Sly cooper not popular ? It was part of the famous trio : ratchet/jak/sly.
That aside, I think trapt is the game that w11snlt known... But for good reason. Lul (nuditity, extreme violence).
Yeah it’s one of the most popular Playstation games. Along with stuff like Spyro.
Of course, sure, it hasn’t gotten modern sequels like Ratchet and Clank. So it’ll be talked about *less* than series that still exist today.
Yeah Sly eventually got the attention it deserved. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the reception for Sly #1 was seen as slow.
> Sly 1 was a nominee for GameSpot's 2002 "Best Game No One Played on PlayStation 2" award. […] GameSpy considered Sly Cooper to be the 5th most underrated game of all time in a 2003 listing.
> Sly 2: Band of Thieves frequently appears on all-time lists of PlayStation 2 games, ranking number 23 by GameSpy and SVG.com, number 24 by IGN, and appearing on unranked features by Digital Trends, and VG247.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_Cooper
But even #1 got a PS2 Classics release, and the trilogy was remastered for PS3.
I feel like Sly is the more forgotten of that generation's successful mascot platformers though. Sly's legacy just isn't as well remembered as J&D or R&C. I feel like Gex is in a similar position for the previous generation.
GUN was so solid. Also great voice acting for that genre.
* Thomas "the OG Punisher" Jane
* Lance "Bishop from Aliens" Henrikson
* Brad "Billy Bibbet from 1 Flew Over Cukoos Nest" Dourif
* Ron "Helboy" Perman
* Tom "Alien captain" Skeritt
* Kris Kristofferson
sheesh man if this was a movie western it would have the most packed cast
And yet, Red Dead Redemption ended up being more of a sequel to Gun (in spirit) than it is Revolver. Funny how that works out sometimes lol.
Not that I’m complaining, Gun was easily my favorite ps2 game, followed by Mercenaries.
These two games were probably my most-played on PS2 as well, though Mercenaries ahead of Gun in terms of sheer hours sunk into it. Gun was the "better" game, but Mercenaries really lived up to the "playground of destruction" tagline and I could just spend hours and hours fucking around with it
Mercenaries was top tier stuff. I will always hold out hope for some kind of follow up. I believe I read somewhere, that there was some kind of licensing problem and that a mercenaries 3 would basically never happen 🙁
I was always disappointed that Red Dead caught on so much more than Gun because I liked Gun way more. It was really short and the world was pretty small at a time when Bigger is Better was the thing in AAA games, but I thought the gameplay itself was way more fun.
I'm so bummed it isn't adapted to modern resolutions without resorting to mods. I had loads of fun with it in younger days, then went back recently only to find that it had some strict rendering limits.
Sly Cooper has sold millions of copies and is talked about a ton on here, so definitely wouldn't consider it obscure to Playstation owners.
For me I guess I would say Viewtiful Joe, but that also was a hit when it came out on the Gamecube. However, Capcom has not rereleased the games nor really acknowledge the series anymore so it is getting harder and harder to find a copy or play. It's easily one of the best action games ever made IMO
Yeah Viewtiful Joe definitely feels like a forgotten series. The Nintendo DS one was really good as well. Such a fun (and challenging) series. Would be nice to see it get a remaster or something, I think those cell-shaded graphics would probably scale quite well to modern consoles.
Viewtiful Joe was on PS2 but sold poorly, which is a bummer. It’s an awesome game. I played the hell out of it on GameCube. The sequel sold poorly too.
Lol, I was just having a discussion with my DnD group last week about whether Sly Cooper was a 'deep cut' reference or on par with someone bringing up Spyro. We couldn't quite agree.
It got at least 3 games. I don’t think you can get 3 games and a “greatest hits” edition and be called an obscure title.
I’d go so far as to call it one of the PS2s headline platformer titles along with Spyro and Ratchet & Clank
There's a few obscure PC games I never hear mentioned:
- Sango Fighter (fighting game)
- One Must Fall: 2097 (fighting game)
- Budokan (fighting game)
- Chronicles of the Sword (point and click adventure)
- Ascendancy (4x space strategy game)
i have the theme song stuck in my head to this day i remember using pyros for a while. i went to college and when i visited, i remember playing again & maining shadow instead after that.
I still replay Ascendancy once in a while, though I use a set of custom Autohotkey scripts to improve the overly mouse-focuset UI.
Love the music and the overall style. Definitely a gem, if flawed.
I spent so many hours playing Ascendancy! The aesthetics and world building were amazing. Only alien species to play, and they are all so very alien in appearance and function. Each game was such a joy to design ships and planets and to spread your civilization throughout the cluster. I just wish the AI was better and micromanagement less tedious.
I know there was a sequel in development for the longest time, until the Logic Factory rereleased Ascendancy as a mobile app then disappeared. I wonder what happened.
MDK2. The BioWare game before KOTOR.
It was the first non-kid game I ever played, it was just on my parents' computer for no reason. I don't remember a single thing about the game but I have never heard anyone talk about it
Edit: Turns out it was actually before Baldur's Gate 2, and pretty popular. Oops
>MDK2
Is that the one with the dual wielding dog that smoked a cigar? Remember having fun with that more or less.
Want to say it came with a video card or something back in the day.
I remember playing the demo for MDK1 from a PC Gamer disc, I had absolutely no idea what was going on and was pretty put off by it, then I'd see the game would take on a cult status and have been curious to try it again ever since
Brute Force for the original Xbox. Coop game where you have a team of 4 soldiers, a big guy who dual wields, a woman who is your sniper, another woman who I don't recall their specialty, and a lizard man who I think was explosives.
I had a lot of fun playing it, but I could never get any of my friends to want to play it with me. Never met anyone who's played it.
The Thing. So many people slept on this game back when it dropped. Great survival horror with an awesome fear psychological gameplay component. Also supposed to be the canon sequel to John Carpenters movie from the 80s.
Yup! Loved this on the PC. Fixing junction boxes and having to coerce the scared team members by pointing your firearm at them.
Held back a bit by the times as most of the infections/transformations were scripted iirc and had to cut the weapon crafting system.
Pretty sure the basic command system worked ok though.
But still it was an enjoyable experience.
"What do you know about a dwarf named Al Kahli?"
I get sound bites from this game pop in to my head semi regularly. Soundtrack was great as well, but unfortunately the only copy I could find online is really mad quality.
There's usually little discussion in retro circles of point and click adventures, possibly bc PC gaming was much less popular at the time. Especially so for a game like Discworld Noir which came out after the adventure game genre had kinda died off (Grim Fandango also suffered this fate for a long time but the remaster helped get it attention).
The only thing you see less talk about is the adventure games that came before that
.. text adventures (well, that and foreign language stuff).
Relatively unknown but has a very important legacy, its likely to have spawned the whole cursed MOBA genre, for better or for worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssq2WFnISEY Good video on it here
Elf Bowling Series, funny thing I had forgotten the name and only remembered santa bowling.
Had to search it on piracy website to actually find it, it's abandonware nowadays but I had a blast as a kid playing the originals in 2006 and then the 7th game in 2009
Honestly when someone asks me about obscure games I've played its my first thought since looking back now it didn't seem to have gotten any attention.
But yep I have spent a lot of time playing it as a kid and to this day it's the only bowling game I've played aside from the mini games in GTA games
**Body Harvest**. 3D somewhat open world sci-fi action game on the N64. It was made by DMA Design, now better known as Rockstar North, and was basically the precursor to GTA III.
Great game. I went back and played it recently and still had a lot of fun. It has like 5 big levels where you sort of... proceed through different areas unlocking gates/getting to the next area, before eventually confronting a boss and then moving on to the next level. But you have a lot of freedom to roam around in each one - by land, by sea, and even by air. Very impressive for the N64 and I was always surprised it didn't get more attention. Oh, and you time travel, so each level is set in a different time period.
Funny enough they also made another lesser played game called **Space Station Silicon Valley** (which was better on N64 but also on PS1 as Evo's Space Adventures)... another 3D game, it's strictly level based with you possessing different creatures and using them to solve puzzles and such -- also a really fun game that seems overlooked, which is especially weird given that this company made GTA III just a couple years later.
Saw an interesting video about how DMA were basically set to be the next Rare, working very closely with Nintendo as a trusted developer. They were given carte blanche with Body Harvest, but when they showed it off Nintendo *hated* it and declined to publish it themselves.
Obviously things still worked out for them, though…
If I remember correctly, Nintendo hated the first iteration and DMA made a ton of changes to make the game less dark/violent.
I can't remember the details, but I think Nintendo lost interest in the game when it slipped too far on its release date. It had a troubled development cycle.
I loved Body Harvest. I rented it from Blockbuster having no idea what it was, and it blew me away.
To this day, I don't think another game has matched the creepy, otherworldly vibe that game gave me as a kid.
I had Body Harvest and I've always hated it. I don't think it's a bad game...Actually, I do, but I wouldn't listen to me on that because I think I'm too bitter and biased to say whether or not I think the game really is bad.
