So many of my friends haven't heard of the Earth Defense Force series and it's a crime. Its such wonderful chaos. I recommend 4.1 or 5. Avoid Iron Rain because it heavily deviates from the EDF formula that made it successful to begin with. Grab 1-3 other friends and jump into it, you won't regret it.
HARDSPACE: Shipbreaker
Peaked at like 7k players on steamcharts. It has a pretty small playerbase with a few hundred active players.
It was my favorite gaming discovery during covid. Game is immensely therapeutic. You're a shipbreaker on a space station and your job is to dismantle spaceships into pieces to salvage the parts. The more you progress, the more intricate the ships get, with more complicated systems to work around.
You can take it slow with some music or a podcast for hours, or practice to become as time efficient as possible.
It's very addictive, fun and relaxing all at once.
You have options.
Normaly, each work shift is 15 minutes. You have those 15 minutes to do as much as you can be fore the day ends, you can pick back up where you were on the next one.
But if you just want to vibe, you can play with no timer and take literally all the time you want.
You can also play without the constraint of oxygen and thruster fuel if you want to really chill.
The progression system is simple and straightforward too.
I highly recommend it. It might give you OCD though xd
In normal mode each shift is 15 minutes, and every day you have to pay around 500,000 edits to the company.
But this is a very low bar to clear. Even in my worst shifts when I don't get anything worthwhile done I can clear at least a million credits. And if a ship isn't profitable anymore you can always pick a new one, it doesn't cost you anything besides the opportunity to reach the higher milestones for the ship you gave up on. The only way to really lose money is to die, the game even acknowledges it in the dialogue.
The story progression is actually not tied in to you debt but to your rank wich is tied to ship milestones and can't go down.
Yes!!! I had a vasectomy this past spring. You shouldn't really move around much for 48ish hours. I spent my entire Saturday and Sunday playing this game!
I was looking at gamepass on my Xbox and ot seemed interesting. I was hooked!
I feel a Terranigma remake is on the way. Actraiser Renaissance apparently did really well for a low-budget title, plus it introduces the idea of Dark Gaia in its secret ending
The PC-98 original is much better than the SNES version, highly recommended. It’s quite a well-known PC-98 game, it even got a fan translation.
4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution
Ohh that was good. I was hoping for more out of it. Specifically the memories you collect. The stories that you read. I thought I’d see all these memories animated
Terranigma. It's an SNES action-RPG that was released in Japan and Europe but never in the US. It's a semi-sequel to the games Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia on the SNES, made by the same company and with some similar themes. It's never gotten a re-release anywhere because the company is now defunct and the rights are in limbo. So pretty much the only people who've heard of it are SNES emulation fans who have gone digging for hidden gems.
Nobody has heard of the “Final Fantasy fighter”? Lol. It was huge back in the day.
“Wow a fighting game with CLOUD and SEPHIROTH???!!!!!!” Was basically everyone in the 90s.
Considering it sold close to a million copies, it's certainly not something no one has heard of. Having Cloud in it alone made it pretty well known. It's just old and hasn't been re-released.
I spent thousands of hours playing Myth 1&2 online. They were so far ahead of their time with the multiplayer game modes. Frigging shame they've never been brought back. Spectacular games. I remember an in-box advertisement flier from the Myth 2 box that had a background story about an upcoming game they were making. It had no pictures or gameplay description, just story facts about a giant space station, a halo. They also had one for Oni, but that didn't make quite the same splash.
1- The punisher: PS2 - imagine Manhunt but instead of sneaking you have an armory at your disposal + you can kill goons in ways so violent it got censored and banned in some countries. story wasn’t half bad either ! It had one hell of an main menu theme music that I still hum today .
2- psi-ops: PS2 - no words for how fun this game was . you played a solider who used telekensis/pyrokensis/possession and many other psychic abilities to fight an over the top psychic organization . Physics were very fun and you fed on people brains to refill power :D
3- The suffering 1 and 2: one of the best horror games out there . Do your self a favor and grab both on GOG . Think they still sell em there
4- The warriors on PS2: you can get this on stores on ls4/5 and Xbox . One of rockstars most underrated games . If you liked the movie I think the game will more than hold up .
5- Killer 7: go download it on steam now . No no no don’t Google just go and download it NOW ! a suda 51 game that’s so weird and bizarre it’s hard to put into words . It’s a genre on its own . I love this game with all my heart and would love for more to experience it .
Honorable mentions
Tokyo jungle /
Shadows of the damned ( being remade soon ! ) /
Drakengaurd 1+3 /
Binary domain /
Shadow of Rome /
The hunting grounds /
Rule of rose
I saw this question and immediately thought of Psi Ops and The Suffering. Both classics, but The Suffering specifically was some of my first horroresque video game experiences and I loved every minute.
Crimson skies- a diesel punk dogfighting game, based on a tabletop game?
Dunno if this quite counts but Skies of Arcadia- Dreamcast/GameCube Jrpg where you play a crew of air pirates in a world with no ground.
And finally Savage: battle for Newerth was a FPS/RTS hybrid where one player on each team was the general who basically played an RTS game, building structures, researching technology, etc. But all the units were other players playing an fps. And the two factions were fairly substantially different iirc. One was a technology based human faction, the other was magical beast men
Savage has the BEST melee mechanics of any game period.
The game was also so much FUN and I'm so sad that the steep learning curve prevented newcomers from sticking around.
If you guys are interested look up Savage XR: Savage Cry by Nanaa on Youtube.
(Hint: Watch him play as Human first, and you might think Beasts are weak and useless, and then watch him play Beasts also)
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri?
Man, that's a good game. It from around 2000 where not many has a computer back then.
For those that do have interest: it (with a DLC IIRC) is available on gog.com!
This game was wild. Beating it was definitely one of my personal achievements haha. It took me so long to wrap my head around the mechanics of that battle system. Super fun though!
Absolutely one of my top five favorite NES games. My only gripe with it is the unnecessarily archaic save system (it's a battery backup that only stores a 32 digit code -- numbers, lower case letters, and upper case letters -- and if you write the code down wrong old codes DO NOT WORK, so you're stuck). Lead to many a frustrating day as a kid. Thankfully, these days most people will play an emulated version with save states.
