Unreal Tournament, the one that was abandoned in favor of Fortnite (eugh). Like sure it would never be a big hit like Fortnite, Arena Shooters are out of fashion after all, but Epic didn't even give it a chance for starters, they basically just rushed it out the door with a skeleton crew, no budget whatsoever and were begging for community members to do free work on the game for them. In retrospect the game was doomed to fail from day one.
It STARTED from the work of community members. Then Epic jumped in and took over with the promise of their backing of the community team. Then once they had control over it they scuttled the ship.
Desert Strike was so cool.
I had forgotten about this game. It was a fun time. I think there was a Jungle Strike also
The last memory I have of Desert Strike going to a local video game and card game place (Heebeegeebees in Ogden, Utah before they expanded) with some of my siblings and buying this for some portable system (GBA?) and starting to play.
I then heard the owner (who was still in the shop back then) say “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”. It had transpired that one of my siblings had tried to steal something. Cops got called, fun times.
For those curious, the rumor was that the easy way was police and the hard way was him chasing you with a bat
Urban strike as well! I think it was urban strike that turned into a kind of top down shooter when you assaulted an enemy base about halfway into the game. 10 year old me could never get past that part.
Super Thunder Blade did this, same era too.
Someone is making a new one. I have it wishlisted on Steam. It is called Cleared Hot. Granted, I heard about it a LONG time ago and it still isn't out.
Soviet Strike was really good. One of the first PlayStation games I played (rented from Blockbuster!)
I remember being blown away by the video cutscenes in a game.
Woah, I didn't even know about this one.
OMFSM YES! I'd forgotten all about that great game!
I could never figure out how to not get blown to smithereens by the SAM sites.
Kill the radars. If you haven't killed the radar sites, the Rapier SAM sites are faster to detect, track and fire on you.
Holy shit thank you. I'm gonna go give it a try. Haha
Let me know how it turns out.
Game strategy advice for a 30+ year old game? I love this so much, you guys are awesome.
FreeSpace 1 and 2!
Time to install FreeSpace Open again. 😄 For those who have managed to miss that project: it's a completely rebuilt engine for FS2. Together with the MediaVPs from The FreeSpace Upgrade Project it makes the game look pretty modern again. Take a look at https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Getting_started if you need instructions.
I believe even there is even a mod available which allows playing the first FreeSpace in FSO.
These were godly at the time, but due to storytelling, modding community and mission editors. Flight model and combat mechanics were little too "Wing Commnder" even back then. Todays space pilots would need something more in line with Elite Dangerous, Helium Rain and Star Citizen.
I'd definitely play an updated Freespace game.
Btw btw you can co-op the campaigns with 3 friends
It's not really forgotten, but Wing Commander has been abandoned, and a proper modern rebuild of it would be fantastic.
If you like Privateer, check out Double Damage Games "Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw". Excellent game with a lot of sadly lost potential due to the dev being run out of game development by hostile and entitled "gamers".
Isn't Star Citizen a sort-of spiritual successor?
It was supposed to be. I have to admit I haven't paid any attention to it in many years so maybe things have changed, but it had turned into more of a vortex of ego, fleecing a fanbase, and sunk-cost fallacy, than a spiritual successor to anything.
Battle for Middle Earth. With the resurgence of RTS games lately, including many older ones getting remastered, I would absolutely love to see a proper remaster and release of BFME2. Unfortunately rights issues mean it's very unlikely to happen.
Total War: LOTR would be pretty neat
I've been wanting this game for a long time
Just a way to legally obtain a copy without paying hundreds of € for an old scratched CD would be nice
I don't know if it's forgotten, but it's forgotten to me. There was this ant game where you had a colony of ants that would go collect food, or attack other colonies. There was this very pixelated top-down map view where you could see the brightly colored food disappear pixel by pixel as they ate.
I can't figure out what the game was but I loved it.
Sim Ant ?
Nope, the other commenter got it. It was Microsoft Ants. Sim Ant is what most people guess when I have brought this one up before though. I'll have to try it sometime.
This is what it sounds like to me, and Sim Ant is the game I had in mind opening this post. It was a good one.
Thank you for reminding me of this game. I think it is Microsoft ants
Oh my God! Finally! I genuinely couldn't track down what the game was for years. Thank you!
Battleborne - I found it enjoyable but because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
Good lord yes. Overwatch is just a corporatized TF2 ripoff, but Battleborn was a creative, unique game with a soul.
Anyone who hasn't seen it should watch the game's intro cinematic, which gives a great sense of just how much character the game had.
Overwatch
Curiously both titles are dead nowadays, like literally dead.
because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
Sort of, the real issue was it had no advertising of its own, just Randy Pitchford synergising buzzwordsalad on twitter and trying to create a rivalry with Overwatch. Nobody really knew what it was supposed to be from advertising, because nobody thought to just say "FPS MOBA".
I remember seeing plenty of advertising for it and always saw it as a fundamentally different game with much more of a PvE focus. I didn't buy it until quite a while later but I remember being annoyed at the comparisons being made between them as they seemed so fundamentall different to me.
Oh I agree, what I mean is that the similarities were barely even superficial. They were both hero shooters, but so are Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Seige, and you'd never compare them to Overwatch.
Later, I realized Amy Hennig worked on these at Crystal Dynamics before leaving for Naughty Dog where she worked on the Uncharted Series.
Soul Reaver seriously needs a reboot. Soul Reaver kept getting mentioned a while back when Square Enix sold off Cristal Dynamics to pay for NFT scams, but no mutterings of a reboot/remake.
I remember some years ago receiving an email with a form asking many questions about Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, seemingly a market research thing.
Embracer
Welp, there goes all my hope
I remember that, and participated as well. IIRC, the response they got was significantly larger than their most optimistic predictions, so they are aware that there is big interest. Hopefully it lands somewhere that will actually complete the project.
Definitely Icy Tower
Also, not really a video game, but those desktop destroyer type games. I'm not sure what any of them were called but it was a fun waste of time in my computer class.
I can still hear the jumping sounds in my head! Thanks for the memory!
You're welcome!
Mass Effect Andromeda, the middle of that game dragged, but the first third was pretty good and the last third was amazing, but most people didn't stick through the boring middle to get there. I really wish it got dlc and sequels, I wanted to see where that story went.
Most people saw the facial animations and swore it off before even playing the game. Looking past it's flaws, I always felt it was a fine sequel, though the first game is definitely still the special one.
I'm one of those people that couldn't get past the middle part. Plus, something about that engine gives me terrible motion sickness after 30 minutes of playing.
If there is one game out there that I think deserves a second chance, it is definitely Alpha Protocol. This game came out in 2010 and was created by Obsidian Entertainment, the makers behind Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. This was the first-of-its-kind 'espionage RPG' with a truly, wholly unique dialogue system that has truly never been replicated since. Unlike mainstream RPGs of the time, you pick from several different 'tones' to speak in, in which gives the game hundreds of outcomes and dozens of endings. For example, according to Raycevick in a recent video, love interest can snipe you after a boss fight, poorly-treated damzels can attack you in the dead of night, contracts you're hired to kill can be baited into their demise through dialogue, and a whole host of other things.
The problem is that Alpha Protocol was lambasted by critics due to its incredibly buggy launch state and unpolished graphics. It never met the sales requirements that SEGA was expecting from it, and so, a few years ago, the game was pulled from all storefronts, never to be played again - until now. That's right. Thanks to the legends over at GOG for their incredible work, Alpha Protocol is back on sale, complete with achievements, localization, modern compatibility, and cloud saves. All without any form of DRM. But, the bugs in the game are still present to this day even in the GOG version, and so you might end up finding some humorous bugs and glitches.
An awesome RPG by Sierra (Fallout1+2). It was a bit unfinished, but you had such a great roleplay-experience.
A second part was planned using Source-Engine.
Also:
FCK
GNM
For isometric RPGs Arcanum truly was unique. The dialogue and story was polished to a brilliant shine in a fantasy world going through the industrial revolution. The soundtrack composed entirely of a somber string ensemble added so much to the narrative and feel of the world, as if its magic was slowly dying out to make way for industrial expansion and exploitation. It stands up there along with the original Fallouts and Planescape: Torment. It's a tragedy a sequel was never made. The only modern game that comes close to the aesthetics is the Pillars of Eternity franchise.