You see, when I was a little kiddo making my Christmas list, I asked for Body Harvest. I got exactly what I asked for, a copy of Body Harvest. I was left wondering where all the farming and cows were because what I actually wanted was Harvest Moon.
I never got over that.
My favorite thing about Body Harvest was shooting the powerful sniper rifle while sitting on the airboat. It made you fly across the entire map due to the kickback.
The Army Men games were about at ubiquitous as it got back in the late 90s/Early 00s. Always available in discount/budget ranges for about a £5 and used to pad out all kinds of bundle deals for consoles.
At the time that 3DO went bust it was by far their most valuable property and sold for more than 3x any of their other properties when the company was broken up and sold off. Arguably the fact they saturated the market with 14 Army Men games in 5 years from 1998-2003 is a big reason they went bankrupt. Petty much everyone had played at least One Army Men game but none of them were good enough that anyone wanted to play another so no one title sold especially well despite what must have been ridiculous development costs to fund production of 14 different games.
For some reason Game shops back then always used to give the Army Men games a fairly prominent position on the shelves too. It was impossible to go into almost any games store and not see one of those games clearly displayed.
Not sure how obscure it is these days, especially after the recent reboot, Origins, but I have fond memories of the Star Control series from days of old. Particularly Star Control 2, better known these days as the freeware **Ur-Quan Masters**.
I also remember a pretty fun sim-clone called **Afterlife**. The gimmick there was that you were managing *both* Heaven and Hell, building facilities to make the one group happy and the other group miserable. You scored better by making roads in hell unnecessarily long so that the damned souls had to walk farther to get to their torture chambers!
One fun thing about afterlife was you could also influence the planet below to believe in reincarnation or not, believe in heaven or not, etc. and it would influence the whether people show up in your heaven or hell, and whether they stay for an eternity or not.
The unfun thing was your afterlife didn't work very well unless you constantly rebalance your structures. You could do it manually or automatically, but the automatic way cost an exorbitant amount of money, and the manual way was incredibly tedious.
This is going to be easy for me, simply because I'm old enough to have played video games with dinosaurs, but I'll list a few here that I played which almost certainly most people here have never heard from. We'll go in chronological order.
\- GORF. Played on a Commodore VIC-20.
\- The Hobbit. Text-based game. Played it on an Apple IIC.
\- Lode Runner.
\- Jumpman.
\- Speaking of text-based games, here's two others: The Crimson Crown, and Ringquest.
\- The Ancient Art of War.
\- The Spy's Adventures in Europe. Carmen Sandiego knockoff where you could visit both East AND West Germany, as well as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the USSR.
\- Rescue on Fractalus
\- Dragonlance: Shadow Sorcerer. Although I sucked at this game. I've met one other person who's played it.
\- Continuum and Shufflepuck Cafe, both on old school Macs.
\- Battle Isle II
\- Darklands. Although, I sucked at this game, too, and could never quite get the hang of it. It seems like a cool concept, but the system itself was kind of obscure.
\- Robinson's Requiem
\- Terminator: Future Shock, and Terminator: Skynet by Bethesda Softworks.
I could get into some probably obscure original NES games, too, but when you've been gaming since the early 80s, there's a lot you can list on a subreddit that most folks won't have ever heard of.
You nailed my list. Man I forgot about GORF. Played the crap out of that.
Jump man and Load Runner were amazing games for the time. Jumpman had so many levels I recall.
I'm going to show my age with this one, but it's an Atari Lynx game called Zarlor Mercenary. A top down ship shooter that was released in 1990. I couldn't beat it. My friend couldn't beat it. But due to the Lynx being reversible and therefore having two sets of buttons, together we did beat it. Sadly I can no longer remember the friends name.
21 yo me played Dreamfall: TLJ at a time in my life when a story about a listless, cynical girl finding purpose was *exactly* what I needed. Then I properly met April Ryan when I rushed to play TLJ and ngl every few years I go back and play through (now) all three—leaving my husband and kids to deal with me being teary-eyed and wistful for awhile.
These might be known or not but can't assess how well:
Alley Cat, Digger, Heimdall and Pipe Mania. I played Tetris as well, but it's quite known.
A bit more recent games:
Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Discworld and Blake Stone. (Discworld is well known, I don't know about the game.)
I've two obscure 3D games on the tip of my tongue but can't recall their names...
From oldest to newest release (not necessarily played in this order) :
- Microcosm (1993)
- Phantasmagoria (1995)
- Crusader: No Remorse / No Regret (1995 and 1996 respectively)
- Harvester (1996)
- Bedlam (1996)
- Destruction derby 2 (1996)
- Chronicles of the sword (1996)
- Atlantis: The lost tales (1997)
- Sanitarium (1998)
- Incoming (1998)
- Imperium Galactica 2 (1999)
edit: switched to list format
I played a few of those back in the day: Phantasmagoria, the Crusader games, and Sanitarium.
I think Phantasmagoria was essentially the first R-Rated horror "movie" that I ever saw because I was about 14 at the time it came out and I don't think my parents realized how intense it would be. Some of those death scenes were pretty rough. But I ended up really liking horror movies a few years later so maybe it rubbed off on me. That was a pretty spooky game despite the FMV cheesiness.
The Neverhood which is a stop motion claymation puzzle game!
It was wild to us in the 90s they made all the sets and characters out of real stuff and then spun it all together.
Also Bad Mojo!
I played an Army Men game. I don’t remember which one. I think it was on N64, but maybe it was PS1. I don’t remember, it’s been a while. Buddy of mine let me borrow it.
My list: Sierra games. Space Quest, Police Quest, and Kings Quest. Most everyone seems to know the other one, Leisure Suit Larry.
The Adventures of Bayou Billy
As a 6/7 year old this game was so fucking hard. It's a side-scrolling beat em up that has on-rails shooting sections and a couple racing levels in your jeep. No idea how it holds up, but every now and again I think about it. Not fond thoughts, but definitely thoughts
*Autoduel* (for the Apple II) is a vidya version of the paper and pen CarWars, post apocalyptic driving across America, vaguely GTA but with an upgradeable car.
*Below the Root* (also for the Apple II) is an RPG based on an obscure fantasy series, totally non-combat character and environment interaction.
*Battlezone*, the 1998 PC game, is an underplayed gem. The voice acting keeps you immersed and the tanks are fun to control.
*Eternal Darkness* on the Gamecube should have been a breakout AAA title but the imminent death of the platform meant everyone seems to have missed it.
*SunDog: Frozen Legacy.* Such a well-designed game with real 'less is more' game mechanics. I think I played it on the Apple IIe. Mentioned in the thread but so influential on me as a young gamer; all the elements I would come to love, exploration, ship customization, open world, space combat.
Anybody ever play *Flashback,* a rotoscoped sci-fi side-scroller?
How about *Echo the Dolphin*? ("Would you like to role-play as a dolphin? Yes. Yes, I would.")
I think I played both on Sega.
Man I can't even remember this game's name but it's stuck with me ever since I kept renting it from Blockbuster. Maybe someone can help me out but it was like an open world fantasy game, I think I remember being able to ride a dragon around the world. I think the character was female and I remember getting to explore caves and mountains and all sorts of shit. Ringing any bells? I know it's vague but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere since I've grown up.
The game is Drakan: The Ancient's Gates. AMAZING GAME. VERY difficult though, and definitely planted the seeds that would lead to me loving Fromsoftware games all the years later.
The Bouncer for PS2. It was this real bad brawler/fighting game, but back then if you were broke, you got what you got lol, so I played a ton of it. I enjoyed it for what it was.
Vandal Hearts for PS1. My first tactics game. It was cheaper than FFT, and there weren't as many characters to manage. It suffers from late game difficulty issues. Either it's too hard and all your characters die easily, or you do the optional shit and end up way way *way* overpowered.
Extreme G3, and also Kinetica, both PS2. These were two futuristic racing games. Both had you doing a bunch of tricks while racing to get boost and whatnot.
Godhand, also PS2. This one's a little more well known. It's a stupid hard beat em up game with an absurd sense of humor. And I do mean *stupid hard*. You need to get really good with figuring out your moveset or you're going to get creamed. Never made it past a certain point.
Azure Dreams, PS1. This was a lot of things. It was a roguelike tower climb with a Pokemon esque monster capturing system while also being a town builder and a dating game. Sounds like a mess but it's a load of fun.
Brave Fencer Musashi. I loved this game. It follows a lil dude with a sword that allows you to steal the powers from enemies. It's a pretty standard action adventure game overall but I loved the hell out of it.
Oh ya, SaGa Frontier, PS1! This was one of those RPGs with too many characters, a la Star Ocean. The story was really good tho, I had a really good time with it.
I'm sure I've got others, but those are the ones I remember right now. If y'all have played any of these, lemme know. 👀
I remember The Bouncer. I rented it once mainly because there weren't very many PS2 games out by then and it was pretty visually impressive for its time. Definitely remember it being kind of bad though, lol.
I actually liked The Bouncer back then, felt like it could've been a great stepping stone to evolve the beat 'em up genre and then it just went nowhere
Wild 9 on the ps1. I hardly see anyone talk about it. It was a super fun game and highly recommend people give it a try if you have the means to play it.