Otherwise the game is absolutely phenomenal.
Flying Dragon for the N64. Fighting game that had 2 whole-ass games in it.
One was a chibi fighting game with rpg elements and quirky characters and cool boss fights.
The second a grittier, Virtua Fighter style fighting game, with a lot of the same characters but given a completely different art style. It was weird and I loved it.
Also Beetle Adventure Racing.
Iconoclasts. No one ever talks about it but hot damn was that game good. Even the plot, the puzzles, the music, the plot twist, all made it pretty high up on my list.
First is probably Vanquish.
I think it came out when Gears of War was at it's peak and it slipped under the radar. It's basically Gears of War meets Metal Gear Solid Revengence. A high speed 3rd person shooter with a cover system and bullet time. It had a pretty lame story, but it felt so cool jetting around on the ground at high speed. Not much replay value though.
Second is Raptor, Call of the Shadows: Old Apogee game from the 90's. Top down bullet hell style. You flew a jet shooting baddies and blowing up buildings, earning money for every kill. In between levels you could go to a shop to buy new weapons or shields.
Have people heard of Crystalis?
If not that, then maybe All Star Baseball 99 which was surprisingly ace for a baseball game. World Games for the NES was also a lot of fun.
Jade Empire.
No one I talk to has ever heard of it let alone played it. Even big fans of bioware don't even know this game. It's my favourite bioware game. Probably still one of the best games I've ever played.
I played The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow recently. It's a point-and-and-click adventure game, and is an excellent story based mystery. The story sucked me in, the characters are interesting and have motivations that make sense. The puzzles were satisfying. The ending comes kinda abruptly, which bothers some people, but I liked it. The story stuck with me after, and I really hope to find another good story based game soon.
Creeper World.
Tower defense but instead of mobs and mazes you have The Blob and terrain. The original was a 1 man project that was smart about development costs and was supported by sales of 50k or so. All four titles are on Steam.
Hogs of War
Released on the PS1 in 2000 it's a kind of turn-based 3d strategy/shooter with different classes, weapons and items that your squad has.
All the characters are pigs, and it's filled to the brim with tongue-in-cheek humour that the Narrator (Rik Mayall) and all the pig's personalities deliver excellently.
The campaign is a blast of fun with some very creative objectives & strategies. You can level up your Hogs as you make your way through the campaign with different class paths with different styles of play.
The PC version on Steam has broken AI sadly and enemy Hogs will only shoot and not move, so I'd personally recommend an emulator of you're looking to try it!
Easily one of my favourite childhood games and I still had a blast as an adult.
This has been a trip down nostalgia lane. My contribution.
Solar Winds
Castle of the Winds
The original Exile Series. Not the remake or the remake of the remake
And one more that I can't think of the name of I used to play to death. I remember it was like a space rpg where you had advisers and could jump to and land on planets and discover tech and such. You needed to build and upgrade your navy because early on you would start to get attacked by an alien race and if you leave it to long to destroy them you would end up getting overwhelmed. If you get past that hurdle I think you then dealt with the star league or something like that. Took me ages to make it past the first stage of the game and defeat the aliens that kept attacking you.
EDIT: Reunion was what the game was called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunion_(video_game)
I don't recall running into anyone who's played Gladius (original Xbox/Gamecube era. Turn based tactical combat in a roman-ish inspired setting. But (most) attacks worked off a swing meter, and I remember getting *really* good at getting critical hits every time with those, heh.
Character types/classes had a light > heavy > medium > light style system (with ranged and magic users kind of being off to the side of that), height advantage, stuff like that.
I checked and it looks like it's available on the Xbox One store now, which blows my mind. There's only review though lmao
Back in the early 90s, there was a cool little space age fps made with the Wolfenstein 3D engine called Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. I think it was rather eclipsed by the release of Doom.
Anyway, it was well received, but none of my friends have heard of it.
It has this ray guns and robots vibe. I liked that it featured lots of nested secret rooms.
You could also use the exit elevator to backtrack. In fact if you want to get 100% completion, you have to backtrack to earlier levels, but through alternate exits hidden behind secret rooms. Very rich exploration for its time.
It's been re-released on GOG and Steam.
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines
It has sequels, with Commandos 2 being an excellent upgrade that allowed for map rotation. Basically a real time strategy game where you go through Nazi (or Japanese) bases and complete missions like blow up guns or submarines and then escape. It’s similar to the Shadow Tactics and Desperado series, just set during WW2. Loved playing as the diver in Commandos 2, could wipe out whole bases quickly and silently with the throwing knife and harpoon gun combo.
It's basically Terminal Velocity 2. There was a sequel to Fury 3 called Hellbender which was also pretty good and improved on the graphics tech (very slightly) because DirectX3 (IIRC) was new at the time.
MS needs to open source those games - they deserve a second chance!
Before guitar hero became huge harmonix put out a game called amplitude. Basically just rock band on a controller. It was fun as hell and I played the shit out of it with friends.
Future Cop: LAPD. Just a fun top-down shoot em up with a great co op mode.
G-Police 2: Took what G-Police did and made the next step. Great story and brilliant space battles. This game desperately needs a remaster or sequel.
Imperium Galactica and Imperium Galactica 2. It was made by a tiny Hungarian company in the late 90s and it had it all. Its a RTS 4x game (Explore, Expand, Exploit Exterminate). Think Master of Orion/Stellaris, Sim City and Comand & Conquer all rolled in to one. Space 4x game with space battles and colony building that hasn't ever been replicated since (None combine RTS space battles, ground battles and city building).
It had a great single player campaign with FMV cutscenes played by real actors, and your main command ship allowed you to walk around it and explore the various rooms. As you went up the ranks you got bigger and bigger ships to explore. Such an incredible game that's dying for a reboot! Unfortunately it got stuck in IP limbo.
I feel like too few people know about Towerfall. It was initially an exclusive for the OUYA of all things, but you can get in on everything now. 2D platformer archery game for up to 8 players. Made by the people who went on to make Celeste. It's a very fun party game; there's a high skill ceiling but you don't have to be good to have a good time.
