Name and describe obscure games that you want people to play.

[Was Du Feelyat]

Blade Runner, 1997 by Westwood Studios.

Oooh yeah. That was nice. I will say, however, the branching wasn't as detailed as the branching in Deus Ex or DX2, but DX2 was un-fun. It was where fun went to die.

Someone mentioned Tron 2.0 - it had its fun parts, yeah, and it was gorgeous! But not as good as some other Monolith games.

So I'll ante up No One Lives Forever and NOLF2. The characterization, the ambience, the gadgets, the straight up spy-movie feel, just make these two some of the most fun games I've played in 25+ years of gaming.

If someone feels NOLF1/2 aren't obscure enough, how about the end-of-system-life Sega Genesis cart "Generations Lost"? Graphics are good, not great, but good, like X-Men 2 was. The controls are sort of Bionic Commando-y, but the storyline is just... neat. The secret's easy to figure out quickly, but the idea of the culture of the people in the game is just well done.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Phantom Dust (Original Xbox).

I had so much fun with that game, an nobody has ever heard of it/played it. The time between combat is a tad annoyingly slow, but the combat is awesome. Sweet game.

I really got into this game for a while; but my copy randomly crashed which ended up killing the fun for me.

Vagrant Story for the Playstation. I love that game, and nobody seems to know what it is. I couldn't put it down. Love the graphics, the battle system and the story.

The funny thing is I love Vagrant Story, but I dislike Final Fantasy. I almost finished it but it got to a stage where the enemies could cast a spell and one-hit-kill me. That and the respawning enemies frustrated me so much.

Hmmmmm...

Vigilante 2nd Offensive on the Dreamcast ... no? It was great. Car based deathmatchs, destructible environments, co-op mission, rpg-elements (leveled stats for each car). It was massively buggy at time but a total riot.

That game was surprisingly good. As you said, it was an absolute riot.

 

[CIA]

Hover? I don't know if it counts but it's awesome. Its capture the flag with hovercraft, pretty easy to understand.

If you want to check it out I think its free.
http://www.stanford.edu/~cammat/HOVER/index.html

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

Gothic 3, Syberia 2, Vampire the masquerade (both), Call of Cthulu: Dark corners of the Earth, Outcast, The Longest Journey (both)... Lots. Slightly obscure or forgotten games that are awesome to play but are almost overlooked since hype doesn't cover them as often as some companies with more money =/. Are we really buying games these days or the marketing? Games should really be les like pick-n-mix and more like a rating system so you pay for how much you enjoyed the game.

 

[waffletaco]

The PC version of Novastorm. It's one of those cinematic shooters. I loved that when I was 6.

I agree on bloodlines. It's a really sweet game with wonderful characters.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Jagged Alliance 2 version 1.13 mods (PC) You assemble a bunch of mercenaries and try to shoot your way to victory in a war against a S.American island ruled by a dictator. If you've played any JA games before but haven't heard of 1.13, then re-install and head over to Bearspit and download it along with whatever mod you like, and replay it.... It's like a completely new game, a much better game.

You do know about the flowers, don't you?

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

Call of Cthulu: Dark corners of the Earth

Awww yeah! That game had me by the throat for most of it. It was slightly buggy but totally unforgetable.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I once picked up a game for the DS on a whim, since it was only $10.
It was called Scourge: Hive and was like an isometric Metroid. Really fun and on the GBA and DS at the same time, but still looks good, too.

 

[Good morning blues]

A WWII game? Standing out because it focuses on realism and historical accuracy? I am so sorry, but unless it opens a time vortex in your living room to pull you onto the front lines I am left shaking my head, I mean it is a WWII FPS after all, how much different can it be from the eight billion other WWII FPS out there? Maybe a WWI FPS.

I know that a couple of other people have already noted this, but they didn't emphasize it well enough. Red Orchestra is completely unlike any other RPG you may have played. It is slow paced, brutal, and incredibly tense. You really do need to give it a shot, it's definitely my favorite multiplayer game.

As for obscure video games, I reccommend Anachronox. Not very many people played it, and I think it was pretty charming. You play as a private detective in the far-flung future, who lives on an abandoned alien transport hub called Anachronox. As a private eye, you are of course down-and-out until you manage to find a job guarding a museum curator as he's trying to retrieve alien artefacts, and gradually get sucked into a battle for the future of the entire universe. Theoretically, it's a Western take on the Eastern-style menu-based RPGs, but in practice it plays more like an adventure game with the occasional combat minigame. A lot of people complained because it was buggy, but there are patches both official and unofficial that pretty much clear that up. If you can get your hands on it, I reccommend giving it a try.

 

[Earthbound]

Here's one that no one's said: Dwarf Fortress. I don't care how many games you've played, how many genres you've mastered, or how many achievements you have unlocked; this game will leave you feeling completely overwhelmed by the sheer vastness and scale that it gives you, as such the learning curve is like a brick wall, or at least a very jagged mountain. If you can get past the graphics and interface, you will find a shining gem buried underneath. Just try it out.

Also, it's free.

