

Teleglitch DME is probably the only game i have that nobody i have met on the internet has heard of.
You can still totally buy it now (On steam) and i beat it yesterday.
It's a perfect example of how to make an otherwise bland top down shooter, a thrilling and immersive experience just by adding permadeath and limited ammo.
The game doesn't even have any music, just the gentle hum of various computer terminals, the odd wet sound of the inky black teleglitch and the horryfying moans and screams of the twisted, once human monsters you will be fighting.
The first 3 levels are by far the worst, but once the game starts adding armoured enemies and extra weapons, you will quickly find yourself hooked on this game.

 

[Winji]

Silver
It was an Action RPG for PC where you moved your mouse in different ways to attack.
I LOVED it when I was a kid, but everytime I bring it up everyone is just "What's that?"
I know it's not as unknown as some of the games here, but to my friends it is =P

 

[thibaut95]

Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy. LOVE this game and its criminally underrated. If anyone here is reading this then please play it. If you like Zelda with an Egyptian style coating then get this. It is NOT a rip off though and feels like its own thing. Its just inspired by Zelda. Highly Highly recommended. I seriously don't understand why this game didn't get more traction. Its very well made, controls are great, puzzles are cool and the anicent egyptian setting is amazing.

Its for the PS2, Gamecube and Xbox.

i love you!!...in a not creepy way. But yeah sphinx was awesome, my only complaintis that there was no voice acting. still one of my favourite 6th generation games

 

[DeimosMasque]

Star Control 2

Basically an Adventure Game where you take a flagship and try to free the human race and other members of the Alliance of Free Stars from the Deadly UrQuan. Explore the galaxy, find artifacts of the ancient lost race, the Precursors, and make allies and enemies as you try to do the impossible.

What better is that years ago a group of people worked on porting over the 3D0 version of the game that had better graphics and full voice acting. It can be found here: http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

 

[IPunchWithMyFists]

Gun grave - a game where you play as a dead man taking revenge on the mafia style organisation who's bass (also his former best friend) killed the main protagonist.

Why its great - the easiest way is to say just this sentence about it. "you can hit Rockets back at the enemy that shot it using the armoured coffin chained to your characters back."



Big sky Trooper (SNES) - A lucas arts game from when they were good which was essentially legend of Zelda in space with more comedy aspects.

Why I love it -
Your spaceship AI computer is a talking dog
The AI falls in love with essentially a space vacuum cleaner
All throughout the game the main boss gradually gets more and more technologically advanced until the last battle which turns it on its head.
The humour works on multiple levels
It's a fairly open world space adventure game (as in you unlock more and more of the universe as you progress but get quite a bit of freedom)
The ultimate weapon in the game is to drop a McDonalds restaurant onto the planet, the game even justifies why this works as follows. Space slugs hate two things advertising and salt. Putting so much salt on their fries and advertising so much a fast food restaurant is perfect to scare off the slugs.

Couldn't get into Gungrave. Weird pacing.

 

[ThreeName]

Jet Force Gemini for the N64.

I bought this a few days ago.

OP: Road Rash 64 and Vigilante 8 and Vigilante 8: Second Offense. Both vehicular combat games, but Road Rash was a motorcycle race where you could bludgeon opponents either side of you with a steel bar while Vigilante 8 was more of a Twisted Metal style game where you drive around a big arena with fifty tonnes of heavy ordnance strapped to your car blowing each other to kingdom come.

Both were so much fun when I was a lad, don't know what they'd be like now. Road Rash goes for a hefty price on eBay though, so I'm not inclined to find out.

 

[JettMaverick]

I'm not sure about back then, but nowadays yes. I was recently trying to discuss Dragon related games, and brought up Drakan Order Of The Flame.

Not 1 penny dropped with anyone. Shame, I loved that game.

Also, Cybernator on the SNES.

 

[shteev]

Magic: The Gathering by Microprose

I grew up thinking the name of the game was Shandalar. This has been my favorite video game of all time that involves cards. It mixes Magic with rpg elements and unique rules. It's almost perfect in story and progression execution and I'd love to see the game re-done in current day. Especially if they could polish the actual 'combat' so it was as fluid and satisfying as Hearthstone.

Most other games I owned and loved were probably known by my friends. Some of the more obscure ones (if you could call it that) were Ikaruga, Gladius, some western sherif game on commodore 64 that used Mass Effect style dialogue storytelling via conversation trees. I don't remember the name but it was awesome for it's day.

Would that be Law Of The West? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrMk9RyCWKI

The N64 is getting some love in here so I'll have to go with Blast Corps, which involved knocking down buildings with heavy machinery. And robots.

I loves Shandalar too, btw, I played it from beginning to end more times than I'd care to mention.