Operation Wolf.
Defender of the crown.
Gauntlet (and sequels).
The Settlers.
Syndicate.
Fury of the Furies.
Cooking Mama.
Tongue of the Fatman.
Turrican 1 and 2.
Zool.
Snow Bros. Nick and Tom.
Double Dragon.
Golden Axe.
Rick Dangerous.
Blake Stone.
Antix.
Screamer.
Soldat.
Speedball 2. Brutale Delux.
Lemmings.
Sid Myers Pirates!
Battle chess.
Shadow of the Beast.
Altered Beast.
Agony.
Strider (arcade)
Death Rally.
Stunt Car Racer (msdos)
Can add more soon
Blake Stone. Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in awhile
I agree with so many on this list and those I don't, I simply don't recognize. If add
7th Guest
Rune
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Operation Wolf
I loved that game! Think there was a sequel too, Operation Thunderbolt maybe?
Lemmings
Another classic. You might like the recent game Humanity, similar vibes, although quite different too.
Sid Myers Pirates! is one of my all time favorites!
I feel like many of these got at least a spiritual successor if not an actual successor. That counts as a second chance right and means they aren't forgotten?
Like Gauntlet has like 9 sequels and the last one released just 10 years ago. There's also many games that are heavily inspired by Gauntlet.
Same for The Settlers, which had a new game just last year.
Spore and Impossible Creatures
Kind of similar but these games are conceptually genius. How tightly Creativity and Strategic Interest are packed together is hardly seen ever again.
And animals are always a good idea. Even horrible games like Pokémon survive just because we like funny little friends.
I think this one was surpassed by X-Wing Alliance.
Age of empires 3. The civilizations are packed full of unique units, cards and mechanics compared to previous games. The card deck mechanics and treasures speed up the early game and allow for a lot more flexibility and adaptivess. The game looks beautiful the 2005 version kind of runs like shit but the definitive version has made a lot of balance and performance improvements.
Anddddd shooting formations of infantry with cannons is fun as.
It's my least favourite of the Age games, but that's only because it's such a highly competitive field. It still ranks very highly with me. Fantastic game.
Which was your favorite civ to play? I used to be a Dutch player but now I almost exclusively play Russian. I've been meaning to try out Malta and Ethiopia they look cool.
Hells yeah! I also mainly played Russians. Loved the strelet rush: it was the only build order I ever really put any serious effort into in AoE3. Also played a fair bit of Japanese.
I never played them more than a few times to test them out, but special shout-out to the Italians and the DaVinci Tank, which is an absolutely hilarious inclusion.
Destruction Derby 2 was loads of fun. I was going to say something like Choplifter, but I saw some video the other day that seems a perfect fit.
Not underrated, but I would love to have a next-gen SOCOM, and wouldn't say no to another Wipeout.
But hey, who doesnt need 43 new JRPGs?
F-ZERO. Truly a devastating loss. 99 is cool, but there's no guarantee we'll ever see a completely new title ever again. There was no other series with the same level of snappy controls, character design, music and challenge. It really is in a league of its own.
The original Unreal. For me it was a perfect combination of beautiful graphics (back in the days of course) and a soundtrack which complemented and elevated the atmosphere of that game. And the gunplay was nice, with a collection of somewhat unconventional weapons. A relic from a time where developers were not afraid to experiment a bit.
@Aganim The original Deus Ex also. Its story was brilliant and prophetic in a lot of ways.
As an example of a game, that actually got its second chance: the original Half-Life. Black Mesa is brilliant. I wish, other old games like Unreal and Deus Ex would have got a remake like that.
Yes, how could I forget Deus Ex. Incredible story and again such a wonderful soundtrack, not surprising as it was also composed Alexander Brandon, Michiel van den Bos, and Dan Gardopee.
As for Half-Life, that game was also something else. But part of me resents that game a bit because it overshadowed Unreal. 😋
The crazy variety of weapons and their interactions was great. Almost everything was dangerous in the right situation.
Blob gun? Charge it up! Blue laser thing? Shoot the ball form and shoot that for a huge boom! Double pistols? Max DPS in the game with no bullet curve!
The best maps too for CTF. Yeah, I loved that game, especially for in person LAN parties.
Unreal only had a single Automag though, so either you are thinking of Unreal Tournament or you played on a modded server. Some servers did have dual automags (I've still got a mod and mutator lying around to get them in single player as well) and dual Automags (Enforcer in Unreal Tournament) did indeed dish out major punishment.
Hunter: The Reckoning on the original Xbox.
Alley Cat for sure
Cue the tune in my head. Thank you, it's so lovely. 😍
Alley Cat actually got a second chance! Look up "Alley Cat: ReMeow"
Happy to see some fellow Alley Cat fans around!
Psi-ops. That game where you play a psychic special forces guy, fighting against other psychic special forces people, who were apparently your former coworkers or some shit. The ending was a setup for the sequel, but sequel never happened, now I will never know what the story was!
Man imagine this game with a proper modern physics engine.
I mean, I guess it inspired a lot of what we see in modern physics games, so I don't really need to imagine, but still, I would play it.
I feel like that’s what a netrunner build in CP2077 is. Sure, it’s not psi ops, but it’s basically magic brain spell attacks
The only way to play, imo.
That’s what I love about the game. It took them awhile to get there, but kamikaze ninja? Fun build. Pure netrunner? Fun build. Armored ballistic assault? Fun build. Hybrid between any of the builds? Also fun. The combat feels great no matter which route you take
Well now it actually hurts
Wildstar
WildStar got done dirty... It hit at the wrong time, but was so much fun. I could never get any friends to play with me. Le sigh.
I enjoyed Rampart tremendously back in the day. It had a lot of ports, but I'm surprised it hasn't had any remakes or clones in the last 30 years.
I even remember this as coin slot machine at a local arcade. It had trackballs as controllers. Truly unique.
Sounds s lot more fair than the experience I had at home!
Three kids crammed in front of one computer. One on keyboard, one on mouse and one on joystick. The one on joystick was at the worst disadvantage. A small nudge was a good way to sabotage rebuilding your fortress.
I had no idea Woody Harrelson was on Lemmy!
Dark cloud 2
Dark cloud 2
Freelancer
omg YES. Nothing I have found since then has quite scratched the same itch of flying around with a friend on some random dude's server. So much fun!
Everspace 2 is really close in terms of combat and overall gameplay, but it lacks the immersive simulation aspects. Freelancers idle radio chatter did some heavy lifting back in the day.
I'll have to give that one a try!
Word. The closest I found to the feel of Freelancer was X3 back in 2010, but the differences were glaring.
There this Underspace that seems to be a "Freelancer meets Cthluhu", I've yet to play the demo to get a feel of the space.
Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System
Dang. I thought I was the only person who had ever heard of this one. Might have to boot it up in an emulator one of these days and give it a go.
This was a great little game!
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
Blur
Guild Wars 1
GW1 had a great campaign that felt good to progress though. It had some grindy stuff at the end for players that wanted to keep playing past the missions but it wasn't required. Unlike GW2 that just feels like boring grind all throughout.
I don't know if it was nostalgia, or the story, or the gameplay... But, man, I miss that game.
It's still there and playable. I read that NCsoft is currently in some financial trouble so if you want to give it another try, better start sooner than later. ;)
Not forgotten or obscure but... Assassin's creed 3. Yeah the main character sucks but I love the missions and map. Also has just the right amount of pirate like missions (in 4 is too much). I don't understand why people loved 4 so much the story of that game sucks lol and the villains are so forgettable.
4 had a lot of issues, bad story, trailing missions and a lot of pacing problems. But it's the best pirate game ever made. And the ship combat was great
Like I said, too much piracy, you're not even an assassin's anymore... Also funny how there's so much praise online for that game yet NOBODY mentioned the villains. They're so forgettable. In the other games, even the bad ones I can remember a face or names, 3 had some of the best actually. 4 is just a blank space.
