There are many games out there that are enjoyable and great, yet very few people get to experience some of them. What obscure or little-known games are your favorites?
My favorite obscure game is not too obscure, I think, but it sure feels like it. The game is Timesplitters: Future Perfect. I've always heard the second one is better, but I've never played it, only Future Perfect. It is my favorite FPS of all time. I love time-travel, and this game combines good FPS action with plenty of humorous moments in the story. The multiplayer, however, is the best part IMO. Hundreds of ridiculous characters to play as, loads of fun weaponry, good amount of game modes, lots of match settings, and some pretty awesome maps make the multiplayer something that I love to play in old-school couch split-screen with my friends. Add in plenty of challenge modes and a map editor, and to me, Timesplitters: Future Perfect is (no pun intended) the perfect FPS.
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One of the genre's I really miss from DOS days are the cannon/artillery games. Scorched Earth was by far one of the most involved game affairs of my youth. If one of my group of friends was able to find one of the rare machines with it installed around town / school, we'd huddle around doing 8-man games, laughing at our puny enemies when they had ran out of parachutes above our large digger or Death's Head that we intentionally shot in the mountain below them. Scorched 3D is a good modern port, but the hours I spent in it never really recaptured the mysticism that we had manually experimenting to find out the keybinds and learning what the 80 different weapons actually did (and how to tear everyone's ass up with bounce shields and fuel). Tommy's Gorilla Ball shareware game was a similar fond memory with the King Kongs on top of their respective buildings hurling exploding bananas at each other.
One I was just getting good at but never got to finish was called Midwinter. I still have the 3.5" isntall disks. I keep checking GOG to see if they have it, but so far, no luck. It was a future ice age scenario in which the local region had been taken over by a despotic ruler, and you had to fight in the resistance. Pretty fun game, but hard to master.
Grim Fandango. Besides being a fun and engaging game, you get lines like "This is my boss's secretary Eva. This is my boss's whipping boy Manny" or "Run away you stupid pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"
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- Rebuild: Gangs of Deadsville (manage a group of survivors taking back a city from Zombies, still early access, has two flash-game progenitors)
- Mount and Blade Warband (medieval mercenaries action/rpg/tactics
- Silent Storm (WW2 squad-based tactics, reminescient of X-com
- Xenonauts [basically a remke of the first X-com
- State of Decay (one of the most engaging Zombie apocalypse games I have ever played)
- Don't Starve [Sandbox survival game, great artstyle, grim humor
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+1 for Mount & Blade: Warband, definitely.
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How do I know what games are obscure?
I've heard of most of these even when I've never played them so I can't be sure.
Chaos Overlords. It was surprisingly deep for a game with such a simple interface. Taking over a city with your gangs never gets old. I would love to see an up-to-date remake of this game.
I'm a huge fan of the Creeper World series. I still play CW3 quite regularly.
I noticed Mount and Blade Warband is on steam for $5 this weekend so I bought it, damn this is a fun game.
State of Decay (one of the most engaging Zombie apocalypse games I have ever played)
+1 on this one. Compared to all the attention the Left 4 Dead and Walking Dead video games have received, I would say it has gotten a more obscure (cult-like?) status, yet it is a well-done zombie fighting/resource management game.
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FORCED. Looks like 4-player Diablo, but isn't. You switch out any of the 4 classes (archer, speedster, tank, burst damage) depending on the "challenge" you're on. Each level has 3 parts to it that give you rewards - completing the level itself, completing the "challenge" for that level, and completing the level within a certain time. The more parts of each level you do, the more you unlock on all of your characters (and the more levels you unlock as well). Awesome, addictive fun, regardless of how hard it gets later in the game. I wouldn't even wait for a sale to grab this knowing how good it is.
Arena: Cyber Evolution is still in its infancy (early access? can't remember offhand) but is a pretty superfun 3v3 air-hockey style game. I'm not usually one for sporting games, but this one's great, and free to play.
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Well, I don't know if they are obscure or not...
Conquest Frontier Wars
Best RTS game I have ever played. Part of what makes it unique are supply lines. If you run out of supplies, you are dead in space basically. That's why you have your supply lines. However, instead of a head on assault on someone, you can cut behind them if you can, and cut off their supply lines...makes for some awesome strategy.
Space Empires IV
This is turnbased, but I loved it.