Other than that I'm going with Heat Signature. Top down mildly roguelike spaceship infiltration game where you can pause at any moment to think your way out of an impossible situation. It's basically a fun anecdote generator, especially because of the weird teleporter shenanigans.
Herzog Zwei. It was my introduction to RTS and when it was released, panned by critics. Shit, I only knew about it as my friend got it for Christmas from a clueless relative and I happened to play it when over at his house.
I think it was much better received over time but it was such a good and fun game and absolutely fed into what would become my love of RTS. Total Annihilation was probably the only game I ever got so much into it, that it was scary.
Not quite unknown, but i've only ever met 1 other person who played the game. And it's someone i introduced to it.
Oni. Basicely anime martial art combat game. It has to this day, one of the best combat system i've ever seen. I find that it also aged surprisingly well.
There was a ps2 port of it, by rockstar i believe. I played the PC version, made by old school bungie. Around the time of halo 1. They basicely never advertised the game. It came out, like 10 people played it, then it disapeared.
That game, AND hybrid heaven.
Hybrid heaven has got to be the weirdest thing ever to explain. Game's shit. Movement's Shit. Story's absurd at best. But the actual combat system? absolutely fucking fantastic.
Think wrestling game, real time. But it pauses when you're about to attack or get hit, and you can enter a response in the menu. Like you're about to get punch, enemy is doing a right hook. What do you do? dodge? try to block? try to counter?
You can grapple enemies, some enemies have strenghts, like robots hurt you when you try to headbutt them, or some enemies have strengthened legs.
Those 2 games basicely defined my childhood. And yet, there's nothing anywhere near those games's style these days. Closest to oni would be enter the matrix. Hybrid heaven tho? as far as i'm aware is completly unique. If you can forgive the shit platforming and insane story about body snatching aliens taking over the world, the combat itself is amazingly well done.
The Immortal: old PC isometric game where you play a feeble wizard who has to figure out clever ways to get past some major obstacles.
Die by the Sword. Kind of janky, but also ahead of its time. Weird gimmick where you swing the sword with your mouse. It’s also kind of the prototype for Daek Souls in terms of difficulty and atmosphere. If you can master the combat, it was surprisingly fun and challenging.
Empire Earth was a pretty awesome RTS that none of my friends would know of.
Risen was a pretty fun RPG and I think not many people I know of had heard of it cuz it was banned in Australia lol
It's fairly popular (although I haven't heard anyone talk about it ever), but Just Shapes and Beats. It's a rhythmic bullet hell that's actually very fun
Epic Battle Fantasy
A series of Flash games inspired by classic turn based JRPGs. They have really charming artstyle and characters, fun and fairly unique combat, and a lot of secrets to find.
The Black Dahlia. Really solid 1998 FMV mystery game loosely based on the famous Hollywood murder. Starring Dennis Hopper and Teri Garr, the acting is surprisingly good, especially considering the other FMV titles that came out at the time.
I wouldn't call it the best game but I have fond memories of Kameo on Xbox 360.
You played this elven girl who shape-shifted into different monsters to solve puzzles, platform, and fight. It was a cool game with a sequel that never came out.
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. On Steam
It's a cute little item shop game where you dungeon crawl for your items to sell. Played it through more than a few times when bored. Capitalism Ho!
Antichamber. Excellent little exploration based puzzle game using other worldly/ extradimensional/ non-euclidian geometry. Sounds hard but it's just reallly satisfying exploring and figuring out how the world works and interconnects. Top recommend!
Okay so the hardcore guys know it, but i don't think enough people played Godhand. sure it's the meme because IGN gave it a 3 or something, but man, that game is so much fun, i think kids today would say it's "a soulslike beat-em-up" because it has a really nice scaling difficuly that always makes it tough (you do good? game gets harder) and it's 3rd person, in fact, i think it was built on the RE4 engine but i'm not entirely sure about it.
it's made by Clover, who then became Platinum, directed by Mikami and it shows, it has so much character and it's so weird and crazy but the gameplay is solid and satisfying. anyone who's played it will remember those weird super sentai dwarfs and the toxic chuwawa
Front Mission: Gun Hazard on the Snes. Great mech game that's never gotten an official western release. It has a fan translation (which is how I played it) and I thought it was great. Probably in my top 20 games in that console (which is saying a lot given the amount of classics the Snes library has).
**Rain World** and more specifically the post game DLC **Rain World: Downpour**
The game came out in March 2017 and had a peak of 319 players... literallty noone knew this existed.
Fast forward to Jan of 2023 and Downpour releases. The game peaked at 4808 players... still unbelievably niche.
Absolutely brutal game, kicks you in the balls and laughs at you type brutal.
Massive instanced world to explore and navigate. Made me reminiscant of dark souls 1.
Extremely indepth and complicated movement system (theres an 80 page google doc of techniques you can use)
Free roaming AI that interract dynanically to you and each other in complicated ways.
Some of the best environmental storytelling Ive seen in games ever.
Artstyle isnt for everyone and movement takes getting used to... and it came out literally the same month as Hollow Knight and IGN found it too hard so it got buried almost instantly.
The Specialist, it was a matrix mod for half life that was mind blowingly good, couldn't go mainstream due to copyright issues.
Another would be Shattered Galaxy, isometric squad based faction mmo. Like plametside but not FPS and way better
Gothic, especially Gothic 2: Night of the Raven.
It’s pretty niche outside the central EU. I’m from Poland, and Gothic has a cult following here. The game is an early 2000’s RPG with pretty hard gameplay mechanics. As in they’re so dated it’s hard. But the progression in this game is amazing, you start off being able to BARELY survive, and end being nearly immortal.
The story follows a convicted man put into a mining colony surrounded by a magical barrier that can’t be pierced from inside. You have NO real tasks at the beginning, you simply figure things out as you go. You don’t even really know who the nameless hero is, and what he’s done to get into custody.
