Each person - recommend one overlooked game

[DarkDragon]

NeoVamp that shark game looks pretty cool. I never played it but I played Treasures of the Deep on Playstation which isnt too bad and I also like Jaws on PS2. The shark is pretty tough to control but it is pretty fun exploring the open ocean and eating everything in sight.

[Pulstar]

It's a recent title, but it sold very poorly (shame on you!)

[A Black Falcon]

Hmm... I think my top choices would have to be Pod and Netstorm, both on the PC. Both are from 1997. Pod's one of my favorite racing games ever. It's got dozens of tracks, all good sized and complex (some are downloadable addons, 16 are included with the game), just as many cars, great futuristic racing gameplay... it's a great game. It was moderately popular at the time, but not successful enough; the only sequel it got is the still okay, but vastly inferior, Pod 2: Speed Zone for the Dreamcast. It's not even half the game the PC original was. The original's so great, though... it's got an actual plot, which is weird but interesting (the planet you're on is doomed, and there's only one more seat on a shuttle off... and only the winner of this race tournament gets that seat. Pressure!). The intro FMV's pretty long. The ending's short, but strange and interesting. And of course, it's a fantastic game beyond that 16-track main championship, too... with so much stuff to do, with all those tracks, the game has endless playability. The game's not a weapons-based racer -- it's all about the driving and the tracks. Fortunately, the tracks are outstanding, and are incredibly varied. There are short ones, long ones, medium ones, some simple circuits, others inordinately complicated ones that require high degrees of memorization to just get through a single lap (because the path is not clear, and only one path will lead you correctly while the others will go nowhere...). It's all just outstanding, outstanding work.

Online, the Pod fanbase was small but fairly dedicated. I think there are still a few Pod fansites on the internet. Time-trial play became particularly popular, before many of those people moved on to TrackMania... some of the downloadable tracks don't even have AI, so they're multiplayer or timetrial only (others do, though; basically, the official download tracks do have AI, but the ones made by fans do not.). I always liked championships more than timetrial, of course, but either way, it's a great game. It was great in online play as well, while that was easily available.


As for Netstorm, it's a RTS game, but it's the most original RTS game since the creation of the genre, I would say. It's such a unique, unique game... it's another one that has a hardcore, small fanbase (you can find them at www.netstormhq.com ), but the game bombed hard at retail in 1997-1998, and the developer shut down in '98, after their first and only game. Very sad. And of course, given the game's failure, no one else has copied it either, so the game remains utterly unlike anything else in the genre.

Basically, Netstorm is an RTS with Tetris elements, and where all attack units are towers. The game is set on floating islands on a planet of sky. You start on your home island, and build bridges, with a selection of pieces on the side (this is the Tetris element -- you only have 6 pieces to work with at a time), to connect it to storm geysers (money for buying stuff with, once returned to your base) or other islands, or for building towers off of. Learning to bridge quickly is a key skill in the game, and it's one that will take time to learn. You can build a tower (selected from the bar on the side of the screen) off of any bridge end, or on any island that either you control or that is neutral (you can't build on an enemy island). Base buildings (on your home island) are build with your High Priest unit, though, but the towers are seperate, and are placed via that sidebar. You have limited space on your island, so you have to choose which base buildings you want -- you can't fit everything in. It is possible to build bases on other islands, to deny territory or to set up shorter paths for your resource gatherers, but you'll usually only have the unit (tower)-enabling buildings that you can fit in your home island.

In order to win, you have to capture and sacrifice (from a base building where your priest sacrifices your enemies' one) your enemies' High Priests. So yeah, keep track of yours. Priests are as I said the only unit that can build base buildings, too. High Priests also can gather resources, but ... um, be careful about where he's going. It's safer to use other units to gather resources with. Some resource gatherers can fly, too, circumventing the problem of having to keep going around fighting for territory so as to get more storm geysers; each one only has a few thousand in it, so they only last so long.