I'm not certain how big this game is, but it's really fun
Port Royale and Port Royale 2.
You can be merchant, pirate, or other during the age of sail. I also like Port Royale 3 but I know some of the loyal fans weren't too thrilled with it.
The Holy Trinity of Underrated RTS Games:
GROUND CONTROL: for a game released in 2000, this still looks amazing. Fully 3D, tactics-based with no in-mission saving, the best artillery EVER seen in a video game and some genuinely brilliant mission design. It was also ridiculously hard. The sequel was almost as good.
HOMEWORLD: okay, not that obscure, but definitely not the big mega-hit it should have been. Brilliant atmosphere, terrific mechanics and gorgeous graphic design and music. Gearbox are releasing a special edition of both HOMEWORLD and HW2 (not CATACLYSM, sadly, as the source files are MIA) next year and there is a prequel game on its way from the original creators.
HOSTILE WATERS (aka ANTAEUS RISING in the USA): the one game I would like everyone on Earth to try out at least once. It's an RTS controlled in a completely different way to any other strategy game I've ever seen, it has the best AI of any strategy game I've seen (with individual AI personalities which are so distinctive you can see their effects on the battlefield) and it has some fantastic writing (courtesy of comic writer Warren Ellis). It also has an amazing voice cast, including Tom Baker (the Doctor!) as the narrator. Frequently named "the best game you've never played." It also has some of the best units I've seen in a game, particularly the helicopter equipped with a cloaking device and sniper laser (all the units are fully customisable with loadouts of your own choosing).
There's also ANACHRONOX, the greatest and funniest RPG you've never played ("I shall kill you...WITH DEATH!"), and the two FREEDOM FORCE superhero games which are almost illegally good fun.
One I was just getting good at but never got to finish was called Midwinter. I still have the 3.5" isntall disks. I keep checking GOG to see if they have it, but so far, no luck. It was a future ice age scenario in which the local region had been taken over by a despotic ruler, and you had to fight in the resistance. Pretty fun game, but hard to master.
MIDWINTER was really amazing. There was a sequel as well, FLAMES OF FREEDOM.
Grim Fandango. Besides being a fun and engaging game, you get lines like "This is my boss's secretary Eva. This is my boss's whipping boy Manny" or "Run away you stupid pigeons, it's Robert Frost!"
I'm looking forwards to the new edition out next year, complete with mouse controls and mildly updated graphics and sound.
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...that is all...
Doorkickers: A top down strategy game where you manage a SWAT team throughout hundreds of randomly generated missions. You can get it on Steam.
Going back to the old PS1 days here, and they may only be obscure here in Australia, but I always wondered why the Legend of Dragoon and Legend of Legaia never got more attention. I know that Legend of Dragoon is at least available on PSN on the North American and Asian PSN as classic games, but for some reason they never released it on the store here. Disappointing too, as it's not likely to be due to a licensing issue, since it was a Sony owned and developed title to begin with as well as having had a local release back when it first came out, but given that they seem to have stopped releasing more classic titles for the most part, it looks like it's something that won't ever be corrected.
Two newer, somewhat obscure games: Styx Master of Shadows (Dabove average stealth game with the boon of playing a Goblin)
Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms (great RPG/Action RPG, evocative story/world design)
I was really excited when I first heard about Styx, then I heard that the controls are diabolical and lost interest.
Going back to the old PS1 days here, and they may only be obscure here in Australia, but I always wondered why the Legend of Dragoon and Legend of Legaia never got more attention. I know that Legend of Dragoon is at least available on PSN on the North American and Asian PSN as classic games, but for some reason they never released it on the store here. Disappointing too, as it's not likely to be due to a licensing issue, since it was a Sony owned and developed title to begin with as well as having had a local release back when it first came out, but given that they seem to have stopped releasing more classic titles for the most part, it looks like it's something that won't ever be corrected.
Legend of Dragoon was a cool story, but it was incredibly frustrating to play if you were tired or couldn't manage the combos consistently.
Legend of Legaia was fabulous. I have my copy sitting upstairs.
Legend of Dragoon was a cool story, but it was incredibly frustrating to play if you were tired or couldn't manage the combos consistently.
Legend of Legaia was fabulous. I have my copy sitting upstairs.
The combos always just kind of clicked for me, never had any problems except with the gigantos character, whatever his name was. Timing was always just a little off with him.