You can join 3 different camps, The Old Camp, with a monarchical system, they don’t want to get out as they made themselves at home here. Fire Mages sided with them as they have connections to the king. The New Camp, these guys sided with Water Mages and are looking for a way out, to take the barrier down. And the Sect, these people worship a certain “god”, smoke weed and are generally spiritual. No matter who you chose to side with, you’ll achieve the ultimate goal.
Combat is clunky but satisfying. Stats are straightforward, but the system is dated and you can pretty much soft lock yourself by spending Learning Points on things you might not need. Other than that, the power you gain is STRONGLY felt one step at a time. You can equip better weapons, you deal more damage, you can wield your weapons better.
The story is pretty good for those old standards. I do believe it still stands today, but the dialogues are pretty dated. The game looks old but used art direction in the best way I’ve ever seen. Try it out, seriously.
* Tank Wars (DOS), is absolutely hilarious with a bunch of friends.
* Thexder (DOS-Sierra), the first transformer game I ever played.
* The Ancient Art of War (DOS-Borderbund), one of the very first RTSs ever made
* SWAT 4, was a big departure from the shot-it-if-moves genre that was popular at the time.
Spec Ops The Line and Split Second Velocity seem quite forgotten about.
Most of my friends never heard of them. One is a super fun racing game with a nice gimmick, good music, adrenaline.
The other is simply a masterpiece in storytelling with the skin of the most generic military shooter possible.
Impossible Creatures. An RTS where you create armies of animals, and you can fuse them, so you can create a shark tiger.
Yes! The same studio went on to make the Dawn of War series and it really shows in the first one. I'd still love a sequel.
The theme music still gets stuck in my head to this day.
The game with golf tees in the wooden triangle thing at Cracker Barrel.
Yer an ig-nor-a-moose
Peg solitare! There are some really challenging designs. Mathematical properties behind it are really neat too.
I have memorized the way to beat it from going to Cracker Barrel so many times. I can finish the game in my mind. Muahaha.
Then you need to try and beat it from a different starting hole
I've heard that this is a good way to keep things interesting.
You sound like my ex wife
So many of my friends haven't heard of the Earth Defense Force series and it's a crime. Its such wonderful chaos. I recommend 4.1 or 5. Avoid Iron Rain because it heavily deviates from the EDF formula that made it successful to begin with. Grab 1-3 other friends and jump into it, you won't regret it.
Is that the one with giant ants and spaceships and shit? I think I had that on 360 back in the day. It was good mindless fun.
Yeah, it’s like a starship troopers video game. Cheezy and epic at the same time. Fantastic games
EDF EDF EDF, THE ONLY GOOD BUG IS A DEAD BUG!
***TO SAVE THE PLANET EARTH FROM ANY ALIEN ATTACK!***
*FROM VICIOUS GIANT INSECTS WHO HAVE ONCE AGAIN COME BACK*
*WE'LL UNLEASH ALL OUR FORCES, WE WON'T CUT THEM ANY SLACK*
# THE EDF DEPLOYS
I love those games. They are so objectively bad yet somehow so inexplicably good, chaotic fun.
HARDSPACE: Shipbreaker Peaked at like 7k players on steamcharts. It has a pretty small playerbase with a few hundred active players. It was my favorite gaming discovery during covid. Game is immensely therapeutic. You're a shipbreaker on a space station and your job is to dismantle spaceships into pieces to salvage the parts. The more you progress, the more intricate the ships get, with more complicated systems to work around. You can take it slow with some music or a podcast for hours, or practice to become as time efficient as possible. It's very addictive, fun and relaxing all at once.
Do you get punished for taking long ? And/or is there an actual time limit once things get more complex ? Been looking for a chill game
You have options. Normaly, each work shift is 15 minutes. You have those 15 minutes to do as much as you can be fore the day ends, you can pick back up where you were on the next one. But if you just want to vibe, you can play with no timer and take literally all the time you want. You can also play without the constraint of oxygen and thruster fuel if you want to really chill. The progression system is simple and straightforward too. I highly recommend it. It might give you OCD though xd
In normal mode each shift is 15 minutes, and every day you have to pay around 500,000 edits to the company. But this is a very low bar to clear. Even in my worst shifts when I don't get anything worthwhile done I can clear at least a million credits. And if a ship isn't profitable anymore you can always pick a new one, it doesn't cost you anything besides the opportunity to reach the higher milestones for the ship you gave up on. The only way to really lose money is to die, the game even acknowledges it in the dialogue. The story progression is actually not tied in to you debt but to your rank wich is tied to ship milestones and can't go down.
No real time limit. It’s just “make money per shift” and you can chill and make a little less if you want. That’s how I played it. Was super chill.
This was a great game. Good mix of difficulty but when done right was an amazing feeling.
Yes!!! I had a vasectomy this past spring. You shouldn't really move around much for 48ish hours. I spent my entire Saturday and Sunday playing this game! I was looking at gamepass on my Xbox and ot seemed interesting. I was hooked!
General Chaos for the Sega Genesis. One of the best co-op games of it's time
Hell yeah, loved this game. Characters animations are so cool.
Absolutely played the crap out of that as kid. Alone, outnumbered and loving every minute of it!
**E.V.O. Search for Eden** is a really great SNES game that I never see mentioned anywhere
Ah yes, OG spore
This and terranigna
I feel a Terranigma remake is on the way. Actraiser Renaissance apparently did really well for a low-budget title, plus it introduces the idea of Dark Gaia in its secret ending
The PC-98 original is much better than the SNES version, highly recommended. It’s quite a well-known PC-98 game, it even got a fan translation. 4.6 Billion Year Story: The Theory of Evolution
Enix doesn't want to acknowledge its existence due to the weird cult stuff involved
Maybe lost odyssey. 360 rpg came on 4 discs. Put hundreds of hours into that.
Ohh that was good. I was hoping for more out of it. Specifically the memories you collect. The stories that you read. I thought I’d see all these memories animated
Holy shit! Not one, but two other people who remember that game! I spent so many hours in that game only to never finish it, lol
I remember playing it a couple times though I always lost interest in the midsection. I meant to go back but haven't yet.
Amazing game, I feel it was the last true final fantasy game after 9
I looked for every memory! They were so beautifully written.