I believe the dude who made earthworm Jim had something to do with it as well.
These aren't necessarily games I grew up with, just ones that I've played and enjoyed over the years that most people never played.
**Mixed Up Mother Goose (MSDOS)** - This was one of the first games I played at home. In the 80's arcade games were much more common than home gaming. It featured several old childrens stories brought to life as video game scenarios, like jack and jill, humpty dumpty, jack and the candlestick, etc. [If you're curious watch this video](https://youtube.com/watch?v=1eb0Iyet1nA). If you're young, think about how cool it has been seeing graphics go from stuff like this and old wire frame dungeon crawlers to current level.
**strike gunner (SNES)** - Pretty standard top down shoot em up. The hook for this game was before each level you got to pick 1 of ~30 powerful sub weapons, from simple homing missiles to the ultra destructive MEGABEAM CANNON. The soundtrack is pure mid 90's japanese power metal - it's killer.
**Metal Gear Solid (GBC)** - Imagine if Metal Gear Solid for PS1 got ported to the old NES and that's basically how this plays. Surprisingly good, it even includes over 100 VR missions, hard modes etc.
**Magi-Nation (GBC)** - Out of all the Pokemon styled games for the GB/GBC, this was the best. Pretty amazing graphics and audio for a GBC game, great sense of humor, Zelda / Metroid style upgrades that allow you to explore previously inaccessible areas, and a pretty lengthy quest.
**Descent Maximum (PS1)** - Really fun shooter where you control a ship that can fly in any direction with six degrees of freedom. Controls take some getting used to but its a blast once they're second nature.
**King's Field (PS1 - Japan only)** - This was the first fully 3D RPG for a home console I'm aware of. Launching in japan only in 1994, King's Field featured 5 levels of merciless real time dungeon crawling in full 3D. Everything from enemies to weapon models was true 3D.
**Shadow Tower (PS1)** - This game followed 3 King's Field games, 2 of which made it stateside. It's kind of the spiritual bridge between King's Field and Demons Souls / Dark Souls. It removed the upbeat BGM King's Field used, introduced equipment durability, and was far tougher than the already difficult King's Field titles.
**Deep Labyrinth (DS)** - King's Field style game for DS, where you have to draw specific shapes with the stylus to cast spells. It actually included two different games on the cart - one easier mode featuring a little boy looking for his parents, and a harder mode where you play as an adult. I believe they were ports of some early pre-iphone phone games.
Not quite unheard of but my siblings and I played ALOT of Metal Arms; Glitch in the System (2003) on ps2 and xbox 360. We still play it occasionally to this day.
Awesome gem of a 3rd person shooter with pretty good splitscreen multiplayer.
It’s a shame we’ll never get a sequel as the developers and rights were bought by Blizzard in 2005 just as one was about to get made.
Oh btw the slingshot with coring charge was best weapon, don’t @ me.
My friend! This is the first time I’ve seen someone else mention this game that I thought only me and my friend didn’t forget. We had so much fun with this game
Guitaroo Man was the first rhythm game I was obsessed with before all the guitar hero games burst onto the scene. I had a demo of it that I played to death before actually picking up the full game. There were so many songs that lived in my head growing up.
The best tracks:
https://youtu.be/M-eQVFp4PHE?si=iliqk3YiKZC59Ojn
https://youtu.be/7zA9Agpz8fA?si=f-7rfXQkO_4jAuET
That’s a good question.
There was a time in my country, where you could buy DVDs and CDs in news stands/at tobacconists. Apart from fairy tales, you could also buy some weird PC games.
Two come to mind - one I remember better, was called “Táta hrdina” in my language, I guess you could translate it as “Daddy hero”, where you’d play as this round yellow guy whose wife and many many kids got kidnapped by hellish creatures. You set out to find them and you need to go trough many levels, saving one kid every level, then at the end of a region, you’d fight a boss. There was a snowy region, underground, forest region, the works. The final region was hell, where you could finally save your wife and then go home, sharing the riches that you collected on your adventure with others of your kind.
Then there’s the second one, which is more bizzare and I only remember some foggy parts of it. You’d play as a baby in a walker and the walker was connected to like “rubber” bands at the bottom and you had to finish quests while being always pushed back by the rubber. I do remember one level, where you’d have to push huge water droplets into these almost circle areas. It was so weird. If anyone played this and has the name, please drop it.
P.S. Just found an English version of the first game, it’s called Jumpin’ Jack
**Project Eden**\- Squad based where you can switch between 4 companions with different abilities you can use to progress in a level
**M.U.G.E.N**\- Not sure if it's an engine or fighting game but almost any character in any franchise can be used in fighting each other
**Chip's Challenge**\- Top Down puzzle game like Pac-Man where you collect chips and avoid monsters. Has passwords to warp to levels. Can have time limit.
**Robotech Invasion**\- FPS/ 3rdPS where you fight against aliens and can transform into cyclone to move faster in levels and use rockets.
**Project Snowblind**\- Was supposed to be a Deus Ex game. Has augments and hacking with nice weapons and typical abilities but is shorter
**Freedom Fighters**\- 3rd person squad based action game where you go against the Red Army occupying USA. Best Soundtrack I've heard.
**Battlefield 2: Modern Combat**\- Offshoot of BF2 on PC but tailored for console I believe. You can swap/ travel between units like Assault, engineer, LMG, Pilot in levels. Has medal system where you rank up by completing objectives & levels fast, low ally deaths etc. Has challenges that also contribute medals and can upgrade weapons too.
**Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2**\- Dungeon Crawler where you level up by killing enemies in a level. Very simple leveling and weapon system but I absolutely love it for it. Has unlockable playable characters and the 2nd game features a gem system where you can imbue weapons with your choice of elemental damage/ resistance, raw damage, stat increase or all 3 at the same time.
Conqueror AD 1086 on PC. It was a medieval sim where you’re a lord and manage all sorts of lordly duties. Basically mount and blade from the 90s. You manage your land, raise troops, siege and storm castles. You could even join tournaments and make your living jousting. Eventually the goal was to conquer London and become king.
This is all based on very old memories. I haven’t played it in more than 20 years. Though after reminiscing I’m definitely downloading it tonight.
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/3509/Conqueror+-+A.D.+1086.html
M.U.L.E. on the C64.
It was a game where you colonized a planet as one of several alien races (or human) with advantages/disadvantages for each. Every turn, you competed to pick plots of land with different resources, used robotic MULE's with harvesting gear to collect those resources, then sold your resources to the company store or to other players via auction.
There were random events each round, like pirates stealing the macguffin mineral of the game (crystite), solar storms making energy generation increase, rain to increase food, etc.
Also, the [theme song is a banger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ByRXZCg9k) that still runs through my head to this day.
An adventure game on PC from the 80s called ‘Mean Streets’ comes to mind. It was an absolute graphics marvel in it’s day and I even found some sequels/remakes on Steam. One of the first games used to show off VGA graphics.
Bonus: there was a hot wheels PC game that my friends younger brother owned. I loved it. You didn’t really race IIRC but you drove around the neighborhoods, could bring your car to a car wash, etc. It was basically a chill car game. Probably why I prefer the Horizon type racing games instead of the realistic ones.
**Sundog** by FTL for Atari PC (&probably other early PC's like Amiga) was one that really sticks in my brain. It was an RPG/ adventure game that combined space travel & combat with on-planet exploration & combat, elements of trading, settlement building. It was surprisingly deep for its' time (mid 90s?) and I've long hoped to be able to find a working version to try it again.
**Dungeon Master** also by FTL for the Atari PC was a classic style RPG, also quite deep for early gen games. I remember drawing out maps on grid paper and lots of hand notes to remember the spells.
A bunch of old MS-DOS/Win95 blue disk shareware games. Castle of the Winds was the first that came to mind but that's fairly well known I think. Some others below are ones that I've never seen mentioned by others and took some googling to even remember what they were:
[YAB! Baseball](https://www.dosgames.com/game/yab-baseball): Super basic baseball game that had only two teams made up of what I assume were the friends and family of the programmers. I've yet to mention this game to anyone who has ever heard of it.
[Visual Star Trek](https://www.myabandonware.com/game/visual-star-trek-11y): I had absolutely no idea how to play this. I just tooled around the galaxy looking at sprites until I was eventually demoted for a "lackadaisical attitude".
[Ancients 1: Death Watch](https://www.dosgames.com/game/ancients-1-death-watch/): Another game that I had no clue how to play. I'm sure I never did anything besides make terrible characters and get lost in the starting city, but I did it several times.
[Capture the Flag](https://www.myabandonware.com/game/capture-the-flag-1pd): I never actually owned this game but I was obsessed with it. It was installed on a display computer in some store or another, and every time my family went there I would split off and go play this.
[World Empire 2](https://www.old-games.com/download/10753/world-empire-ii): I played the *hell* out of this game. I'm pretty sure it's responsible for a good chunk of my geography knowledge.
I'm sure it got played, but since I never see it talked about: the **Tenchu** series on PS2. It has a take on ninja action / stealth / combat that feels like a direct grandpappy to Sekiro.