Put simply man, it's just a cool pirate game. The story was supplemental enough to kinda keep u going but the gameplay was the good part.
The main character is pale in comparison to Ezio, but I don't see how he suck.
He gets bitch talked the whole game and he lost at the end anyways lol... Doesn't make for a very enjoyable character. I really like how physically blunt and badass is though.
Blast Corp 64
Streets of Rage, even if it's just for the music
The original GTA, it somehow has the atmosphere of 80s/90s that only Více City could kind of replicate (and multiplayer was fun)
Streets of Rage
I thought 4 did rather well commercially?
Empire earth
I loved that one so much! The only flaw really was that the tech tree is incredibly massive. It's feels unnecessarily difficult to learn.
It's not underrated or forgotten, but LOTR two towers.
Drakan series needs reboot. I played Drakan; Ancient gates. That game was so much fun. The seamless transition from fighting on a dragon to fighting on your feet. The next level spell casting where you had to trace out the symbol to cast. The lore felt really deep like there was a lot of secrets they never fleshed out and ever since I’ve had an itch that never got scratched.
Sigma Star Saga for the GBA. Really creative mashup of an RPG and a side-scrolling shooter, with a cool weapon-configuration system thrown in. Definitely suffered a bit from platform limitations, but there's absolutely more that could have been done with the core concept.
Shockingly good writing, too.
Sentinel... From waaay back. Like, Commodore 64 age.
I think it would be a perfect VR game, too.
Wooooooaaaah. I was scrolling through looking to see if anyone was gonna mention this one.
There is also an indie VR game I've played that's heavily based on it, damned if I can remember the name tho. I believe it's on sidequest.
I own the remake, and I actually had a fan site for it...
And got to interview John Freaking Carpenter for that fan site, as he did the music for Sentinel Returns.
It was exactly as awesome as it sounds.
Ogre Battle. I'd love to play a game like that again. I think Unicorn Overlord took some inspiration from it so I'm excited to check that out.
The original Way of the Samurai. It was really cool and unique little game. The sequels never really followed through on the best parts of the first one though unfortunately.
wasn't super impressed with UO but I haven't gotten that far in it yet.
I'd love for there to just be more short games with branching narratives like WotS. Short games that are built to be replayed really spark something off in my brain lol.
I'm surprised with auto battler games having a moment that we haven't gotten any Ogre Battle inspired indies - just Unicorn Overlord. Still haven't played it, but it's on my to-do list.
I want a modern Road Rash or Destruction Derby.
Road Redemption was a Road Rash-esque attempt some years ago. I remember the performance was kinda shitty, but the game was mostly fine.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Lugaru and Overgrowth.
Recently replayed Yakuza & it very much held up
I'm currently playing Yakuza 0 and planning on playing the Kiwami editions of 1 and 2 afterwards. Would you recommend going back to the 2009 Yakuza 3 for the intended story progression after that or skip ahead?
Edit: found out about the 3-5 remasters, definitely gonna do those after Kiwami 2. Guess I have a couple of hours of aggravated assaults and saving damsels left. Gaming too 😛
Absolver. It was the precursor to Sifu, but with slightly slower and more methodical combat (more like a Soulslike, almost).
The coolest part of it is, as you play and fight players and NPCs, your character will slowly learn and unlock the moves that are used against them, which you can then put into your moveset and chain together with other moves to create your own style. If you don't want to do that, you can join a player-run school, and be given the fighting style of that school's master, which your character will learn as they use it.
The story mode is pretty short. It's mainly about PvP (although, before development stopped, it DID get a free DLC with a co-op dungeon run that's worth killing a couple of hours on). Of course, a PvP-focused game with nobody playing it isn't exactly the most entertaining thing to spend your time on, so- outside of a small collection of diehards- it pretty much stays a ghost town.
It had heart, it had ambition, and it had creativity. My friends and I were really hoping the success of Sifu would mean people might start going back and maybe breathing a little life into it, but that didn't happen. We hoped maybe they'd announce a second one, but that hasn't happened yet, either. It'll probably just be another Sifu. That one was a proven success, so it makes more sense.
The servers are still up for now. No idea how much longer it'll be supported. But, if you've got friends you can play it with, it might be worth looking into and seeing for yourself what the game offered, and what could've been.
kenshi is the post-apocalyptic life/ant sim that I never knew I wanted. There is no story other than what is in your head, and that's beautiful.
Yoku's Island Express. Before playing it, I didn't like pinball or search-action games (metroidvanias). I ended up loving it. I still don't really enjoy pinball on its own, but I now have a deep love for search-action.
It's definitely the best pinball-metroidvania postal service simulator available.
theres a great little pvp wargame sim from the sega genesis era called 'Herzog Zwei'
it was perfect in its simplicity. deserves a reboot.
I loved this game! I'd send swarms of armored cars against my brother.
Kingdom Under Fire. Still one of my all time favorite army battler games
Below the Root for C64.
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits Such a good game with some unique gameplay as far as tbs and rpgs go
I wish Toonstruck would get its remaster and sequel.
Fatal Racing
Hell yeah! Never thought I'd see this mentioned anywhere. I'd love a modern take on this.
An old PS1 fighting game called Unholy War. It had a lot of really unique mechanics I haven't seen since.
xracer - A WipeOut clone (would love some development on this)
I don't even remember the name but the game where you run around a weird post apocalyptic world dueling with decks of cards. I would love a modern remake.
Oh, that game looks amazing to play PvP. You can get it for free on the microsoft store, too.
I never beat it but I played it a bunch. Didn't get to try PVP though.
I waited to see if anyone mentioned it, but, POD. A old 1997 racing game from Microsoft built by Ubisoft. You can get the gold edition on GoG for rather cheap but I would absolutely love to see a remaster or remake. Unfortunately I would rather it not be made by Ubisoft as I don’t want to be forced into a separate account login setup from Ubisoft.
pure wonderful button-mashy fun with just a hint of strategy. I always look for it when I visit retro arcades
also Dr. Veronica is my waifu
aaah i see, good choice tho lol
Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it's easily the most-fun shmup I've ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I've managed to 1cc the game, but I've never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it's even possible without a very specific strategy or something.
Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn't do the best job with it. Still playable, though.
Darkstar One. And it is just now getting rereleased, so it doesn't count.
So instead, I'll pick The Legend of Dragoon on PSX. Such a fun RPG that really needs revisited.
Operation: Inner Space
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
It's a shame that it doesn't seem to have that many players anymore. It's a lot like other multi-class shooter games like Overwatch and Paladins, but about three times more crazy and weird, and I had a ton of fun playing it as a teen.
I've heard Garden Warfare 2 is pretty good too though, so I'll consider buying it at some point (when I have money).
I absolutely loved PVZGW. I have great memories of playing it.
I was gonna say I was still waiting for a seaman 2, but apparently it existed in Japan. Still, with AI bullshit being all the rage I could see it make a comeback.
Legend of Kage for NES was an awesome minimalistic beautiful game and I’ve never met anyone else who thinks so
Magic carpet 2, the Netherworlds is one I played a ton and think of from time to time. I wonder what I modern remake would be like.
It's the first game I remember playing with deformable terrain.
Burning Rangers from sonic team on the Sega Saturn. Such a unique concept.
Rock Manager. It was very limited in scope and quite short, but it was a really fun game with tons of potential.
I've been unsuccessfully looking for games like it that are as good as it could have been or even as good as it was for over 20 years now.
Kolibri for the Sega 32x addon for the Genesis/Megadrive. Most of the reviewers that weren't down with the game either complained about the difficulty or lack of story/making sense, but it was a beautiful game for the time that took the space shooter concept and made it into a game that was somehow chill while also being difficult enough to sometimes momentarily make you want to rage quit. If you enjoy games like the Raiden series, you'll enjoy this.
Shout to Knuckles Chaotix (the most unique take on Sonic gameplay of the classic 2D era) and also Shadow Squadron (very Star Fox-esque), which are also slept on because 32x.