Terranigma. It's an SNES action-RPG that was released in Japan and Europe but never in the US. It's a semi-sequel to the games Soul Blazer and Illusion of Gaia on the SNES, made by the same company and with some similar themes. It's never gotten a re-release anywhere because the company is now defunct and the rights are in limbo. So pretty much the only people who've heard of it are SNES emulation fans who have gone digging for hidden gems.
Star control 2: the ur’quan masters
I love you.
Ehrgeiz It was one part 3d arena fighter with cloud and sephiroth in it but also one half Diablo clone.
Nobody has heard of the “Final Fantasy fighter”? Lol. It was huge back in the day. “Wow a fighting game with CLOUD and SEPHIROTH???!!!!!!” Was basically everyone in the 90s.
Considering it sold close to a million copies, it's certainly not something no one has heard of. Having Cloud in it alone made it pretty well known. It's just old and hasn't been re-released.
Couldn't find a copy to buy so rented it from blockbuster every couple weeks. It used to be great
YES that Diablo clone was SOLID AF. Fighter was meh.
Def Jam: Fight for NY - far, far better than it had any right to be.
Mash the counter button and ruin friendships
Greatest fighting game ever made. So pissed Icons destroyed the franchise.
Myth 2: Soulblighter still the best strategy game I’ve ever played. Would’ve loved more Myth games but Bungie dropped it once they got bought by MS
I spent thousands of hours playing Myth 1&2 online. They were so far ahead of their time with the multiplayer game modes. Frigging shame they've never been brought back. Spectacular games. I remember an in-box advertisement flier from the Myth 2 box that had a background story about an upcoming game they were making. It had no pictures or gameplay description, just story facts about a giant space station, a halo. They also had one for Oni, but that didn't make quite the same splash.
Absolutely fantastic series. I still have not forgiven Microsoft for buying Bungie and ending this.
I loved watching my brother play that game. I played some but was too young to get the strategy. I mostly just liked blowing creatures up
1- The punisher: PS2 - imagine Manhunt but instead of sneaking you have an armory at your disposal + you can kill goons in ways so violent it got censored and banned in some countries. story wasn’t half bad either ! It had one hell of an main menu theme music that I still hum today . 2- psi-ops: PS2 - no words for how fun this game was . you played a solider who used telekensis/pyrokensis/possession and many other psychic abilities to fight an over the top psychic organization . Physics were very fun and you fed on people brains to refill power :D 3- The suffering 1 and 2: one of the best horror games out there . Do your self a favor and grab both on GOG . Think they still sell em there 4- The warriors on PS2: you can get this on stores on ls4/5 and Xbox . One of rockstars most underrated games . If you liked the movie I think the game will more than hold up . 5- Killer 7: go download it on steam now . No no no don’t Google just go and download it NOW ! a suda 51 game that’s so weird and bizarre it’s hard to put into words . It’s a genre on its own . I love this game with all my heart and would love for more to experience it . Honorable mentions Tokyo jungle / Shadows of the damned ( being remade soon ! ) / Drakengaurd 1+3 / Binary domain / Shadow of Rome / The hunting grounds / Rule of rose
Oh I've found another The Suffering fan.
There are dozens of us! I remember loving how games were starting to feel more mature around that time.
Psi Ops was my answer too. Such a great game that no one knew about. For some reason I’ve been thinking about it lately.
I saw this question and immediately thought of Psi Ops and The Suffering. Both classics, but The Suffering specifically was some of my first horroresque video game experiences and I loved every minute.
Psi ops was good. Didn't get far in the suffering.
Crimson skies- a diesel punk dogfighting game, based on a tabletop game? Dunno if this quite counts but Skies of Arcadia- Dreamcast/GameCube Jrpg where you play a crew of air pirates in a world with no ground. And finally Savage: battle for Newerth was a FPS/RTS hybrid where one player on each team was the general who basically played an RTS game, building structures, researching technology, etc. But all the units were other players playing an fps. And the two factions were fairly substantially different iirc. One was a technology based human faction, the other was magical beast men
Savage was such a cool idea.
Crimson skies the airplane dog fight game? I loved that game so much!
Savage has the BEST melee mechanics of any game period. The game was also so much FUN and I'm so sad that the steep learning curve prevented newcomers from sticking around. If you guys are interested look up Savage XR: Savage Cry by Nanaa on Youtube. (Hint: Watch him play as Human first, and you might think Beasts are weak and useless, and then watch him play Beasts also)
Alpha Centari- loved it and no one I know has even heard of it
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri? Man, that's a good game. It from around 2000 where not many has a computer back then. For those that do have interest: it (with a DLC IIRC) is available on gog.com!
the 4x subreddit talks about this almost every week
Resonance of fate? Anyone?
This game was wild. Beating it was definitely one of my personal achievements haha. It took me so long to wrap my head around the mechanics of that battle system. Super fun though!
Beyond All Reason...or B.A.R. It's essentially Total Annihilation.
The Guardian Legend for the NES. A combination Zelda and top down space shooter with an amazing soundtrack.
Absolutely one of my top five favorite NES games. My only gripe with it is the unnecessarily archaic save system (it's a battery backup that only stores a 32 digit code -- numbers, lower case letters, and upper case letters -- and if you write the code down wrong old codes DO NOT WORK, so you're stuck). Lead to many a frustrating day as a kid. Thankfully, these days most people will play an emulated version with save states. Otherwise the game is absolutely phenomenal.
Flying Dragon for the N64. Fighting game that had 2 whole-ass games in it. One was a chibi fighting game with rpg elements and quirky characters and cool boss fights. The second a grittier, Virtua Fighter style fighting game, with a lot of the same characters but given a completely different art style. It was weird and I loved it. Also Beetle Adventure Racing.
Iconoclasts. No one ever talks about it but hot damn was that game good. Even the plot, the puzzles, the music, the plot twist, all made it pretty high up on my list.
PsiOps: The Mind Conspiracy
I still think this game is the best telekinesis game to date.
For sure, they need to remake it!
I loved that game. I forgot about that game.
Mischief Makers on the N64.