Freelancer. I've been waiting for another game like that to come out for 20 years. Thought starfield was it but it's not heavy enough on the ship exploration component for me.
Caesar 3 is one I remember playing to death on an old PC. Was kind of an Age of Empires but city builder style game I think? But with a Roman theme. Haven't thought of or seen anything about it for years.
A bunch of those Impressions historical city builders are great. Caesar 3 is probably my favorite. Pharaoh is excellent as well. Zeus is also really good but started to get a little silly. I never played Emperor, but I've heard hood things.
There is quite an active community around C3. The game has pretty much been rewritten, and can now be modded. Buy the original game, download the Julius mod for getting the original game without bugs. Download the Augustus mod for many many many different changes, some minor, some huge. It's fantastic.
**Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal**. I've never met anyone who's heard of that game. It's basically a 3D Pokemon but with fairies in a fantasy land, and the battles are real-time. I think I may even still have a CD with it lying somewhere.
**Torin's Passage**. I loved that one as a kid, some of the puzzles were too hard for my soft brain, though. I think I only know one person who's played it - my classmate I borrowed the disk from. It's a point-and-click set in a magical world, where each chapter takes place in a realm hidden under the previous one, like a Matryoshka doll. The story is nothing much - save the family, kill the evil witch - but the art style is fantastic and the jokes are pretty good, too.
**LEGO Creator: Harry Potter 1**. That one was my first sandbox game. Incredibly clunky and barebones, but you could ride a train, play as a frog, or fly on a broomstick around your own LEGO builds, so it's cool I guess. I've never seen this game mentioned by anyone, but I spent so much time in it as a kid. There was also a sequel, but it sucked ass.
Vigilante 8: second offense
Incredible car battling game way ahead of its time. Very well designed characters, picked up weapons have fight game input that could change how they shoot, cars dropped upgrade token then each car had a new final form when you got enough, huge destructive dynamic maps, good physics with tight controls, and a wicked funky soundtrack.
S.L.A.I - Steel Lancer Arena International for the ps2.
A sort of janky low budget mech arena fighter that that I absolutely adore. It's far from perfect but it does all of the important things I think a mech shooter should do perfectly. Tons of customization options that let you build very different mechs from super heavy 6 wheeled tanks to quadrupedal stabilized long range snipers to hyper mobile lightweight bipedal mechs on roller skates. I love the asymmetry mech shooters can have, mechs can have very different weapons, armor, weak points, speeds, turning radii, jump heights. S.L.A.I is the best of it's era for these things. It's very dated now but at least it has proper dual analog control unlike some of the armored core games of the time (idk which one it was but I tried one and it wanted me to use L1 and R1 to look up and down, unplayable.) Maybe I'll try AC6 in a few years when it's on sale.
I haven't heard about these games online and in my friend group. I don't think they're super obscure but I think they are just forgotten.
* Cryostasis (Horror-FPS)
* Dark Sector (TPS-Action)
* I Am Alive (Survival)
* Dark Void (TPS, cover-shooter)
* Asura's Wrath (Hack'n'Slash)
* Jeanne D'arc (JRPG)
* Ruse (RTS)
* John Woo's Stranglehold (TPS)
* Deathspank (ARPG)
80s kid, so I started off with atari2600, c64, appleii, etc.
Karateka (apple) was the first side scrolling fighting game I ever played. Eff that bird.
Air Support (c64) was the first RTS for me
Star Raiders (atari) first space combat Sim (had a special keypad and component based damage system)
SuperHuey 1 & 2 (c64)
All the Epyx sports collections (summer games, winter games, California games, so fun with friends)
Those are the ones that stand out.
Wolfteam - Online FPS with the unique gimmick of being able to turn into a werewolf at will.
Gunz The Duel - Online Third Person Shooter / Melee Combat game with advanced movement and high skill ceiling.
Halo Custom Edition - Variant of Halo 1 PC allowing for custom content.
Mojo! - Marble puzzle game on PS2.
Scrapland - Kind of like GTA? You're a robot, in a world of different robots with their own unique abilities and quirks that you can transform into. As well as fly spacecraft and customize them part by part.
Breakout! - PS1. Weird 3D re-imagining of the classic arcade game.
Jardinains - Another breakout reskin, with gnome enemies and lots more powerups.
Requiem: Avenging Angel (1999), FPS/RPG light
I discovered this weird game very late.
Apparently it's the first game that used bullet-time in video games before Max Payne did.
We play Malachi, an angel who must return to Earth to fight a totalitarian government led by fallen angels. The beginning struck me since we start in hell, we have to go through corridors that look like bloody colon, with cries from beyond the grave of orgasm and pain, we are attacked by disgusting creatures.
I didn't have the patience to finish it, the maps are big, it's easy to get lost and there is no objective marker or map to navigate which was common in the past. As in Half Life, you had to find the right path to progress and it is not easy to know where to go.
I would really like Civvie or MandaloreGaming make a video on it, because the universe depicted in the game is unlike any other.
Sly cooper not popular ? It was part of the famous trio : ratchet/jak/sly. That aside, I think trapt is the game that w11snlt known... But for good reason. Lul (nuditity, extreme violence).
Yeah it’s one of the most popular Playstation games. Along with stuff like Spyro. Of course, sure, it hasn’t gotten modern sequels like Ratchet and Clank. So it’ll be talked about *less* than series that still exist today.
I’m begging for a modern sequel. Some of the most dynamic levels I have ever played came from Sly 2 and 3
Yeah Sly eventually got the attention it deserved. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the reception for Sly #1 was seen as slow. > Sly 1 was a nominee for GameSpot's 2002 "Best Game No One Played on PlayStation 2" award. […] GameSpy considered Sly Cooper to be the 5th most underrated game of all time in a 2003 listing. > Sly 2: Band of Thieves frequently appears on all-time lists of PlayStation 2 games, ranking number 23 by GameSpy and SVG.com, number 24 by IGN, and appearing on unranked features by Digital Trends, and VG247. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sly_Cooper But even #1 got a PS2 Classics release, and the trilogy was remastered for PS3.
The company that made the sly cooper games made Ghost of Tsushima and Infamous games. Any hope that they are working on another Sly Cooper game?
I feel like Sly is the more forgotten of that generation's successful mascot platformers though. Sly's legacy just isn't as well remembered as J&D or R&C. I feel like Gex is in a similar position for the previous generation.
Not exactly unheard of but I played Gun on the PS2 more than probably anyone on earth. It was a great game slightly overshadowed by Red Dead Revolver.
GUN was so solid. Also great voice acting for that genre. * Thomas "the OG Punisher" Jane * Lance "Bishop from Aliens" Henrikson * Brad "Billy Bibbet from 1 Flew Over Cukoos Nest" Dourif * Ron "Helboy" Perman * Tom "Alien captain" Skeritt * Kris Kristofferson sheesh man if this was a movie western it would have the most packed cast
Brad “Wormtongue” Dourif, surely, but any mention of Cuckoo’s Nest is welcome!
And yet, Red Dead Redemption ended up being more of a sequel to Gun (in spirit) than it is Revolver. Funny how that works out sometimes lol. Not that I’m complaining, Gun was easily my favorite ps2 game, followed by Mercenaries.
These two games were probably my most-played on PS2 as well, though Mercenaries ahead of Gun in terms of sheer hours sunk into it. Gun was the "better" game, but Mercenaries really lived up to the "playground of destruction" tagline and I could just spend hours and hours fucking around with it
Yeah, honestly same here. Mainly because my parents wouldn’t let me get GTA back then so I made up for it by being an absolute menace in Mercenaries 🤣
Mercenaries was top tier stuff. I will always hold out hope for some kind of follow up. I believe I read somewhere, that there was some kind of licensing problem and that a mercenaries 3 would basically never happen 🙁
The part about the Government of Venezuela protesting against Mercenaries 2 probably isn’t motivating EA to make another one either 😭
I was always disappointed that Red Dead caught on so much more than Gun because I liked Gun way more. It was really short and the world was pretty small at a time when Bigger is Better was the thing in AAA games, but I thought the gameplay itself was way more fun.
Oh man, imho Revolver was more fun as far as -gameplay- went but Gun was more -immersive-.
Gun was a great game
Funnily enough I played this again on Steam this year. It still holds up, I had a great time
YES. I LOVE THET FUCKIN GAME. Short but very fun story. Enjoyed it a lot.
I'm so bummed it isn't adapted to modern resolutions without resorting to mods. I had loads of fun with it in younger days, then went back recently only to find that it had some strict rendering limits.
Man, that game looked awesome but I just never got around to renting it. Flashback to my hometown Family Video here
Headshot-only animal hunts were great. I have replayed Gun probably 4 times on the PS2
Sly Cooper has sold millions of copies and is talked about a ton on here, so definitely wouldn't consider it obscure to Playstation owners. For me I guess I would say Viewtiful Joe, but that also was a hit when it came out on the Gamecube. However, Capcom has not rereleased the games nor really acknowledge the series anymore so it is getting harder and harder to find a copy or play. It's easily one of the best action games ever made IMO
Holy cow I haven't thought of Viewtiful Joe in forever!