Exclusive to the Genesis/Megadrive, it's a crying shame that the Vectorman games never received a third iteration and have seemingly disappeared into the grey goo of IP purgatory. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 were amazing for the time: they were arguably the best 2D platformers of the era, graphically beautiful, oozing with charm, and with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it all. It's crazy that the developers were able to squeeze the performance they did out of the hardware and playing emulated versions of it now still doesn't compare to how it feels and looks playing it on the original hardware with a CRT and a nice sound system (but you should still check it out absent that setup).
On PC, also from the 90s, Descent was truly groundbreaking and unique. It's an FPS that said "what if you were playing as a space ship and had six degrees of freedom to move about?" It was also the first truly 3D FPS game.
Descent did get 2 sequels and also a spinoff, Descent: Freespace and later Freespace 2. F2 has seen a HUGE amount of mods, partly due to the engine going open source back in 2002
Freespace 3 could be awesome, what with Elite seeing a rebirth.
It was one of the first PC games I played as a kid. Incredibly simple mechanics: you are a marble and you roll and try to reach the finish line (sometimes you need collectibles first). But the level design was top notch. Perfect blend of challenging and rewarding.
Biomutant, Lots and lots of dialogue but I actually liked it
Ark the lad twilight of the spirits. One of my favorite classics!
Uplink
Don't know quite how underrated/forgotten this is, but I wanna see a remake of Vib-Ribbon. That, or have an open source clone of it made by someone who actually knows how to properly program (not me), if it already doesn't exist.
Technically there is a successor to Vib-Ribbon but it's iPhone only if I recall? "Russian Dancing Men".
Too bad I don't have access to any apple products I could use to try it. Gonna have to look into this.
Edit: looked it up and it looks like something similar to Vib-Ribbon in terms.of gameplay, but from what I can gather, it's been over a decade since any updates. Also, I'd hope for a PC port of a Vib-Ribbon clone because there's no way you're getting me to play any more rhythm games where you have to use a small touch screen to play. No idea if that Russian Dancing Men has the ability to take local files stored on your phone and use them to generate levels, though, or where you'd go to get a legit copy of the app anymore even if you have an apple product able to play it.
Retro/Grade is a rhythm/shooter mashup where you travel backwards through time and un-fire a bunch of lasers to un-kill a bunch of ships. It was designed for a guitar hero controller if I recall? I found the visuals nauseating and the music lackluster but that premise is gold and deserves another chance.
Also PLEASE play the music backwards??? It's a game about going back in time, c'monnnnn.
Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Quite a learning curve, but I loved the different ways you can win (conquest, trade, black ops) and how much you could customize your ships or pick unique races with tolerances for different planets.
Flying dragon for the N64
Apparently it's very rare but I have a cartridge of it
The music from it was awesome very 1990s
I'd love a new, bigger Darwinia game, loved that back in the day.
i want another midnight club
It was a really boring game, that I somehow never got bored of
Mega Man Legends. Fuck you, Capcom, for killing the blue boy.
A new Command and Conquer Generals. It was a big departure from the classical C&C formula of stuff being built on the UI on the right and more like every other RTS, but it was fun nonetheless. Zero Hour bringing the specialized generals was also a nice idea.
Dunno if it counts as a game, but something like MTV Music Generator on PS1 and PS2 would be awesome, especially with the ease of sharing stuff around nowadays.
There are many Star Wars games that deserve a second chance, but I think Republic Commando could really use the sequels "Imperial Commando" and "Rebel Commando" first. I'd personally love a sequel to Jedi Academy
With all the "boomer shooters" making a comeback, Heretic and Hexen could receive their respective 3rd installments.
Lastly, Virtual On Cyber Troopers. Something that plays like the very first game of 1995, that'd be 😗👌. I think that game is what paved the way for the many Gundam games that play a lot like it - On PC, you can get a taste of that gameplay with Bootfighter Windom XP
Blinx the time swipper, haven't seen any other game trying to play with time like that.
Oh, and crimson skies.
Sacrifice. I am so sad it didn't have a bigger impact than it did. What an amazing game.
Seibu Kaihatsu's Dynamite Duke (1989), a pretty novel hybrid Cabal-like/Beat-'em-up with a lot of love put into it. The arcade version's got a pretty slick art direction, the environmental destruction vfx rock, and the animation's pretty slick. The whole thing's got that passion project charm to it. Unfortunately, Cabal clones were only really in vogue in that late '80s/early '90s space, and the beat 'em up gameplay isn't fleshed out or consistently applied enough to be satisfying in a post-Final Fight, post-Streets of Rage world. I'd like to see something like it, but there's no way to bring Duke into the world of modern game design practices without drastic reformulation at a minimum.
Notably, Seibu had really high hopes for Duke, being a passion project and a intended magnum opus. Unfortunately, lukewarm reception brought in poor returns, the company slipped into dire straits, and they were forced to make something simpler and lower stakes as a hail mary. That title - a simple, Toaplan-esque shooter nobody had any real faith in - turned out to be Raiden, which would become a darling in arcades, pushing 17,000 units solds worldwide in the first year after release, and becoming the fifth highest grosser on the Japanese market in 1991. (Beating out some offerings from much bigger players like Konami)
Sacrifice
Valve's Artifact Classic card game. I actually found the basic formula to be really fun.
I think this game died for two reasons:
A) The game was review bombed for its monetization (IMO a lot of this was the non-target audience trying it and leaving a bad review)
B) Valve said following the review bombing that they were going to make major changes. This resulted in a lot of Artifact fans (IMO) leaving the game because ... why invested and learn a game that's going to undergo major changes.
So Valve worked on Artifact Foundry (and never finished it) ... before eventually everyone at Valve gave up and released both Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry for free. The original Artifact Classic is still a great time with a friend and all cards are now totally free so you can build whatever decks you want.
It's basically a AAA studio card game, with cross platform support, released in complete, for free ... because of some poor decision making. Some things may be unbalanced but if you're playing with friends anyways ... just have a friendly agreement to not use the cards that cause problems in your decks. It also could bounce back into active development if it starts to acquire a player base again (because Valve).
I'll throw out one from my youth that I think would be really good to see updated: Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic. It was a very early space RPG which was way ahead of it's time. Something like the recent Heat Signature kinda reminds me of it, though it lacks the scope and depth of combat.
The game was particularly notable for a musical score that simulated multiple instruments by swapping between them faster than the human ear could differentiate.
Why... I understand the reasoning for visual feedback, but audio?
I actually didn't know that about the game, I just linked to the articled to provide details. Given the time the game was written, I suspect it was to make the music a bit more complicated. Game "Music" at the time could leave something to be desired. I played a lot of games with just a PC Speaker, which means that all of the sounds were mostly just different beeps. However, we also didn't know any better at the time and just enjoyed it for what it was.
I mean, if I understand it correctly, audio signals are additive so you don't need to do fancy instrument changing. Simply add the sample of different instruments to the audio buffer and those can be played. If someone knows better about acoustic theory then please correct me.
Dragon Valor for Psx.
A playstation 1 game called Nightmare Creatures.
Pokémon Puzzle League! Building up all the chains felt amazing! It’s a feeling I’ve tried to recreate it other similar games but haven’t found one with such a great implementation.
Dark Savior. I don't think I have ever seen anyone mention this game ever (without googling for it).
Test Drive Eve of Destruction from the original Xbox and PS2. More recently, Code masters' OnRush.
Anachronox. Ion Storm at it's best. Engaging plot and characters, humor well ahead of its time for a game script, and party members and environments that I've still never seen many games match to this day. I don't know why it didn't become huge, I think the rpg crowd back then was still pretty married to sword and sandal conventions. If you like old games, I can't recommend it enough.
Unreal Tournament, the one that was abandoned in favor of Fortnite (eugh). Like sure it would never be a big hit like Fortnite, Arena Shooters are out of fashion after all, but Epic didn't even give it a chance for starters, they basically just rushed it out the door with a skeleton crew, no budget whatsoever and were begging for community members to do free work on the game for them. In retrospect the game was doomed to fail from day one.
It STARTED from the work of community members. Then Epic jumped in and took over with the promise of their backing of the community team. Then once they had control over it they scuttled the ship.
Desert Strike was so cool.