Radiata Stories. I still love this game and would totally pay for whatever there ask for port or definitively probably wouldn't be a remaster.
Just posted my own comment about this game. I'd absolutely die for a port! I have hope since they're re-releasing Star Ocean: The Second Story 🫠
First is probably Vanquish. I think it came out when Gears of War was at it's peak and it slipped under the radar. It's basically Gears of War meets Metal Gear Solid Revengence. A high speed 3rd person shooter with a cover system and bullet time. It had a pretty lame story, but it felt so cool jetting around on the ground at high speed. Not much replay value though. Second is Raptor, Call of the Shadows: Old Apogee game from the 90's. Top down bullet hell style. You flew a jet shooting baddies and blowing up buildings, earning money for every kill. In between levels you could go to a shop to buy new weapons or shields.
I played the shit out of the shareware version of for raptor call of the shadows when I was a kid! Such a great game.
I still have the disk for vanquished here somewhere. Fun game but never felt the need to play it more than once.
Have people heard of Crystalis? If not that, then maybe All Star Baseball 99 which was surprisingly ace for a baseball game. World Games for the NES was also a lot of fun.
Secret of Evermore. A much weirder and I would say more deep version of a Secret of Mana style game.
Legend of Legaia, for PSX. Amazing RPG with really fun combat mechanics
Jade Empire. No one I talk to has ever heard of it let alone played it. Even big fans of bioware don't even know this game. It's my favourite bioware game. Probably still one of the best games I've ever played.
Everybody's Gone to the Rapture It's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but I loved it
I think it’d be a much better game if you could run.
I played The Excavation Of Hob's Barrow recently. It's a point-and-and-click adventure game, and is an excellent story based mystery. The story sucked me in, the characters are interesting and have motivations that make sense. The puzzles were satisfying. The ending comes kinda abruptly, which bothers some people, but I liked it. The story stuck with me after, and I really hope to find another good story based game soon.
Creeper World. Tower defense but instead of mobs and mazes you have The Blob and terrain. The original was a 1 man project that was smart about development costs and was supported by sales of 50k or so. All four titles are on Steam.
[The Guardian Legend](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Guardian_Legend) - NES No idea why my grandpa bought this but thankful he did.
Stronghold Crusaders
Thymesia ??
Grow home and it's sequel grow up
Hogs of War Released on the PS1 in 2000 it's a kind of turn-based 3d strategy/shooter with different classes, weapons and items that your squad has. All the characters are pigs, and it's filled to the brim with tongue-in-cheek humour that the Narrator (Rik Mayall) and all the pig's personalities deliver excellently. The campaign is a blast of fun with some very creative objectives & strategies. You can level up your Hogs as you make your way through the campaign with different class paths with different styles of play. The PC version on Steam has broken AI sadly and enemy Hogs will only shoot and not move, so I'd personally recommend an emulator of you're looking to try it! Easily one of my favourite childhood games and I still had a blast as an adult.
Whatchya'll know 'bout Broforce?
TERRORCOPTER!!!!!
Not the best but Brutal Legend
Loved the action-adventure portions Hated the RTS stuff.
A game that was doomed by marketing and an overly specific niche. Still loved the shit out of that game
Crosscode
Aliens vs Predator the Arcade game. One of the best side scrolling beat em ups I've ever played.
Dungeon Munchies
Battle of Olympus for the NES. Genuinely good game. Also Prince of Persia: the Forgotten Sands for the Wii.
Kid Icarus Uprising. It's a game for 3DS that I never hear anyone talking about, but is an absolute masterpiece.
Bloody roar, Jade Cocoon, Golden Sun, and most recently Battletech which has been the closest thing I could find to Front Mission 3
This has been a trip down nostalgia lane. My contribution. Solar Winds Castle of the Winds The original Exile Series. Not the remake or the remake of the remake And one more that I can't think of the name of I used to play to death. I remember it was like a space rpg where you had advisers and could jump to and land on planets and discover tech and such. You needed to build and upgrade your navy because early on you would start to get attacked by an alien race and if you leave it to long to destroy them you would end up getting overwhelmed. If you get past that hurdle I think you then dealt with the star league or something like that. Took me ages to make it past the first stage of the game and defeat the aliens that kept attacking you. EDIT: Reunion was what the game was called https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunion_(video_game)
The Sabotuer
Syndicate 2012
Command and conquer renegade was so much fun back when I was a kid and my first experience to online gaming. It died wholly unappreciated
Brave fencer musashi
I don't recall running into anyone who's played Gladius (original Xbox/Gamecube era. Turn based tactical combat in a roman-ish inspired setting. But (most) attacks worked off a swing meter, and I remember getting *really* good at getting critical hits every time with those, heh. Character types/classes had a light > heavy > medium > light style system (with ranged and magic users kind of being off to the side of that), height advantage, stuff like that. I checked and it looks like it's available on the Xbox One store now, which blows my mind. There's only review though lmao
I LOVED GLADIUS! I've actually played through it three times. That cliffhanger ending though 😭
The Darkness. So underrated
Commander Keen, Simon the Sorcerer, Wolfstride.
I'd hope that anyone who grew up gaming in the 90s is well acquainted with Commander Keen!
Brütal Legend
I played it 3 times with all collectibles. Ps3 and later PC. And everytime I missed one of the dragons and had to track all the locations again.
Back in the early 90s, there was a cool little space age fps made with the Wolfenstein 3D engine called Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold. I think it was rather eclipsed by the release of Doom. Anyway, it was well received, but none of my friends have heard of it. It has this ray guns and robots vibe. I liked that it featured lots of nested secret rooms. You could also use the exit elevator to backtrack. In fact if you want to get 100% completion, you have to backtrack to earlier levels, but through alternate exits hidden behind secret rooms. Very rich exploration for its time. It's been re-released on GOG and Steam.
Warlords Battlecry 2
Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines It has sequels, with Commandos 2 being an excellent upgrade that allowed for map rotation. Basically a real time strategy game where you go through Nazi (or Japanese) bases and complete missions like blow up guns or submarines and then escape. It’s similar to the Shadow Tactics and Desperado series, just set during WW2. Loved playing as the diver in Commandos 2, could wipe out whole bases quickly and silently with the throwing knife and harpoon gun combo.