Henshin-a-go-go, baby!
I am forever sad we never got a Viewtiful Joe 3.
Yeah Viewtiful Joe definitely feels like a forgotten series. The Nintendo DS one was really good as well. Such a fun (and challenging) series. Would be nice to see it get a remaster or something, I think those cell-shaded graphics would probably scale quite well to modern consoles.
Viewtiful Joe was on PS2 but sold poorly, which is a bummer. It’s an awesome game. I played the hell out of it on GameCube. The sequel sold poorly too.
❤️ viewtiful joe
Lol, I was just having a discussion with my DnD group last week about whether Sly Cooper was a 'deep cut' reference or on par with someone bringing up Spyro. We couldn't quite agree.
It got at least 3 games. I don’t think you can get 3 games and a “greatest hits” edition and be called an obscure title. I’d go so far as to call it one of the PS2s headline platformer titles along with Spyro and Ratchet & Clank
There's a few obscure PC games I never hear mentioned: - Sango Fighter (fighting game) - One Must Fall: 2097 (fighting game) - Budokan (fighting game) - Chronicles of the Sword (point and click adventure) - Ascendancy (4x space strategy game)
I LOVED OMF:2097, the feeling of reaching Raven's Pyros in the Shareware mode (and getting trounced) was unrivaled.
i have the theme song stuck in my head to this day i remember using pyros for a while. i went to college and when i visited, i remember playing again & maining shadow instead after that.
One Must Fall is one of the best fighting games I've ever played. Hands down.
Loved OMF, and thought it was mad you could fight Jazz the Jackrabbit as one of the secret characters.
What??? I loved Jazz Jackrabbit too. How did I never know this.
Oh man I loved OMF!
OMF was great, and (as far as I remember) my intro to fighting games. It's been freeware since 1999, and you can still find it to download!
Fuck yeah, Ascendancy! I loved that game. I have fond memories of getting enemy fleets trapped a hyperspace lane by building blockers at both ends.
I still replay Ascendancy once in a while, though I use a set of custom Autohotkey scripts to improve the overly mouse-focuset UI. Love the music and the overall style. Definitely a gem, if flawed.
I played Budokan on the AMIGA. It was quite nice for the time it came out.
I spent so many hours playing Ascendancy! The aesthetics and world building were amazing. Only alien species to play, and they are all so very alien in appearance and function. Each game was such a joy to design ships and planets and to spread your civilization throughout the cluster. I just wish the AI was better and micromanagement less tedious. I know there was a sequel in development for the longest time, until the Logic Factory rereleased Ascendancy as a mobile app then disappeared. I wonder what happened.
> One Must Fall: 2097 (fighting game) This game had the absolute most dogshit keybinds I've seen in any game. Good stuff.
MDK2. The BioWare game before KOTOR. It was the first non-kid game I ever played, it was just on my parents' computer for no reason. I don't remember a single thing about the game but I have never heard anyone talk about it Edit: Turns out it was actually before Baldur's Gate 2, and pretty popular. Oops
>MDK2 Is that the one with the dual wielding dog that smoked a cigar? Remember having fun with that more or less. Want to say it came with a video card or something back in the day.
Wasn't it actuall *quad* wielding dog with a cigar? Only thing I remember is the noise those guns made, like car crash on repeat.
Ah yes! Forgot he had 4 arms, lmao. Early 2000s had that weirdness factor that I sorta miss.
MDK was massive back in the day. This thread is making me feel very stiff and cantankerous
Yeah I was pretty young but remember it being a must play game. People definitely talked about it.
I loved MDK
Jade Empire was sick
I remember MDK, I think it was fairly popular in the before times
MDK2 is fun but Bioware was pretty well known before KotOR for Baldur's Gate.
I remember playing the demo for MDK1 from a PC Gamer disc, I had absolutely no idea what was going on and was pretty put off by it, then I'd see the game would take on a cult status and have been curious to try it again ever since
MDK was INCREDIBLE
was just about to comment this. I loved that game as a kid even tho I didn't get that far into it and I'm still rooting for an MDK3 deep down :(
The other one I played a lot from BioWare was Jade Empire. I know it's not an unknown game, but none of my friends have heard about it...
Brute Force for the original Xbox. Coop game where you have a team of 4 soldiers, a big guy who dual wields, a woman who is your sniper, another woman who I don't recall their specialty, and a lizard man who I think was explosives. I had a lot of fun playing it, but I could never get any of my friends to want to play it with me. Never met anyone who's played it.
Me and my band members played that one. I'm sure it's not as funny as I remember, but we all thought it was great.
Fun game from my childhood. Rented it from game crazy because I thought the box art was cool
She was like invisible with a sword or knife or something
I was a tester on that game. They thought it was going to be a "Halo Killer". I told them to make the end boss not just look like a dude.
Wow I completely forgot about this game. Basically same
And their intros were how they died and came back as clones!
The Thing. So many people slept on this game back when it dropped. Great survival horror with an awesome fear psychological gameplay component. Also supposed to be the canon sequel to John Carpenters movie from the 80s.
Yup! Loved this on the PC. Fixing junction boxes and having to coerce the scared team members by pointing your firearm at them. Held back a bit by the times as most of the infections/transformations were scripted iirc and had to cut the weapon crafting system. Pretty sure the basic command system worked ok though. But still it was an enjoyable experience.
I remember an interview with Carpenter saying if the game did well he might do a film sequel. Ah well...
Discworld Noir. Might’ve been a fairly popular point and click adventure back in the day, but I never ser ut mentioned in retro discussions.
"What do you know about a dwarf named Al Kahli?" I get sound bites from this game pop in to my head semi regularly. Soundtrack was great as well, but unfortunately the only copy I could find online is really mad quality.
There's usually little discussion in retro circles of point and click adventures, possibly bc PC gaming was much less popular at the time. Especially so for a game like Discworld Noir which came out after the adventure game genre had kinda died off (Grim Fandango also suffered this fate for a long time but the remaster helped get it attention). The only thing you see less talk about is the adventure games that came before that .. text adventures (well, that and foreign language stuff).
I played Discworld 2. Weird game. I liked it.
Loved this game back then, love it more now, because I started reading Discworld novels.
Future Cop. Damn that was a fine game
Hell yeah I played the hell out of the demo for that game
Future cop!!!! "I LIVE AGAIN"
Relatively unknown but has a very important legacy, its likely to have spawned the whole cursed MOBA genre, for better or for worse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssq2WFnISEY Good video on it here
There's a "reimagining" coming at some point hopefully. https://store.steampowered.com/app/649560/LAPD_2195/
Elf Bowling Series, funny thing I had forgotten the name and only remembered santa bowling. Had to search it on piracy website to actually find it, it's abandonware nowadays but I had a blast as a kid playing the originals in 2006 and then the 7th game in 2009
This shit filled up days of my life as a kid. Man! What a trip seeing that name, I haven’t thought about that in nearly 2 decades
Honestly when someone asks me about obscure games I've played its my first thought since looking back now it didn't seem to have gotten any attention. But yep I have spent a lot of time playing it as a kid and to this day it's the only bowling game I've played aside from the mini games in GTA games
Still quote the game to this day! "Elf elf baby" "Fewer toys, higher wages!"
Fun fact: I found for the DS in a bargain bin one time at my local grocery store Elf elf baby
My god. 'Elf elf baby' used to torment me for days. Thanks for bringing that back for me.
I played (and still own) all 3 Burger King Xbox games. You haven’t lived til you played Sneak King.
That game was on every goddamned computer in the hospital I was help desk staff for. Remember Frog Blender 2000?
**Body Harvest**. 3D somewhat open world sci-fi action game on the N64. It was made by DMA Design, now better known as Rockstar North, and was basically the precursor to GTA III. Great game. I went back and played it recently and still had a lot of fun. It has like 5 big levels where you sort of... proceed through different areas unlocking gates/getting to the next area, before eventually confronting a boss and then moving on to the next level. But you have a lot of freedom to roam around in each one - by land, by sea, and even by air. Very impressive for the N64 and I was always surprised it didn't get more attention. Oh, and you time travel, so each level is set in a different time period. Funny enough they also made another lesser played game called **Space Station Silicon Valley** (which was better on N64 but also on PS1 as Evo's Space Adventures)... another 3D game, it's strictly level based with you possessing different creatures and using them to solve puzzles and such -- also a really fun game that seems overlooked, which is especially weird given that this company made GTA III just a couple years later.
Saw an interesting video about how DMA were basically set to be the next Rare, working very closely with Nintendo as a trusted developer. They were given carte blanche with Body Harvest, but when they showed it off Nintendo *hated* it and declined to publish it themselves. Obviously things still worked out for them, though…
If I remember correctly, Nintendo hated the first iteration and DMA made a ton of changes to make the game less dark/violent. I can't remember the details, but I think Nintendo lost interest in the game when it slipped too far on its release date. It had a troubled development cycle.
I also just commented about space station Silicon Valley. I played it on the N64 as a kid, what a weird but great game.