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/features.html

 

[thenoblepenguin]

Okay, these are four games that were released for the Genesis, but I haven't found them on either the Wii Shop Channel or the XBox Live Arcade. They are:

Dinosaurs for Hire: As the title suggests, in this game, you played as one of three bipedal, gun-toting, hawaiian-shirt-wearing dinosaurs. I'm not kidding. This game was so awesome. The three playable characters, if I remember correctly, were a T-rex, a stegosaurus, and a triceratops. In one level, you were tasked with fighting this giant, blue mutant as it climbs up the Hoover Dam. Sadly, I never got the chance to beat this game.

Dynamite Headdy: This game casted you as a puppet that used its head as a projectile weapon against throngs of bad guys. I know it sounds kind of weird, but trust me when I tell you that this game had some truly great moments of platforming. The level I remember best was one where you climbed up a circular tower, similar to one you might see jutting from the top of a castle, except the stairs were on the outside of the tower for some reason. It just felt so cool at the time I played it. I also never got a chance to beat this one.

Acro-Bat 1 and 2: This short series of platformers on the Genesis focused on gliding and flipping rather than simply jumping. I don't remember it very well, though. I remember that the main antagonist was some evil robot clown. If nothing else, this game got one thing right: clowns are downright nightmarish. You know, I never beat these games, either.

Someone out there needs to re-release these games so people like me can finally see them to their conclusions.

 

[Syphonz]

Red Orchestra also has Bayonets. I don't know about anyone else, but no other WWII shooter has ever given me the satisfaction of stabbing a Nazi in the eye for the glory of the Motherland.

Also, damage to certain parts of your body will effect you. examples:

Shot in the leg, you run a snail slow pace as if you're limping.
Shot in the hands or arms, you drop whatever weapon you're holding (which really sucks if you're cooking a grenade lol)

Bolt action rifles work differently, you shoot..press shoot again to 'work the bolt' and get the next shot ready

mounting your weapon is the only way to keep a steady aim, or even in some cases only way to fire teh gun!

Binoculars actually play a useful role, as they are needed to quartinate artillery.

those and a bunch of other things make Red Orchestra a really amazing experience that sadly goes for the most part unnoticed.

 

[jsouth88]

Anything by Team Ico (Ico, Shadow of the Colussus)

 

[EzraPound]

- Space Station Silicon Valley - N64 - It was developed by DMA Design - who later worked on GTA III - and similarly features a game mechanic whereby you control host vehicles (though in this case, they're automated animals living on a deserted space station). Overlooked when it came out, I would nonetheless say it's probably the fourth best 3D adventure-platformer on the N64, which is no small accolade on a console that featured the likes of Mario, Zelda, and Conker (as a side note: VC please?).

- True Love - A hentai game, admittedly, but also the best of the best of hentai games: its central gameplay premise - that you can select your daily agenda, thusly improving certain skills - makes it closer to an RPG in nature, and the game's somber tone suggests greater inflection than its click-sex-click peers. Would've been an acclaimed title on the SNES, with or without the cartoon nudity (you can download it for free via google, by the way).

- Shenmue I + II - Not so obscure, but still unutterably brilliant: with the Shenmue series, Yu Suzuki managed to reinvent adventure games as we understand them by challenging conventional norms of subtlety and pacing. In twenty years time, these games will be heralded as significant. In the meantime, go play them.

- Blackthorne - This was an early platformer developed by Blizzard, and was alot of fun -'fun' being the best word to describe it because it didn't do anything to advance the industry, but still packed a mean punch.

By the way, speaking of hentai games... did anyone play that Zelda-like one from the '80s that featured pixelated graphics and surprisingly good gameplay? I must've dug it up years ago, but was surprised that it was about as good as FF and the like, and released at the same time.

 

[Slight]

IK+ - Purely for the chop-socky, B-movie style sound effects and, god bless you, the 'Trousers' key. It was the budget gem in my Amiga collection.

Man, I would kill for a 'trousers' key in a modern classic. TF2, CoD4 I'm looking at you..

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure

I got this for my PSP and the art style is simply adorable, and the gameplay is deeper than it should be. You play as a 10 year old girl who moves to a town with no children and becomes friends with the local monsters until they are kidnapped. And then you get to go through basic platforming while killing stuff with a drill being used as a sword.

 

[raemiel]

The Starship Troopers FPS!!!

People should play this game not because it is good but because it is an amazing example of a crappy game. The game is set in the universe of the two live-action films and uses clips from them as FMVs between missions but they're re-cut to tell the game's different story. However the game re-creates pretty much all the major skirmishes of the movies. Thus your mission which is pretty much identical to the battle of Klendathu or the Whiskey Outpost seige is not actually those battles. Instead they are on different planets and contexts, but the exact same thing happens.

The best example of this is the recreation of the Whisky Outpost battle. The outpost is layed out in the exact same manner as it is in the first film and the battle follows the exact same recipe - even coming down to a tanker bug crashing through the walls just before your evacuation boat arrives.

The actual gameplay is terrible in all respects. Although the one good part is you can see what the developers wanted to do. They created the SWARM engine which allows over 300 bugs on screen at any time and this literally happens, the problem is that the developers' eyes were much larger then their ability and it just leads to massive glitches and frame-rate drops.

Sorry about the lengthy post but this game really made me appreciate good design in games and hence I think people should play this. It is Starship Troopers after all, so at least the idea is awesome.

Also, Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines really should get more recognition from people, easily the best and most immersive RPG I've ever played.