 

[kickyourass]

Not a video game but still a game, Iron Claw, I have met literally nobody who has heard of this game. It has a rather fun system, giving you a pool of dice for checks rather than one, and your success is measured by how many dice roll the required number with the win going to who ever has more successes if you're rolling against someone else. And the setting is pretty nice to, going for decidedly Renaissance-era rather than a Dark Ages Mish-Mash that most fantasy games have. It's been out for around a decade and they JUST brought out a new edition so someone HAS to be playing it, but I have found literally none of them.

I even went onto a forum specifically built for playing Pen and Paper Tabletop games and even THERE no one knew what the hell I was talking about with this game.

 

[Bad Jim]

Does anyone remember the Spy Vs. Spy game on the original xbox?

Dude, I remember Spy Vs Spy on the Commodore 64!


That was also a blast to play multiplayer, though it only supported two players. It was always funny when your friend blundered into a trap you set, especially since you could see each others' screens all the time but still got killed.

 

[Vykrel]

Ancients of Ooga. everything about it looks and feels like a classic N64 game, despite the fact that it came out in 2010. its like a nostalgia trip.

 

[Dumoras]

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge

 

[Hambers]

Probably Starfighter 3000. I don't know of any game before it that did voxel based destruction; you could flatten the whole planet.

Wow, there's a game I haven't thought about in a decade or so. Ridiculously thick manual, really bland box which was enough to convince child me I should own it, 30 training missions before getting to the actual missions. I'll be honest after going through that manual over two days and failing that first mission a couple times I just quit it forever. I hardly ever completed a PS1 game, mind.

Game I love no one has heard of,lets see... I've got love for Io's Freedom Fighters whilst not knowing a single person who is aware of it but that isn't really an unknown gem.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Colonial Conquest II on the Amiga. Basically a Civilisation knock-off, but surprisingly deep and massive in scope. Roaming around the galaxy with 500-odd Battlestars trying to pin down an alien mothership (or your mate, as multiplayer dictates) was always hilarious.

Totally free. Given away on a magazine coverdisk at some point, I think, and written in the almost never used AMOS.

 

[Elfgore]

My Girlfriend is the President. It is a VN that takes place in the "fictional" country of Nippon. An alien crash lands and kills the prime minister of Nippon. In an attempt to make things right she makes Nippon's government that of America and makes your childhood friend the president. Throughout the story you meet three other girls: The president of Rusia, another childhood friend, and a spaceship (you read that right).

The game is really goofy and rarely takes itself seriously, but it does have some deep moments hidden some routes.

That game is decent and cute, but the Putin route sorta got a bit bad 3/4th into the story

Spoiler

It kinda felt the guy was just taking advantage of her during sex and she just started to become pretty submissive

My hard drive broke before I could finish her route, but I did get to the bondage scene. I was about to punch something in anger when I read it. They took the most powerful female character in that game and turned her into a cock-hungry whore who lusted after the male protagonist. Really ruined her as a character.

 

[the_great_cessation]

I almost always mention Otogi: Myth of Demons in these sort of threads, so...there you have it.

Oh, and Shadow of the Rome on the PS2. It's worth playing based on premise alone.

 

[Reyold]

Valkyria Chronicles, for it's mix of XCOM style tactics with military strategy along with anime-esque style.

I loved Valkyria Chronicles! one of my best experiences I had before I sold my PS3. Thinking back, I think I found Valkyria Chronicle's game mechanics to be somewhat better than XCOM's although that's probably I found it more to my liking than most Turn Based Strategy games I've played over the years.

Three's a company. Valkyria Chronicles is friggin' fantastic. It definitely needs more love.

Grandia and Grandia 2

Haven't played the second one, but the first one? Oh YES. Loved that game. I got to the very end, but I couldn't beat the final boss. So then I got on Youtube and spoiled the ending for myself (which I certainly regret).

But on my next play through, I'm definitely beating it.

Anyway, some other games I feel need more love:

Drill Dozer - a fun little puzzle-platformer for the GBA that involves drilling your way through enemies and obstacles

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter - a DS game that is the spiritual successor to Tail Concerto. It's fairly easy, but the gameplay's good and the story and world are well-made.

Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime - a Dragon Quest spinoff game in which you play as the iconic slime. Oh, and you pilot four-story tall tanks that can launch scythes, meteorites, and ghostly bombs. It's awesome. Also for the DS

Strider 2 a Playstation game that's fueled by awesome. If you ever wanted to really feel like a ninja, this is the game for you.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I love the shareware games from MegaEpic, but I suspect everybody knows how good Jazz jackrabbit is. Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is the best 4X game ever, and is did not sell well.