I had forgotten about this game. It was a fun time. I think there was a Jungle Strike also
The last memory I have of Desert Strike going to a local video game and card game place (Heebeegeebees in Ogden, Utah before they expanded) with some of my siblings and buying this for some portable system (GBA?) and starting to play.
I then heard the owner (who was still in the shop back then) say “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”. It had transpired that one of my siblings had tried to steal something. Cops got called, fun times.
For those curious, the rumor was that the easy way was police and the hard way was him chasing you with a bat
Urban strike as well! I think it was urban strike that turned into a kind of top down shooter when you assaulted an enemy base about halfway into the game. 10 year old me could never get past that part.
Super Thunder Blade did this, same era too.
Someone is making a new one. I have it wishlisted on Steam. It is called Cleared Hot. Granted, I heard about it a LONG time ago and it still isn't out.
Soviet Strike was really good. One of the first PlayStation games I played (rented from Blockbuster!)
I remember being blown away by the video cutscenes in a game.
Woah, I didn't even know about this one.
OMFSM YES! I'd forgotten all about that great game!
I could never figure out how to not get blown to smithereens by the SAM sites.
Kill the radars. If you haven't killed the radar sites, the Rapier SAM sites are faster to detect, track and fire on you.
Holy shit thank you. I'm gonna go give it a try. Haha
Let me know how it turns out.
Game strategy advice for a 30+ year old game? I love this so much, you guys are awesome.
FreeSpace 1 and 2!
Time to install FreeSpace Open again. 😄 For those who have managed to miss that project: it's a completely rebuilt engine for FS2. Together with the MediaVPs from The FreeSpace Upgrade Project it makes the game look pretty modern again. Take a look at https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Getting_started if you need instructions.
I believe even there is even a mod available which allows playing the first FreeSpace in FSO.
These were godly at the time, but due to storytelling, modding community and mission editors. Flight model and combat mechanics were little too "Wing Commnder" even back then. Todays space pilots would need something more in line with Elite Dangerous, Helium Rain and Star Citizen.
I'd definitely play an updated Freespace game.
Btw btw you can co-op the campaigns with 3 friends
It's not really forgotten, but Wing Commander has been abandoned, and a proper modern rebuild of it would be fantastic.
Also, I want a new Deer Avenger.
If you like Privateer, check out Double Damage Games "Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw". Excellent game with a lot of sadly lost potential due to the dev being run out of game development by hostile and entitled "gamers".
Isn't Star Citizen a sort-of spiritual successor?
It was supposed to be. I have to admit I haven't paid any attention to it in many years so maybe things have changed, but it had turned into more of a vortex of ego, fleecing a fanbase, and sunk-cost fallacy, than a spiritual successor to anything.
Battle for Middle Earth. With the resurgence of RTS games lately, including many older ones getting remastered, I would absolutely love to see a proper remaster and release of BFME2. Unfortunately rights issues mean it's very unlikely to happen.
Total War: LOTR would be pretty neat
I've been wanting this game for a long time
Just a way to legally obtain a copy without paying hundreds of € for an old scratched CD would be nice
I don't know if it's forgotten, but it's forgotten to me. There was this ant game where you had a colony of ants that would go collect food, or attack other colonies. There was this very pixelated top-down map view where you could see the brightly colored food disappear pixel by pixel as they ate.
I can't figure out what the game was but I loved it.
Sim Ant ?
Nope, the other commenter got it. It was Microsoft Ants. Sim Ant is what most people guess when I have brought this one up before though. I'll have to try it sometime.
This is what it sounds like to me, and Sim Ant is the game I had in mind opening this post. It was a good one.
Thank you for reminding me of this game. I think it is Microsoft ants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Ants
Oh my God! Finally! I genuinely couldn't track down what the game was for years. Thank you!
Battleborne - I found it enjoyable but because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
Good lord yes. Overwatch is just a corporatized TF2 ripoff, but Battleborn was a creative, unique game with a soul.
Anyone who hasn't seen it should watch the game's intro cinematic, which gives a great sense of just how much character the game had.
Curiously both titles are dead nowadays, like literally dead.
Sort of, the real issue was it had no advertising of its own, just Randy Pitchford synergising buzzwordsalad on twitter and trying to create a rivalry with Overwatch. Nobody really knew what it was supposed to be from advertising, because nobody thought to just say "FPS MOBA".
I remember seeing plenty of advertising for it and always saw it as a fundamentally different game with much more of a PvE focus. I didn't buy it until quite a while later but I remember being annoyed at the comparisons being made between them as they seemed so fundamentall different to me.
Oh I agree, what I mean is that the similarities were barely even superficial. They were both hero shooters, but so are Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Seige, and you'd never compare them to Overwatch.
Soul Reaver
My whole family loved these games.
Later, I realized Amy Hennig worked on these at Crystal Dynamics before leaving for Naughty Dog where she worked on the Uncharted Series.
Soul Reaver seriously needs a reboot. Soul Reaver kept getting mentioned a while back when Square Enix sold off Cristal Dynamics to pay for NFT scams, but no mutterings of a reboot/remake.
This halogened a while ago: https://www.ign.com/articles/new-legacy-of-kain-looks-likely-as-embracer-receives-strong-fan-response
I remember some years ago receiving an email with a form asking many questions about Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, seemingly a market research thing.
Welp, there goes all my hope
I remember that, and participated as well. IIRC, the response they got was significantly larger than their most optimistic predictions, so they are aware that there is big interest. Hopefully it lands somewhere that will actually complete the project.
Definitely Icy Tower
Also, not really a video game, but those desktop destroyer type games. I'm not sure what any of them were called but it was a fun waste of time in my computer class.
I can still hear the jumping sounds in my head! Thanks for the memory!
You're welcome!
Mass Effect Andromeda, the middle of that game dragged, but the first third was pretty good and the last third was amazing, but most people didn't stick through the boring middle to get there. I really wish it got dlc and sequels, I wanted to see where that story went.
Most people saw the facial animations and swore it off before even playing the game. Looking past it's flaws, I always felt it was a fine sequel, though the first game is definitely still the special one.
I'm one of those people that couldn't get past the middle part. Plus, something about that engine gives me terrible motion sickness after 30 minutes of playing.
If there is one game out there that I think deserves a second chance, it is definitely Alpha Protocol. This game came out in 2010 and was created by Obsidian Entertainment, the makers behind Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. This was the first-of-its-kind 'espionage RPG' with a truly, wholly unique dialogue system that has truly never been replicated since. Unlike mainstream RPGs of the time, you pick from several different 'tones' to speak in, in which gives the game hundreds of outcomes and dozens of endings. For example, according to Raycevick in a recent video, love interest can snipe you after a boss fight, poorly-treated damzels can attack you in the dead of night, contracts you're hired to kill can be baited into their demise through dialogue, and a whole host of other things.
The problem is that Alpha Protocol was lambasted by critics due to its incredibly buggy launch state and unpolished graphics. It never met the sales requirements that SEGA was expecting from it, and so, a few years ago, the game was pulled from all storefronts, never to be played again - until now. That's right. Thanks to the legends over at GOG for their incredible work, Alpha Protocol is back on sale, complete with achievements, localization, modern compatibility, and cloud saves. All without any form of DRM. But, the bugs in the game are still present to this day even in the GOG version, and so you might end up finding some humorous bugs and glitches.
Source: Making a Game Last Forever
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
An awesome RPG by Sierra (Fallout1+2). It was a bit unfinished, but you had such a great roleplay-experience. A second part was planned using Source-Engine.
Also:
For isometric RPGs Arcanum truly was unique. The dialogue and story was polished to a brilliant shine in a fantasy world going through the industrial revolution. The soundtrack composed entirely of a somber string ensemble added so much to the narrative and feel of the world, as if its magic was slowly dying out to make way for industrial expansion and exploitation. It stands up there along with the original Fallouts and Planescape: Torment. It's a tragedy a sequel was never made. The only modern game that comes close to the aesthetics is the Pillars of Eternity franchise.
Operation Wolf.
Defender of the crown.
Gauntlet (and sequels).
The Settlers.
Syndicate.
Fury of the Furies.
Cooking Mama.