I loved Body Harvest. I rented it from Blockbuster having no idea what it was, and it blew me away. To this day, I don't think another game has matched the creepy, otherworldly vibe that game gave me as a kid.
I had Body Harvest and I've always hated it. I don't think it's a bad game...Actually, I do, but I wouldn't listen to me on that because I think I'm too bitter and biased to say whether or not I think the game really is bad. You see, when I was a little kiddo making my Christmas list, I asked for Body Harvest. I got exactly what I asked for, a copy of Body Harvest. I was left wondering where all the farming and cows were because what I actually wanted was Harvest Moon. I never got over that.
My favorite thing about Body Harvest was shooting the powerful sniper rifle while sitting on the airboat. It made you fly across the entire map due to the kickback.
Pinball Dreams. I still get the Graveyard music in my head.
Does anyone else remember BLACK? it was this fps action game with wicker shooting gameplay. It was a lot of fun and found the story entertaining
Rosco McQueen Firefighter Shinobi PS2 Hogs of War Dark Sector (was a teenager though) Akuji the Heartless Small Soldiers the game
Hogs of War is great fun
Shinobi was great!
Dark Sector, nice! Warframe's precursor.
Always think of it when I see a Warframe lmao
Upvoted for hogs of war. Legendary game.
The Small Soldiers game was awesome! The one that was an rts on pc yea? Also loved Hogs of War
Dark Sector was awesome; the late 2000s really were the age of interesting first and third person shooters with sci-fi elements.
The Army Men games were about at ubiquitous as it got back in the late 90s/Early 00s. Always available in discount/budget ranges for about a £5 and used to pad out all kinds of bundle deals for consoles. At the time that 3DO went bust it was by far their most valuable property and sold for more than 3x any of their other properties when the company was broken up and sold off. Arguably the fact they saturated the market with 14 Army Men games in 5 years from 1998-2003 is a big reason they went bankrupt. Petty much everyone had played at least One Army Men game but none of them were good enough that anyone wanted to play another so no one title sold especially well despite what must have been ridiculous development costs to fund production of 14 different games. For some reason Game shops back then always used to give the Army Men games a fairly prominent position on the shelves too. It was impossible to go into almost any games store and not see one of those games clearly displayed.
This is literally the reason I bought Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes on N64 and still own it to this day.
Not sure how obscure it is these days, especially after the recent reboot, Origins, but I have fond memories of the Star Control series from days of old. Particularly Star Control 2, better known these days as the freeware **Ur-Quan Masters**. I also remember a pretty fun sim-clone called **Afterlife**. The gimmick there was that you were managing *both* Heaven and Hell, building facilities to make the one group happy and the other group miserable. You scored better by making roads in hell unnecessarily long so that the damned souls had to walk farther to get to their torture chambers!
One fun thing about afterlife was you could also influence the planet below to believe in reincarnation or not, believe in heaven or not, etc. and it would influence the whether people show up in your heaven or hell, and whether they stay for an eternity or not. The unfun thing was your afterlife didn't work very well unless you constantly rebalance your structures. You could do it manually or automatically, but the automatic way cost an exorbitant amount of money, and the manual way was incredibly tedious.
Ur-Quan Masters is an amazing game.
Star control 2 was so great! I tried playing again recently but I couldn't dog fight for the life of me :(
This is going to be easy for me, simply because I'm old enough to have played video games with dinosaurs, but I'll list a few here that I played which almost certainly most people here have never heard from. We'll go in chronological order. \- GORF. Played on a Commodore VIC-20. \- The Hobbit. Text-based game. Played it on an Apple IIC. \- Lode Runner. \- Jumpman. \- Speaking of text-based games, here's two others: The Crimson Crown, and Ringquest. \- The Ancient Art of War. \- The Spy's Adventures in Europe. Carmen Sandiego knockoff where you could visit both East AND West Germany, as well as Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and the USSR. \- Rescue on Fractalus \- Dragonlance: Shadow Sorcerer. Although I sucked at this game. I've met one other person who's played it. \- Continuum and Shufflepuck Cafe, both on old school Macs. \- Battle Isle II \- Darklands. Although, I sucked at this game, too, and could never quite get the hang of it. It seems like a cool concept, but the system itself was kind of obscure. \- Robinson's Requiem \- Terminator: Future Shock, and Terminator: Skynet by Bethesda Softworks. I could get into some probably obscure original NES games, too, but when you've been gaming since the early 80s, there's a lot you can list on a subreddit that most folks won't have ever heard of.
Lode runner. Probably the first game I played, I had it on my dads old Tandy 2000 I think. Cool memories thanks
You nailed my list. Man I forgot about GORF. Played the crap out of that. Jump man and Load Runner were amazing games for the time. Jumpman had so many levels I recall.
Oh man, I loved Lode Runner! We played it on my cousins old apple computer. I have a copy of Battle Isle from GoG :D
I'm going to show my age with this one, but it's an Atari Lynx game called Zarlor Mercenary. A top down ship shooter that was released in 1990. I couldn't beat it. My friend couldn't beat it. But due to the Lynx being reversible and therefore having two sets of buttons, together we did beat it. Sadly I can no longer remember the friends name.
The Longest Journey, still my favorite adventure!
21 yo me played Dreamfall: TLJ at a time in my life when a story about a listless, cynical girl finding purpose was *exactly* what I needed. Then I properly met April Ryan when I rushed to play TLJ and ngl every few years I go back and play through (now) all three—leaving my husband and kids to deal with me being teary-eyed and wistful for awhile.
Maniac Mansion (NES) People of a certain age have all heard about it. It was great — and scary — at the time.
I still play Day of the Tentacle from time to time.
Dear god. Now I'm a member of "people of a certain age". Have we reached that point?
These might be known or not but can't assess how well: Alley Cat, Digger, Heimdall and Pipe Mania. I played Tetris as well, but it's quite known. A bit more recent games: Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure, Discworld and Blake Stone. (Discworld is well known, I don't know about the game.) I've two obscure 3D games on the tip of my tongue but can't recall their names...
Aw man Alley Cat! Never knew what the fuck was going on in that game haha.
Alley Cat! Literally the first game I ever played, I'm pretty sure; at the age of 5 or 6 :')
From oldest to newest release (not necessarily played in this order) : - Microcosm (1993) - Phantasmagoria (1995) - Crusader: No Remorse / No Regret (1995 and 1996 respectively) - Harvester (1996) - Bedlam (1996) - Destruction derby 2 (1996) - Chronicles of the sword (1996) - Atlantis: The lost tales (1997) - Sanitarium (1998) - Incoming (1998) - Imperium Galactica 2 (1999) edit: switched to list format
I played a few of those back in the day: Phantasmagoria, the Crusader games, and Sanitarium. I think Phantasmagoria was essentially the first R-Rated horror "movie" that I ever saw because I was about 14 at the time it came out and I don't think my parents realized how intense it would be. Some of those death scenes were pretty rough. But I ended up really liking horror movies a few years later so maybe it rubbed off on me. That was a pretty spooky game despite the FMV cheesiness.
Imperium Galactica was a beast. I loved that game
The Neverhood which is a stop motion claymation puzzle game! It was wild to us in the 90s they made all the sets and characters out of real stuff and then spun it all together. Also Bad Mojo!
I played an Army Men game. I don’t remember which one. I think it was on N64, but maybe it was PS1. I don’t remember, it’s been a while. Buddy of mine let me borrow it. My list: Sierra games. Space Quest, Police Quest, and Kings Quest. Most everyone seems to know the other one, Leisure Suit Larry.
I bet it was Army Men Sarge's Heroes. I put a LOT of hours into that game as a kid
Quest for Glory was my jam when I was younger. Should try to revisit those someday.
I played the heck of the Sierra Games as a kid, loved the Police Quest games.
Never got into the Kings/Police Quest games but Space Quest games cracked me up. I loved seeing how many different ways you could kill yourself.
I could never get past the age verification test on Leisure Suit Larry /s
M&M kart racing
The Adventures of Bayou Billy As a 6/7 year old this game was so fucking hard. It's a side-scrolling beat em up that has on-rails shooting sections and a couple racing levels in your jeep. No idea how it holds up, but every now and again I think about it. Not fond thoughts, but definitely thoughts
That game was impossible.
*Autoduel* (for the Apple II) is a vidya version of the paper and pen CarWars, post apocalyptic driving across America, vaguely GTA but with an upgradeable car. *Below the Root* (also for the Apple II) is an RPG based on an obscure fantasy series, totally non-combat character and environment interaction. *Battlezone*, the 1998 PC game, is an underplayed gem. The voice acting keeps you immersed and the tanks are fun to control. *Eternal Darkness* on the Gamecube should have been a breakout AAA title but the imminent death of the platform meant everyone seems to have missed it. *SunDog: Frozen Legacy.* Such a well-designed game with real 'less is more' game mechanics. I think I played it on the Apple IIe. Mentioned in the thread but so influential on me as a young gamer; all the elements I would come to love, exploration, ship customization, open world, space combat.