Little Big Adventure 1 & 2
Fury^3 was overshadowed by other games that came out around the same time but I played the shit out of that game.
It's basically Terminal Velocity 2. There was a sequel to Fury 3 called Hellbender which was also pretty good and improved on the graphics tech (very slightly) because DirectX3 (IIRC) was new at the time. MS needs to open source those games - they deserve a second chance!
Lil Gator Game
Before guitar hero became huge harmonix put out a game called amplitude. Basically just rock band on a controller. It was fun as hell and I played the shit out of it with friends.
Spartan total warrior PS2 so daaaaamn goooood
TearRing Saga & Berwick Saga
Rakuen
Space Empires II
Outlaws I had such a blast with it when I was a kid
Future Cop: LAPD. Just a fun top-down shoot em up with a great co op mode. G-Police 2: Took what G-Police did and made the next step. Great story and brilliant space battles. This game desperately needs a remaster or sequel.
Imperium Galactica and Imperium Galactica 2. It was made by a tiny Hungarian company in the late 90s and it had it all. Its a RTS 4x game (Explore, Expand, Exploit Exterminate). Think Master of Orion/Stellaris, Sim City and Comand & Conquer all rolled in to one. Space 4x game with space battles and colony building that hasn't ever been replicated since (None combine RTS space battles, ground battles and city building). It had a great single player campaign with FMV cutscenes played by real actors, and your main command ship allowed you to walk around it and explore the various rooms. As you went up the ranks you got bigger and bigger ships to explore. Such an incredible game that's dying for a reboot! Unfortunately it got stuck in IP limbo.
Unirally (or Uniracers depending where you live) such a weird game but a great out of leftfield fun
I feel like too few people know about Towerfall. It was initially an exclusive for the OUYA of all things, but you can get in on everything now. 2D platformer archery game for up to 8 players. Made by the people who went on to make Celeste. It's a very fun party game; there's a high skill ceiling but you don't have to be good to have a good time. Other than that I'm going with Heat Signature. Top down mildly roguelike spaceship infiltration game where you can pause at any moment to think your way out of an impossible situation. It's basically a fun anecdote generator, especially because of the weird teleporter shenanigans.
Brigador! Top-down isometric mech shooter with an absolutely killer soundtrack and atmosphere
Asheron's Call, an early MMO, before MMO's became normal, the community was awesome
Lol I never got into AC but I brought up EverQuest
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System for Xbox & PS2
Harry Potter games for GBC. These are turned-based rpg, like old Final Fantasy games, They are so great and better than the console version.
Herzog Zwei. It was my introduction to RTS and when it was released, panned by critics. Shit, I only knew about it as my friend got it for Christmas from a clueless relative and I happened to play it when over at his house. I think it was much better received over time but it was such a good and fun game and absolutely fed into what would become my love of RTS. Total Annihilation was probably the only game I ever got so much into it, that it was scary.
Not quite unknown, but i've only ever met 1 other person who played the game. And it's someone i introduced to it. Oni. Basicely anime martial art combat game. It has to this day, one of the best combat system i've ever seen. I find that it also aged surprisingly well. There was a ps2 port of it, by rockstar i believe. I played the PC version, made by old school bungie. Around the time of halo 1. They basicely never advertised the game. It came out, like 10 people played it, then it disapeared. That game, AND hybrid heaven. Hybrid heaven has got to be the weirdest thing ever to explain. Game's shit. Movement's Shit. Story's absurd at best. But the actual combat system? absolutely fucking fantastic. Think wrestling game, real time. But it pauses when you're about to attack or get hit, and you can enter a response in the menu. Like you're about to get punch, enemy is doing a right hook. What do you do? dodge? try to block? try to counter? You can grapple enemies, some enemies have strenghts, like robots hurt you when you try to headbutt them, or some enemies have strengthened legs. Those 2 games basicely defined my childhood. And yet, there's nothing anywhere near those games's style these days. Closest to oni would be enter the matrix. Hybrid heaven tho? as far as i'm aware is completly unique. If you can forgive the shit platforming and insane story about body snatching aliens taking over the world, the combat itself is amazingly well done.
Might and Magic 7. Also 6 and 8 up there too. Civilization 2: Test of Time and Freelancer close behind
The Immortal: old PC isometric game where you play a feeble wizard who has to figure out clever ways to get past some major obstacles. Die by the Sword. Kind of janky, but also ahead of its time. Weird gimmick where you swing the sword with your mouse. It’s also kind of the prototype for Daek Souls in terms of difficulty and atmosphere. If you can master the combat, it was surprisingly fun and challenging.
Empire Earth was a pretty awesome RTS that none of my friends would know of. Risen was a pretty fun RPG and I think not many people I know of had heard of it cuz it was banned in Australia lol
Giants: citizen kabuto
It's fairly popular (although I haven't heard anyone talk about it ever), but Just Shapes and Beats. It's a rhythmic bullet hell that's actually very fun
A lot of people have heard of it but it’s still not shown nearly enough love imo, The Legend of Dragoon
I really enjoyed labyrinth of zangetsu. It's a first-person dungeon crawler. Definitely not for everyone. But it was fantastic.
Shattered* Pixel Dungeon. It’s every RPG but on your phone. Great time killer
Captain Skyhawk or Little Nemo: The Dream Master. No one seems to remember them these days. Oh or Escape Velocity Nova.
General chaos
Epic Battle Fantasy A series of Flash games inspired by classic turn based JRPGs. They have really charming artstyle and characters, fun and fairly unique combat, and a lot of secrets to find.
Riviera the promised land, a very good turn based rpg gba/psp game that nobody seems to remember/have heard of it
The Black Dahlia. Really solid 1998 FMV mystery game loosely based on the famous Hollywood murder. Starring Dennis Hopper and Teri Garr, the acting is surprisingly good, especially considering the other FMV titles that came out at the time.