Tongue of the Fatman.
Turrican 1 and 2.
Zool.
Snow Bros. Nick and Tom.
Double Dragon.
Golden Axe.
Rick Dangerous.
Blake Stone.
Antix.
Screamer.
Soldat.
Speedball 2. Brutale Delux.
Lemmings.
Sid Myers Pirates!
Battle chess.
Shadow of the Beast.
Altered Beast.
Agony.
Strider (arcade)
Death Rally.
Stunt Car Racer (msdos)
Can add more soon
Blake Stone. Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in awhile
I agree with so many on this list and those I don't, I simply don't recognize. If add 7th Guest Rune Giants: Citizen Kabuto
I loved that game! Think there was a sequel too, Operation Thunderbolt maybe?
Another classic. You might like the recent game Humanity, similar vibes, although quite different too.
Sid Myers Pirates! is one of my all time favorites!
I feel like many of these got at least a spiritual successor if not an actual successor. That counts as a second chance right and means they aren't forgotten?
Like Gauntlet has like 9 sequels and the last one released just 10 years ago. There's also many games that are heavily inspired by Gauntlet. Same for The Settlers, which had a new game just last year.
Spore and Impossible Creatures
Kind of similar but these games are conceptually genius. How tightly Creativity and Strategic Interest are packed together is hardly seen ever again.
And animals are always a good idea. Even horrible games like Pokémon survive just because we like funny little friends.
MechCommander 1 and 2
Star Wars: X-wing vs TIE Fighter
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_X-Wing_vs._TIE_Fighter
I think this one was surpassed by X-Wing Alliance.
Age of empires 3. The civilizations are packed full of unique units, cards and mechanics compared to previous games. The card deck mechanics and treasures speed up the early game and allow for a lot more flexibility and adaptivess. The game looks beautiful the 2005 version kind of runs like shit but the definitive version has made a lot of balance and performance improvements.
Anddddd shooting formations of infantry with cannons is fun as.
It's my least favourite of the Age games, but that's only because it's such a highly competitive field. It still ranks very highly with me. Fantastic game.
Which was your favorite civ to play? I used to be a Dutch player but now I almost exclusively play Russian. I've been meaning to try out Malta and Ethiopia they look cool.
Hells yeah! I also mainly played Russians. Loved the strelet rush: it was the only build order I ever really put any serious effort into in AoE3. Also played a fair bit of Japanese.
I never played them more than a few times to test them out, but special shout-out to the Italians and the DaVinci Tank, which is an absolutely hilarious inclusion.
Destruction Derby 2 was loads of fun. I was going to say something like Choplifter, but I saw some video the other day that seems a perfect fit.
Not underrated, but I would love to have a next-gen SOCOM, and wouldn't say no to another Wipeout.
But hey, who doesnt need 43 new JRPGs?
F-ZERO. Truly a devastating loss. 99 is cool, but there's no guarantee we'll ever see a completely new title ever again. There was no other series with the same level of snappy controls, character design, music and challenge. It really is in a league of its own.
The original Unreal. For me it was a perfect combination of beautiful graphics (back in the days of course) and a soundtrack which complemented and elevated the atmosphere of that game. And the gunplay was nice, with a collection of somewhat unconventional weapons. A relic from a time where developers were not afraid to experiment a bit.
@Aganim The original Deus Ex also. Its story was brilliant and prophetic in a lot of ways.
As an example of a game, that actually got its second chance: the original Half-Life. Black Mesa is brilliant. I wish, other old games like Unreal and Deus Ex would have got a remake like that.
@HotWheelsVroom
Yes, how could I forget Deus Ex. Incredible story and again such a wonderful soundtrack, not surprising as it was also composed Alexander Brandon, Michiel van den Bos, and Dan Gardopee.
As for Half-Life, that game was also something else. But part of me resents that game a bit because it overshadowed Unreal. 😋
The crazy variety of weapons and their interactions was great. Almost everything was dangerous in the right situation.
Blob gun? Charge it up! Blue laser thing? Shoot the ball form and shoot that for a huge boom! Double pistols? Max DPS in the game with no bullet curve!
The best maps too for CTF. Yeah, I loved that game, especially for in person LAN parties.
Unreal only had a single Automag though, so either you are thinking of Unreal Tournament or you played on a modded server. Some servers did have dual automags (I've still got a mod and mutator lying around to get them in single player as well) and dual Automags (Enforcer in Unreal Tournament) did indeed dish out major punishment.
Hunter: The Reckoning on the original Xbox.
Alley Cat for sure
Cue the tune in my head. Thank you, it's so lovely. 😍
Alley Cat actually got a second chance! Look up "Alley Cat: ReMeow"
Happy to see some fellow Alley Cat fans around!
Psi-ops. That game where you play a psychic special forces guy, fighting against other psychic special forces people, who were apparently your former coworkers or some shit. The ending was a setup for the sequel, but sequel never happened, now I will never know what the story was!
Man imagine this game with a proper modern physics engine.
I mean, I guess it inspired a lot of what we see in modern physics games, so I don't really need to imagine, but still, I would play it.
I feel like that’s what a netrunner build in CP2077 is. Sure, it’s not psi ops, but it’s basically magic brain spell attacks
The only way to play, imo.
That’s what I love about the game. It took them awhile to get there, but kamikaze ninja? Fun build. Pure netrunner? Fun build. Armored ballistic assault? Fun build. Hybrid between any of the builds? Also fun. The combat feels great no matter which route you take
Well now it actually hurts
Wildstar
WildStar got done dirty... It hit at the wrong time, but was so much fun. I could never get any friends to play with me. Le sigh.
I enjoyed Rampart tremendously back in the day. It had a lot of ports, but I'm surprised it hasn't had any remakes or clones in the last 30 years.
I even remember this as coin slot machine at a local arcade. It had trackballs as controllers. Truly unique.
Sounds s lot more fair than the experience I had at home!
Three kids crammed in front of one computer. One on keyboard, one on mouse and one on joystick. The one on joystick was at the worst disadvantage. A small nudge was a good way to sabotage rebuilding your fortress.
I had no idea Woody Harrelson was on Lemmy!
Dark cloud 2
Dark cloud 2
Freelancer
omg YES. Nothing I have found since then has quite scratched the same itch of flying around with a friend on some random dude's server. So much fun!
Everspace 2 is really close in terms of combat and overall gameplay, but it lacks the immersive simulation aspects. Freelancers idle radio chatter did some heavy lifting back in the day.
I'll have to give that one a try!
Word. The closest I found to the feel of Freelancer was X3 back in 2010, but the differences were glaring.
There this Underspace that seems to be a "Freelancer meets Cthluhu", I've yet to play the demo to get a feel of the space.
Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System
Dang. I thought I was the only person who had ever heard of this one. Might have to boot it up in an emulator one of these days and give it a go.
This was a great little game!
Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner
Blur
Guild Wars 1
GW1 had a great campaign that felt good to progress though. It had some grindy stuff at the end for players that wanted to keep playing past the missions but it wasn't required. Unlike GW2 that just feels like boring grind all throughout.
I don't know if it was nostalgia, or the story, or the gameplay... But, man, I miss that game.
It's still there and playable. I read that NCsoft is currently in some financial trouble so if you want to give it another try, better start sooner than later. ;)
Not forgotten or obscure but... Assassin's creed 3. Yeah the main character sucks but I love the missions and map. Also has just the right amount of pirate like missions (in 4 is too much). I don't understand why people loved 4 so much the story of that game sucks lol and the villains are so forgettable.
4 had a lot of issues, bad story, trailing missions and a lot of pacing problems. But it's the best pirate game ever made. And the ship combat was great
Like I said, too much piracy, you're not even an assassin's anymore... Also funny how there's so much praise online for that game yet NOBODY mentioned the villains. They're so forgettable. In the other games, even the bad ones I can remember a face or names, 3 had some of the best actually. 4 is just a blank space.
Put simply man, it's just a cool pirate game. The story was supplemental enough to kinda keep u going but the gameplay was the good part.
The main character is pale in comparison to Ezio, but I don't see how he suck.