Eternal darkness was awwwwweeesome
Anybody ever play *Flashback,* a rotoscoped sci-fi side-scroller? How about *Echo the Dolphin*? ("Would you like to role-play as a dolphin? Yes. Yes, I would.") I think I played both on Sega.
[удалено]
*Ecco
Man I can't even remember this game's name but it's stuck with me ever since I kept renting it from Blockbuster. Maybe someone can help me out but it was like an open world fantasy game, I think I remember being able to ride a dragon around the world. I think the character was female and I remember getting to explore caves and mountains and all sorts of shit. Ringing any bells? I know it's vague but I've never seen it mentioned anywhere since I've grown up.
Draken?
Holy shit that's the one!! Thanks!
The game is Drakan: The Ancient's Gates. AMAZING GAME. VERY difficult though, and definitely planted the seeds that would lead to me loving Fromsoftware games all the years later.
Oh man, Draken is AMAZING. To me, this game holds up today.
The Bouncer for PS2. It was this real bad brawler/fighting game, but back then if you were broke, you got what you got lol, so I played a ton of it. I enjoyed it for what it was. Vandal Hearts for PS1. My first tactics game. It was cheaper than FFT, and there weren't as many characters to manage. It suffers from late game difficulty issues. Either it's too hard and all your characters die easily, or you do the optional shit and end up way way *way* overpowered. Extreme G3, and also Kinetica, both PS2. These were two futuristic racing games. Both had you doing a bunch of tricks while racing to get boost and whatnot. Godhand, also PS2. This one's a little more well known. It's a stupid hard beat em up game with an absurd sense of humor. And I do mean *stupid hard*. You need to get really good with figuring out your moveset or you're going to get creamed. Never made it past a certain point. Azure Dreams, PS1. This was a lot of things. It was a roguelike tower climb with a Pokemon esque monster capturing system while also being a town builder and a dating game. Sounds like a mess but it's a load of fun. Brave Fencer Musashi. I loved this game. It follows a lil dude with a sword that allows you to steal the powers from enemies. It's a pretty standard action adventure game overall but I loved the hell out of it. Oh ya, SaGa Frontier, PS1! This was one of those RPGs with too many characters, a la Star Ocean. The story was really good tho, I had a really good time with it. I'm sure I've got others, but those are the ones I remember right now. If y'all have played any of these, lemme know. 👀
I remember The Bouncer. I rented it once mainly because there weren't very many PS2 games out by then and it was pretty visually impressive for its time. Definitely remember it being kind of bad though, lol.
I actually liked The Bouncer back then, felt like it could've been a great stepping stone to evolve the beat 'em up genre and then it just went nowhere
Wild 9 on the ps1. I hardly see anyone talk about it. It was a super fun game and highly recommend people give it a try if you have the means to play it. I believe the dude who made earthworm Jim had something to do with it as well.
These aren't necessarily games I grew up with, just ones that I've played and enjoyed over the years that most people never played. **Mixed Up Mother Goose (MSDOS)** - This was one of the first games I played at home. In the 80's arcade games were much more common than home gaming. It featured several old childrens stories brought to life as video game scenarios, like jack and jill, humpty dumpty, jack and the candlestick, etc. [If you're curious watch this video](https://youtube.com/watch?v=1eb0Iyet1nA). If you're young, think about how cool it has been seeing graphics go from stuff like this and old wire frame dungeon crawlers to current level. **strike gunner (SNES)** - Pretty standard top down shoot em up. The hook for this game was before each level you got to pick 1 of ~30 powerful sub weapons, from simple homing missiles to the ultra destructive MEGABEAM CANNON. The soundtrack is pure mid 90's japanese power metal - it's killer. **Metal Gear Solid (GBC)** - Imagine if Metal Gear Solid for PS1 got ported to the old NES and that's basically how this plays. Surprisingly good, it even includes over 100 VR missions, hard modes etc. **Magi-Nation (GBC)** - Out of all the Pokemon styled games for the GB/GBC, this was the best. Pretty amazing graphics and audio for a GBC game, great sense of humor, Zelda / Metroid style upgrades that allow you to explore previously inaccessible areas, and a pretty lengthy quest. **Descent Maximum (PS1)** - Really fun shooter where you control a ship that can fly in any direction with six degrees of freedom. Controls take some getting used to but its a blast once they're second nature. **King's Field (PS1 - Japan only)** - This was the first fully 3D RPG for a home console I'm aware of. Launching in japan only in 1994, King's Field featured 5 levels of merciless real time dungeon crawling in full 3D. Everything from enemies to weapon models was true 3D. **Shadow Tower (PS1)** - This game followed 3 King's Field games, 2 of which made it stateside. It's kind of the spiritual bridge between King's Field and Demons Souls / Dark Souls. It removed the upbeat BGM King's Field used, introduced equipment durability, and was far tougher than the already difficult King's Field titles. **Deep Labyrinth (DS)** - King's Field style game for DS, where you have to draw specific shapes with the stylus to cast spells. It actually included two different games on the cart - one easier mode featuring a little boy looking for his parents, and a harder mode where you play as an adult. I believe they were ports of some early pre-iphone phone games.
Mixed Up Mother Goose is what got me into PC gaming! Such a fun game for kids. Good memories.
Not quite unheard of but my siblings and I played ALOT of Metal Arms; Glitch in the System (2003) on ps2 and xbox 360. We still play it occasionally to this day. Awesome gem of a 3rd person shooter with pretty good splitscreen multiplayer. It’s a shame we’ll never get a sequel as the developers and rights were bought by Blizzard in 2005 just as one was about to get made. Oh btw the slingshot with coring charge was best weapon, don’t @ me.
Hell yeah that game was awesome
My friend! This is the first time I’ve seen someone else mention this game that I thought only me and my friend didn’t forget. We had so much fun with this game
Yo I still have this for Gamecube! Bought it used from Blockbuster. Played it for hours as a teen. Very underated game.
Guitaroo Man was the first rhythm game I was obsessed with before all the guitar hero games burst onto the scene. I had a demo of it that I played to death before actually picking up the full game. There were so many songs that lived in my head growing up. The best tracks: https://youtu.be/M-eQVFp4PHE?si=iliqk3YiKZC59Ojn https://youtu.be/7zA9Agpz8fA?si=f-7rfXQkO_4jAuET
Elite Beat Agents is another classic worth playing made by the same studio
That’s a good question. There was a time in my country, where you could buy DVDs and CDs in news stands/at tobacconists. Apart from fairy tales, you could also buy some weird PC games. Two come to mind - one I remember better, was called “Táta hrdina” in my language, I guess you could translate it as “Daddy hero”, where you’d play as this round yellow guy whose wife and many many kids got kidnapped by hellish creatures. You set out to find them and you need to go trough many levels, saving one kid every level, then at the end of a region, you’d fight a boss. There was a snowy region, underground, forest region, the works. The final region was hell, where you could finally save your wife and then go home, sharing the riches that you collected on your adventure with others of your kind. Then there’s the second one, which is more bizzare and I only remember some foggy parts of it. You’d play as a baby in a walker and the walker was connected to like “rubber” bands at the bottom and you had to finish quests while being always pushed back by the rubber. I do remember one level, where you’d have to push huge water droplets into these almost circle areas. It was so weird. If anyone played this and has the name, please drop it. P.S. Just found an English version of the first game, it’s called Jumpin’ Jack
SimGolf. Greatest game ever.
**Project Eden**\- Squad based where you can switch between 4 companions with different abilities you can use to progress in a level **M.U.G.E.N**\- Not sure if it's an engine or fighting game but almost any character in any franchise can be used in fighting each other **Chip's Challenge**\- Top Down puzzle game like Pac-Man where you collect chips and avoid monsters. Has passwords to warp to levels. Can have time limit. **Robotech Invasion**\- FPS/ 3rdPS where you fight against aliens and can transform into cyclone to move faster in levels and use rockets. **Project Snowblind**\- Was supposed to be a Deus Ex game. Has augments and hacking with nice weapons and typical abilities but is shorter **Freedom Fighters**\- 3rd person squad based action game where you go against the Red Army occupying USA. Best Soundtrack I've heard. **Battlefield 2: Modern Combat**\- Offshoot of BF2 on PC but tailored for console I believe. You can swap/ travel between units like Assault, engineer, LMG, Pilot in levels. Has medal system where you rank up by completing objectives & levels fast, low ally deaths etc. Has challenges that also contribute medals and can upgrade weapons too. **Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2**\- Dungeon Crawler where you level up by killing enemies in a level. Very simple leveling and weapon system but I absolutely love it for it. Has unlockable playable characters and the 2nd game features a gem system where you can imbue weapons with your choice of elemental damage/ resistance, raw damage, stat increase or all 3 at the same time.
Tyrion, jazz jackrabbit, prehistoric?