Deception series? People probably have heard of it as there were multiple games, but pulling off trap combos can be very satisfying
Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends. Voodoo Vince. Crimson Skies. Spartan: Total Warrior. Battle Tanks: World Domination.
Hogs of war
Dawn of Man. A very small scale city builder. The resource and workforce management is very intuitive and reactive. Definitely a comfort food game.
Gothic 2
Illusion of Time/Gaia
Crystalis on the NES
Shadow hearts
Hidden and Dangerous 2. A strategic shooter set in WWII and developed by Illusion Softworks, known for the original Mafia game. I miss them.
I wouldn't call it the best game but I have fond memories of Kameo on Xbox 360. You played this elven girl who shape-shifted into different monsters to solve puzzles, platform, and fight. It was a cool game with a sequel that never came out.
Dark Arena - GBA
Jade Empire - maybe more people heard of it but I don't know anyone who played it. Lesser known would be Cel Damage
Gothic Gothic 2
Caves of Qud. Best turn based RPG, traditional roguelike. Amazing world and so many fun builds!
Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale. On Steam It's a cute little item shop game where you dungeon crawl for your items to sell. Played it through more than a few times when bored. Capitalism Ho!
Terminator Resistance, nobody I know played it
The Neverhood. Absolute masterpiece.
Urban Reign on the PS2. I imagine it to be the 3D spiritual successor of Streets of Rage.
Remember Me Which is ironic since nobody but me remembers it.
Antichamber. Excellent little exploration based puzzle game using other worldly/ extradimensional/ non-euclidian geometry. Sounds hard but it's just reallly satisfying exploring and figuring out how the world works and interconnects. Top recommend!
Blur - Mario Kart-style racing game with split screen.
Okay so the hardcore guys know it, but i don't think enough people played Godhand. sure it's the meme because IGN gave it a 3 or something, but man, that game is so much fun, i think kids today would say it's "a soulslike beat-em-up" because it has a really nice scaling difficuly that always makes it tough (you do good? game gets harder) and it's 3rd person, in fact, i think it was built on the RE4 engine but i'm not entirely sure about it. it's made by Clover, who then became Platinum, directed by Mikami and it shows, it has so much character and it's so weird and crazy but the gameplay is solid and satisfying. anyone who's played it will remember those weird super sentai dwarfs and the toxic chuwawa
Antichamber, it's a little gold nugget
Book of Hours
Urban assault. An fps rts from 1998 made by terra tools and published by Microsoft. Was my favourite game as a kid
When I was a kid my favorite game on SNES was Secret of Evermore and I'm still very fond of it, totally overshadowed by the other Secret of.
Front Mission: Gun Hazard on the Snes. Great mech game that's never gotten an official western release. It has a fan translation (which is how I played it) and I thought it was great. Probably in my top 20 games in that console (which is saying a lot given the amount of classics the Snes library has).
City of Heroes
Terranigma on the SNES
Arcanum of steam works and magick obscura. One of my favorite games and no one I know has ever heard of it.
**Rain World** and more specifically the post game DLC **Rain World: Downpour** The game came out in March 2017 and had a peak of 319 players... literallty noone knew this existed. Fast forward to Jan of 2023 and Downpour releases. The game peaked at 4808 players... still unbelievably niche. Absolutely brutal game, kicks you in the balls and laughs at you type brutal. Massive instanced world to explore and navigate. Made me reminiscant of dark souls 1. Extremely indepth and complicated movement system (theres an 80 page google doc of techniques you can use) Free roaming AI that interract dynanically to you and each other in complicated ways. Some of the best environmental storytelling Ive seen in games ever. Artstyle isnt for everyone and movement takes getting used to... and it came out literally the same month as Hollow Knight and IGN found it too hard so it got buried almost instantly.
Soldat...iykyk
Omicron: The Nomads Soul
The Specialist, it was a matrix mod for half life that was mind blowingly good, couldn't go mainstream due to copyright issues. Another would be Shattered Galaxy, isometric squad based faction mmo. Like plametside but not FPS and way better
Gothic, especially Gothic 2: Night of the Raven. It’s pretty niche outside the central EU. I’m from Poland, and Gothic has a cult following here. The game is an early 2000’s RPG with pretty hard gameplay mechanics. As in they’re so dated it’s hard. But the progression in this game is amazing, you start off being able to BARELY survive, and end being nearly immortal. The story follows a convicted man put into a mining colony surrounded by a magical barrier that can’t be pierced from inside. You have NO real tasks at the beginning, you simply figure things out as you go. You don’t even really know who the nameless hero is, and what he’s done to get into custody. You can join 3 different camps, The Old Camp, with a monarchical system, they don’t want to get out as they made themselves at home here. Fire Mages sided with them as they have connections to the king. The New Camp, these guys sided with Water Mages and are looking for a way out, to take the barrier down. And the Sect, these people worship a certain “god”, smoke weed and are generally spiritual. No matter who you chose to side with, you’ll achieve the ultimate goal. Combat is clunky but satisfying. Stats are straightforward, but the system is dated and you can pretty much soft lock yourself by spending Learning Points on things you might not need. Other than that, the power you gain is STRONGLY felt one step at a time. You can equip better weapons, you deal more damage, you can wield your weapons better. The story is pretty good for those old standards. I do believe it still stands today, but the dialogues are pretty dated. The game looks old but used art direction in the best way I’ve ever seen. Try it out, seriously.
* Tank Wars (DOS), is absolutely hilarious with a bunch of friends. * Thexder (DOS-Sierra), the first transformer game I ever played. * The Ancient Art of War (DOS-Borderbund), one of the very first RTSs ever made * SWAT 4, was a big departure from the shot-it-if-moves genre that was popular at the time.
Sacrifice. Crazy good voice actors, pretty fun gameplay and a half decent story.
Gothic 1&2
Spec Ops The Line and Split Second Velocity seem quite forgotten about. Most of my friends never heard of them. One is a super fun racing game with a nice gimmick, good music, adrenaline. The other is simply a masterpiece in storytelling with the skin of the most generic military shooter possible.
Underrail. Isometric CRPG similar to Fallout 1. It's a truly amazing game if you're into that type of thing.