He gets bitch talked the whole game and he lost at the end anyways lol... Doesn't make for a very enjoyable character. I really like how physically blunt and badass is though.
Blast Corp 64
Streets of Rage, even if it's just for the music
The original GTA, it somehow has the atmosphere of 80s/90s that only Více City could kind of replicate (and multiplayer was fun)
I thought 4 did rather well commercially?
Empire earth
I loved that one so much! The only flaw really was that the tech tree is incredibly massive. It's feels unnecessarily difficult to learn.
It's not underrated or forgotten, but LOTR two towers.
Drakan series needs reboot. I played Drakan; Ancient gates. That game was so much fun. The seamless transition from fighting on a dragon to fighting on your feet. The next level spell casting where you had to trace out the symbol to cast. The lore felt really deep like there was a lot of secrets they never fleshed out and ever since I’ve had an itch that never got scratched.
Sigma Star Saga for the GBA. Really creative mashup of an RPG and a side-scrolling shooter, with a cool weapon-configuration system thrown in. Definitely suffered a bit from platform limitations, but there's absolutely more that could have been done with the core concept.
Shockingly good writing, too.
Sentinel... From waaay back. Like, Commodore 64 age. I think it would be a perfect VR game, too.
Wooooooaaaah. I was scrolling through looking to see if anyone was gonna mention this one.
I feel seen today. That game changed me as a kid.
Psygnosis did a remake in the late '90s.
There is also an indie VR game I've played that's heavily based on it, damned if I can remember the name tho. I believe it's on sidequest.
I own the remake, and I actually had a fan site for it... And got to interview John Freaking Carpenter for that fan site, as he did the music for Sentinel Returns. It was exactly as awesome as it sounds.
Ogre Battle. I'd love to play a game like that again. I think Unicorn Overlord took some inspiration from it so I'm excited to check that out.
The original Way of the Samurai. It was really cool and unique little game. The sequels never really followed through on the best parts of the first one though unfortunately.
I want an ogre battle with advance wars theming
@mechwarrior2@hexbear.net @LaGG_3@hexbear.net get in here
wasn't super impressed with UO but I haven't gotten that far in it yet.
I'd love for there to just be more short games with branching narratives like WotS. Short games that are built to be replayed really spark something off in my brain lol.
I'm surprised with auto battler games having a moment that we haven't gotten any Ogre Battle inspired indies - just Unicorn Overlord. Still haven't played it, but it's on my to-do list.
I want a modern Road Rash or Destruction Derby.
Road Redemption was a Road Rash-esque attempt some years ago. I remember the performance was kinda shitty, but the game was mostly fine.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto
Lugaru and Overgrowth.
Recently replayed Yakuza & it very much held up
I'm currently playing Yakuza 0 and planning on playing the Kiwami editions of 1 and 2 afterwards. Would you recommend going back to the 2009 Yakuza 3 for the intended story progression after that or skip ahead?
Edit: found out about the 3-5 remasters, definitely gonna do those after Kiwami 2. Guess I have a couple of hours of aggravated assaults and saving damsels left. Gaming too 😛
Absolver. It was the precursor to Sifu, but with slightly slower and more methodical combat (more like a Soulslike, almost).
The coolest part of it is, as you play and fight players and NPCs, your character will slowly learn and unlock the moves that are used against them, which you can then put into your moveset and chain together with other moves to create your own style. If you don't want to do that, you can join a player-run school, and be given the fighting style of that school's master, which your character will learn as they use it.
The story mode is pretty short. It's mainly about PvP (although, before development stopped, it DID get a free DLC with a co-op dungeon run that's worth killing a couple of hours on). Of course, a PvP-focused game with nobody playing it isn't exactly the most entertaining thing to spend your time on, so- outside of a small collection of diehards- it pretty much stays a ghost town.
It had heart, it had ambition, and it had creativity. My friends and I were really hoping the success of Sifu would mean people might start going back and maybe breathing a little life into it, but that didn't happen. We hoped maybe they'd announce a second one, but that hasn't happened yet, either. It'll probably just be another Sifu. That one was a proven success, so it makes more sense.
The servers are still up for now. No idea how much longer it'll be supported. But, if you've got friends you can play it with, it might be worth looking into and seeing for yourself what the game offered, and what could've been.
kenshi is the post-apocalyptic life/ant sim that I never knew I wanted. There is no story other than what is in your head, and that's beautiful.
Yoku's Island Express. Before playing it, I didn't like pinball or search-action games (metroidvanias). I ended up loving it. I still don't really enjoy pinball on its own, but I now have a deep love for search-action.
It's definitely the best pinball-metroidvania postal service simulator available.
theres a great little pvp wargame sim from the sega genesis era called 'Herzog Zwei'
it was perfect in its simplicity. deserves a reboot.
I loved this game! I'd send swarms of armored cars against my brother.
Kingdom Under Fire. Still one of my all time favorite army battler games
Below the Root for C64.
Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits Such a good game with some unique gameplay as far as tbs and rpgs go
I wish Toonstruck would get its remaster and sequel.
Fatal Racing
Hell yeah! Never thought I'd see this mentioned anywhere. I'd love a modern take on this.
An old PS1 fighting game called Unholy War. It had a lot of really unique mechanics I haven't seen since.
xracer - A WipeOut clone (would love some development on this)
https://packages.debian.org/sid/xracer
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Sauerbraten FPS (1990s fps distilled)
http://sauerbraten.org/
I don't even remember the name but the game where you run around a weird post apocalyptic world dueling with decks of cards. I would love a modern remake.
Edit: Phantom Dust!
Oh, that game looks amazing to play PvP. You can get it for free on the microsoft store, too.
I never beat it but I played it a bunch. Didn't get to try PVP though.
I waited to see if anyone mentioned it, but, POD. A old 1997 racing game from Microsoft built by Ubisoft. You can get the gold edition on GoG for rather cheap but I would absolutely love to see a remaster or remake. Unfortunately I would rather it not be made by Ubisoft as I don’t want to be forced into a separate account login setup from Ubisoft.
Rampage
Would love a reboot of this game
i love destroying city :)
pure wonderful button-mashy fun with just a hint of strategy. I always look for it when I visit retro arcades
also Dr. Veronica is my waifu
aaah i see, good choice tho lol
Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it's easily the most-fun shmup I've ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I've managed to 1cc the game, but I've never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it's even possible without a very specific strategy or something.
Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn't do the best job with it. Still playable, though.
Darkstar One. And it is just now getting rereleased, so it doesn't count.
So instead, I'll pick The Legend of Dragoon on PSX. Such a fun RPG that really needs revisited.
Operation: Inner Space
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare
It's a shame that it doesn't seem to have that many players anymore. It's a lot like other multi-class shooter games like Overwatch and Paladins, but about three times more crazy and weird, and I had a ton of fun playing it as a teen.
I've heard Garden Warfare 2 is pretty good too though, so I'll consider buying it at some point (when I have money).
I absolutely loved PVZGW. I have great memories of playing it.
I was gonna say I was still waiting for a seaman 2, but apparently it existed in Japan. Still, with AI bullshit being all the rage I could see it make a comeback.
Legend of Kage for NES was an awesome minimalistic beautiful game and I’ve never met anyone else who thinks so
Magic carpet 2, the Netherworlds is one I played a ton and think of from time to time. I wonder what I modern remake would be like.
It's the first game I remember playing with deformable terrain.
Burning Rangers from sonic team on the Sega Saturn. Such a unique concept.
Rock Manager. It was very limited in scope and quite short, but it was a really fun game with tons of potential.
I've been unsuccessfully looking for games like it that are as good as it could have been or even as good as it was for over 20 years now.
Kolibri for the Sega 32x addon for the Genesis/Megadrive. Most of the reviewers that weren't down with the game either complained about the difficulty or lack of story/making sense, but it was a beautiful game for the time that took the space shooter concept and made it into a game that was somehow chill while also being difficult enough to sometimes momentarily make you want to rage quit. If you enjoy games like the Raiden series, you'll enjoy this.
Shout to Knuckles Chaotix (the most unique take on Sonic gameplay of the classic 2D era) and also Shadow Squadron (very Star Fox-esque), which are also slept on because 32x.