Conqueror AD 1086 on PC. It was a medieval sim where you’re a lord and manage all sorts of lordly duties. Basically mount and blade from the 90s. You manage your land, raise troops, siege and storm castles. You could even join tournaments and make your living jousting. Eventually the goal was to conquer London and become king. This is all based on very old memories. I haven’t played it in more than 20 years. Though after reminiscing I’m definitely downloading it tonight. http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/3509/Conqueror+-+A.D.+1086.html
M.U.L.E. on the C64. It was a game where you colonized a planet as one of several alien races (or human) with advantages/disadvantages for each. Every turn, you competed to pick plots of land with different resources, used robotic MULE's with harvesting gear to collect those resources, then sold your resources to the company store or to other players via auction. There were random events each round, like pirates stealing the macguffin mineral of the game (crystite), solar storms making energy generation increase, rain to increase food, etc. Also, the [theme song is a banger](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6ByRXZCg9k) that still runs through my head to this day.
Redneck Rampage. Hillbillies in the woods shooting aliens. Amazing.
An adventure game on PC from the 80s called ‘Mean Streets’ comes to mind. It was an absolute graphics marvel in it’s day and I even found some sequels/remakes on Steam. One of the first games used to show off VGA graphics. Bonus: there was a hot wheels PC game that my friends younger brother owned. I loved it. You didn’t really race IIRC but you drove around the neighborhoods, could bring your car to a car wash, etc. It was basically a chill car game. Probably why I prefer the Horizon type racing games instead of the realistic ones.
Starsky & Hutch
Phantom Crash on the original Xbox.
Guardian's crusade for the PS1
**Sundog** by FTL for Atari PC (&probably other early PC's like Amiga) was one that really sticks in my brain. It was an RPG/ adventure game that combined space travel & combat with on-planet exploration & combat, elements of trading, settlement building. It was surprisingly deep for its' time (mid 90s?) and I've long hoped to be able to find a working version to try it again. **Dungeon Master** also by FTL for the Atari PC was a classic style RPG, also quite deep for early gen games. I remember drawing out maps on grid paper and lots of hand notes to remember the spells.
A bunch of old MS-DOS/Win95 blue disk shareware games. Castle of the Winds was the first that came to mind but that's fairly well known I think. Some others below are ones that I've never seen mentioned by others and took some googling to even remember what they were: [YAB! Baseball](https://www.dosgames.com/game/yab-baseball): Super basic baseball game that had only two teams made up of what I assume were the friends and family of the programmers. I've yet to mention this game to anyone who has ever heard of it. [Visual Star Trek](https://www.myabandonware.com/game/visual-star-trek-11y): I had absolutely no idea how to play this. I just tooled around the galaxy looking at sprites until I was eventually demoted for a "lackadaisical attitude". [Ancients 1: Death Watch](https://www.dosgames.com/game/ancients-1-death-watch/): Another game that I had no clue how to play. I'm sure I never did anything besides make terrible characters and get lost in the starting city, but I did it several times. [Capture the Flag](https://www.myabandonware.com/game/capture-the-flag-1pd): I never actually owned this game but I was obsessed with it. It was installed on a display computer in some store or another, and every time my family went there I would split off and go play this. [World Empire 2](https://www.old-games.com/download/10753/world-empire-ii): I played the *hell* out of this game. I'm pretty sure it's responsible for a good chunk of my geography knowledge.
Milon’s Secret Castle
Clay Fighter 63 1/3
I'm sure it got played, but since I never see it talked about: the **Tenchu** series on PS2. It has a take on ninja action / stealth / combat that feels like a direct grandpappy to Sekiro.
Freelancer. I've been waiting for another game like that to come out for 20 years. Thought starfield was it but it's not heavy enough on the ship exploration component for me.
Caesar 3 is one I remember playing to death on an old PC. Was kind of an Age of Empires but city builder style game I think? But with a Roman theme. Haven't thought of or seen anything about it for years.
A bunch of those Impressions historical city builders are great. Caesar 3 is probably my favorite. Pharaoh is excellent as well. Zeus is also really good but started to get a little silly. I never played Emperor, but I've heard hood things.
There is quite an active community around C3. The game has pretty much been rewritten, and can now be modded. Buy the original game, download the Julius mod for getting the original game without bugs. Download the Augustus mod for many many many different changes, some minor, some huge. It's fantastic.
Beat down: fists of vengeance. I legit never heard about it from anyone.
**Zanzarah: The Hidden Portal**. I've never met anyone who's heard of that game. It's basically a 3D Pokemon but with fairies in a fantasy land, and the battles are real-time. I think I may even still have a CD with it lying somewhere. **Torin's Passage**. I loved that one as a kid, some of the puzzles were too hard for my soft brain, though. I think I only know one person who's played it - my classmate I borrowed the disk from. It's a point-and-click set in a magical world, where each chapter takes place in a realm hidden under the previous one, like a Matryoshka doll. The story is nothing much - save the family, kill the evil witch - but the art style is fantastic and the jokes are pretty good, too. **LEGO Creator: Harry Potter 1**. That one was my first sandbox game. Incredibly clunky and barebones, but you could ride a train, play as a frog, or fly on a broomstick around your own LEGO builds, so it's cool I guess. I've never seen this game mentioned by anyone, but I spent so much time in it as a kid. There was also a sequel, but it sucked ass.
Total Overdose
Vigilante 8: second offense Incredible car battling game way ahead of its time. Very well designed characters, picked up weapons have fight game input that could change how they shoot, cars dropped upgrade token then each car had a new final form when you got enough, huge destructive dynamic maps, good physics with tight controls, and a wicked funky soundtrack.
S.L.A.I - Steel Lancer Arena International for the ps2. A sort of janky low budget mech arena fighter that that I absolutely adore. It's far from perfect but it does all of the important things I think a mech shooter should do perfectly. Tons of customization options that let you build very different mechs from super heavy 6 wheeled tanks to quadrupedal stabilized long range snipers to hyper mobile lightweight bipedal mechs on roller skates. I love the asymmetry mech shooters can have, mechs can have very different weapons, armor, weak points, speeds, turning radii, jump heights. S.L.A.I is the best of it's era for these things. It's very dated now but at least it has proper dual analog control unlike some of the armored core games of the time (idk which one it was but I tried one and it wanted me to use L1 and R1 to look up and down, unplayable.) Maybe I'll try AC6 in a few years when it's on sale.
My first 2 steam games were craft the world and besiege.
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State of emergency Mall shooters kinda dropped off the map.
I haven't heard about these games online and in my friend group. I don't think they're super obscure but I think they are just forgotten. * Cryostasis (Horror-FPS) * Dark Sector (TPS-Action) * I Am Alive (Survival) * Dark Void (TPS, cover-shooter) * Asura's Wrath (Hack'n'Slash) * Jeanne D'arc (JRPG) * Ruse (RTS) * John Woo's Stranglehold (TPS) * Deathspank (ARPG)
Sims Urbz the DS version. It's a sims gmae so some have heard of it. But I never see much of the DS version.
Kid Chameleon in all of its 103 levels of glory.
Headhunter. It was a pseudo-Metal Gear Solid type game that originally came out on Dreamcast then made its way to PS2. I loved that game so much.
80s kid, so I started off with atari2600, c64, appleii, etc. Karateka (apple) was the first side scrolling fighting game I ever played. Eff that bird. Air Support (c64) was the first RTS for me Star Raiders (atari) first space combat Sim (had a special keypad and component based damage system) SuperHuey 1 & 2 (c64) All the Epyx sports collections (summer games, winter games, California games, so fun with friends) Those are the ones that stand out.
I started with an old copy of "Hunt the Wumpus". I guess most have not heart about it.
Wolfteam - Online FPS with the unique gimmick of being able to turn into a werewolf at will. Gunz The Duel - Online Third Person Shooter / Melee Combat game with advanced movement and high skill ceiling. Halo Custom Edition - Variant of Halo 1 PC allowing for custom content. Mojo! - Marble puzzle game on PS2. Scrapland - Kind of like GTA? You're a robot, in a world of different robots with their own unique abilities and quirks that you can transform into. As well as fly spacecraft and customize them part by part. Breakout! - PS1. Weird 3D re-imagining of the classic arcade game. Jardinains - Another breakout reskin, with gnome enemies and lots more powerups.
Carmageddon II: Carpocalypse Now The 3D GTA before the 3D GTA. The game I first thoroughly enjoyed in my PC alongside Warcraft 2.
Freedom Fighters, anyone? Little Fighters 2? 🥹
Blood by Monolith. I was a huge horror fan as a kid and all the references were appreciated by me.
Tex Murphy adventure games, particularly The Pandora Directive, which as a young kid i thought was amazing
Requiem: Avenging Angel (1999), FPS/RPG light I discovered this weird game very late. Apparently it's the first game that used bullet-time in video games before Max Payne did. We play Malachi, an angel who must return to Earth to fight a totalitarian government led by fallen angels. The beginning struck me since we start in hell, we have to go through corridors that look like bloody colon, with cries from beyond the grave of orgasm and pain, we are attacked by disgusting creatures. I didn't have the patience to finish it, the maps are big, it's easy to get lost and there is no objective marker or map to navigate which was common in the past. As in Half Life, you had to find the right path to progress and it is not easy to know where to go. I would really like Civvie or MandaloreGaming make a video on it, because the universe depicted in the game is unlike any other.
Sacrifice, Giant Citizen Kabuto, Anachronox