Exclusive to the Genesis/Megadrive, it's a crying shame that the Vectorman games never received a third iteration and have seemingly disappeared into the grey goo of IP purgatory. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 were amazing for the time: they were arguably the best 2D platformers of the era, graphically beautiful, oozing with charm, and with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it all. It's crazy that the developers were able to squeeze the performance they did out of the hardware and playing emulated versions of it now still doesn't compare to how it feels and looks playing it on the original hardware with a CRT and a nice sound system (but you should still check it out absent that setup).
On PC, also from the 90s, Descent was truly groundbreaking and unique. It's an FPS that said "what if you were playing as a space ship and had six degrees of freedom to move about?" It was also the first truly 3D FPS game.
Descent did get 2 sequels and also a spinoff, Descent: Freespace and later Freespace 2. F2 has seen a HUGE amount of mods, partly due to the engine going open source back in 2002
Freespace 3 could be awesome, what with Elite seeing a rebirth.
Very cool, I'll check that out. Thanks!
Marble Blast!!
It was one of the first PC games I played as a kid. Incredibly simple mechanics: you are a marble and you roll and try to reach the finish line (sometimes you need collectibles first). But the level design was top notch. Perfect blend of challenging and rewarding.
Underrated:
Deserves a Second Chance:
Ark the lad twilight of the spirits. One of my favorite classics!
Uplink
Don't know quite how underrated/forgotten this is, but I wanna see a remake of Vib-Ribbon. That, or have an open source clone of it made by someone who actually knows how to properly program (not me), if it already doesn't exist.
Technically there is a successor to Vib-Ribbon but it's iPhone only if I recall? "Russian Dancing Men".
Too bad I don't have access to any apple products I could use to try it. Gonna have to look into this.
Edit: looked it up and it looks like something similar to Vib-Ribbon in terms.of gameplay, but from what I can gather, it's been over a decade since any updates. Also, I'd hope for a PC port of a Vib-Ribbon clone because there's no way you're getting me to play any more rhythm games where you have to use a small touch screen to play. No idea if that Russian Dancing Men has the ability to take local files stored on your phone and use them to generate levels, though, or where you'd go to get a legit copy of the app anymore even if you have an apple product able to play it.
Retro/Grade is a rhythm/shooter mashup where you travel backwards through time and un-fire a bunch of lasers to un-kill a bunch of ships. It was designed for a guitar hero controller if I recall? I found the visuals nauseating and the music lackluster but that premise is gold and deserves another chance.
Also PLEASE play the music backwards??? It's a game about going back in time, c'monnnnn.
Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Quite a learning curve, but I loved the different ways you can win (conquest, trade, black ops) and how much you could customize your ships or pick unique races with tolerances for different planets.
Flying dragon for the N64
Apparently it's very rare but I have a cartridge of it
The music from it was awesome very 1990s
I'd love a new, bigger Darwinia game, loved that back in the day.
i want another midnight club
It was a really boring game, that I somehow never got bored of
Mega Man Legends. Fuck you, Capcom, for killing the blue boy.
A new Command and Conquer Generals. It was a big departure from the classical C&C formula of stuff being built on the UI on the right and more like every other RTS, but it was fun nonetheless. Zero Hour bringing the specialized generals was also a nice idea.
Dunno if it counts as a game, but something like MTV Music Generator on PS1 and PS2 would be awesome, especially with the ease of sharing stuff around nowadays.
There are many Star Wars games that deserve a second chance, but I think Republic Commando could really use the sequels "Imperial Commando" and "Rebel Commando" first. I'd personally love a sequel to Jedi Academy
With all the "boomer shooters" making a comeback, Heretic and Hexen could receive their respective 3rd installments.
Lastly, Virtual On Cyber Troopers. Something that plays like the very first game of 1995, that'd be 😗👌. I think that game is what paved the way for the many Gundam games that play a lot like it - On PC, you can get a taste of that gameplay with Bootfighter Windom XP
Blinx the time swipper, haven't seen any other game trying to play with time like that.
Oh, and crimson skies.
Sacrifice. I am so sad it didn't have a bigger impact than it did. What an amazing game.
Seibu Kaihatsu's Dynamite Duke (1989), a pretty novel hybrid Cabal-like/Beat-'em-up with a lot of love put into it. The arcade version's got a pretty slick art direction, the environmental destruction vfx rock, and the animation's pretty slick. The whole thing's got that passion project charm to it. Unfortunately, Cabal clones were only really in vogue in that late '80s/early '90s space, and the beat 'em up gameplay isn't fleshed out or consistently applied enough to be satisfying in a post-Final Fight, post-Streets of Rage world. I'd like to see something like it, but there's no way to bring Duke into the world of modern game design practices without drastic reformulation at a minimum.
Notably, Seibu had really high hopes for Duke, being a passion project and a intended magnum opus. Unfortunately, lukewarm reception brought in poor returns, the company slipped into dire straits, and they were forced to make something simpler and lower stakes as a hail mary. That title - a simple, Toaplan-esque shooter nobody had any real faith in - turned out to be Raiden, which would become a darling in arcades, pushing 17,000 units solds worldwide in the first year after release, and becoming the fifth highest grosser on the Japanese market in 1991. (Beating out some offerings from much bigger players like Konami)
Sacrifice
Valve's Artifact Classic card game. I actually found the basic formula to be really fun.
I think this game died for two reasons:
A) The game was review bombed for its monetization (IMO a lot of this was the non-target audience trying it and leaving a bad review)
B) Valve said following the review bombing that they were going to make major changes. This resulted in a lot of Artifact fans (IMO) leaving the game because ... why invested and learn a game that's going to undergo major changes.
So Valve worked on Artifact Foundry (and never finished it) ... before eventually everyone at Valve gave up and released both Artifact Classic and Artifact Foundry for free. The original Artifact Classic is still a great time with a friend and all cards are now totally free so you can build whatever decks you want.
It's basically a AAA studio card game, with cross platform support, released in complete, for free ... because of some poor decision making. Some things may be unbalanced but if you're playing with friends anyways ... just have a friendly agreement to not use the cards that cause problems in your decks. It also could bounce back into active development if it starts to acquire a player base again (because Valve).
Circuit's Edge and Ranger X !
I'll throw out one from my youth that I think would be really good to see updated:
Sentinel Worlds I: Future Magic. It was a very early space RPG which was way ahead of it's time. Something like the recent Heat Signature kinda reminds me of it, though it lacks the scope and depth of combat.
Why... I understand the reasoning for visual feedback, but audio?
I actually didn't know that about the game, I just linked to the articled to provide details. Given the time the game was written, I suspect it was to make the music a bit more complicated. Game "Music" at the time could leave something to be desired. I played a lot of games with just a PC Speaker, which means that all of the sounds were mostly just different beeps. However, we also didn't know any better at the time and just enjoyed it for what it was.
I mean, if I understand it correctly, audio signals are additive so you don't need to do fancy instrument changing. Simply add the sample of different instruments to the audio buffer and those can be played. If someone knows better about acoustic theory then please correct me.
Dragon Valor for Psx.
A playstation 1 game called Nightmare Creatures.
Pokémon Puzzle League! Building up all the chains felt amazing! It’s a feeling I’ve tried to recreate it other similar games but haven’t found one with such a great implementation.
Dark Savior. I don't think I have ever seen anyone mention this game ever (without googling for it).
Test Drive Eve of Destruction from the original Xbox and PS2. More recently, Code masters' OnRush.
Anachronox. Ion Storm at it's best. Engaging plot and characters, humor well ahead of its time for a game script, and party members and environments that I've still never seen many games match to this day. I don't know why it didn't become huge, I think the rpg crowd back then was still pretty married to sword and sandal conventions. If you like old games, I can't recommend it enough.
Elebits! The sequel plays nothing like the original and I would love to have it get a proper sequel! The art and character designs were done by Akihito Tsukushi, who created Made in Abyss, another great thing I love very much!
Solar Jetman.
Ngage Bounce Boing Voyage. I played it a couple of times but never finished it. It was great for the time and hardware.