As for the towers, there are four different sets of units -- Sun, Wind, Rain, and Thunder. Sun are the base units, the cheap and weak but versatile ones. Wind, Rain, and Thunder are more expensive units. Each unit in the game has specific uses, and positives and negatives. Units are all immobile towers, so they cannot be moved or re-targeted once placed, so you need to be careful when placing them that you've got them pointed right. You can't directly tell your units what to attack, either -- they'll just follow their programming, and attack what's in front of them. There are towers that make barricade walls between them, towers that shoot in a straight line, towers that shoot at anything in an angled arc in front of them, towers that create little flying units which attack anything within a certain radius, towers that can't attack, but block fire, etc. It's a highly strategic game.

The game has okay graphics, but they never were anything special, even back in 1997. The game's got a bad lack of polish, too. Fanmade patches have fixed things somewhat, and improved the game a lot, but still you can tell. It doesn't hurt the game much in my opinion, though... what is a bigger issue is the weak single player mode. The campaigns just aren't very interesting, and there's no saving during a map, either... you either finish the level in one try, or start over. Bah. The online play's really what the game's about, though, of course, which is why it's so fortunate that there are still some fans interested in playing it. The game has interesting stuff like levels and persistent islands in online play, as well as lobbies where you fly around with your island while choosing which game to join -- it was really innovative at the time! Oh, and the game has a great soundtrack, too, which was done by Mark Morgan of Fallout and Planescape: Torment fame. This was the soundtrack he did right before Torment's, and there are some strong similarities between the two. Anyone who likes Torment's soundtrack should consider Netstorm a must-listen! It's just great stuff. Perfect "airy" music that well fits the battles-in-the-sky design.

Only arcade games come to my mind. This one is a super high speed run and run made by the same folks who did Metal Slug.

I'm actually a fan of GunForce 1 (Arcade/SNES)... the second one was arcades-only, but the first did have a home port. Apart from lots of slowdown, it's a pretty good, accurate port. The game is short, and pretty easy too -- I've beaten it multiple times, even though it does have limited continues. You only get like three continues. Let's just say that I've never gotten anywhere NEAR the end of a Metal Slug (or Contra) game with only three continues... GunForce just isn't as hard of a game. Even the bosses aren't too bad.

What it is, though, is fun. You can see some of the origins of the Metal Slug series here. While it has some things that would change -- for instance, you have 8-direction firing in GunForce, instead of the more difficult "left, right, or up" style of Metal Slug, and it just has powerups, with no prisoners to rescue like Gunforce 2 and the Metal Slug games have, and of course it has a largely realistic, modern-day visual style, instead of Metal Slug's cartoony style that started phasing in in GunForce 2, but the game does have some things recognizably Metal Slug. Most notably, it has vehicles to ride in, and a weapon system straight out of Metal Slug, too. You have a basic gun with infinite ammo, but the weapon drops you can pick up all have limited ammo, so it's just like Metal Slug. Some of the guns would return in the later games, too, including a laser gun, rocket launcher, etc. As for the vehicles, they're not as important a part of the game as they would become in Metal Slug, and can only be used in certain areas, but still, they're fun to have. There's a helicopter, a little rolling platform thing, a jeep, etc.

Oh, and the final boss? While through the game you'd been fighting human enemies, gun emplacements, and the like, the final boss is... aliens. Maybe it's a Contra reference, but yeah, aliens would return in Metal Slug again for sure!

I remember liking this arcade game, and I still like the game. I've beaten the SNES game in both one player and two-player co-op modes. It won't take very long to get through, but any Metal Slug fan who hasn't played it should play through it sometime.

[Soulis]

Either Body Harvest or Space Station - Silicon Valley on the N64.

[The Coop]

Tinhead. An often overlooked platformer for the Genesis that, while it's control scheme takes some getting used to, is a well made little game. Nice graphics, good tunes, good sized levels, big bosses, solid controls... it does plenty right, but it gets snubbed a lot when people talk about Genesis platformers. Sure, it's no Sonic 3 & Knuckles or Ristar, but it's a good game that deserves more attention.

[Zz Badnusty]

Kishin Douji Zenki, Game Gear


If this were on the Master System it would be that system's best game.

I'm inclined to say Zenki is more awesome than the GG Shinobi games.

[Splatterhouse5]

It's a recent title, but it sold very poorly (shame on you!)

I'm actually very interested in playing this. I just haven't had any real time to really dig into a game in about a month. It'll probably be the next game I pick up when I do find the time.

A far as the thread is concerned, my pick would be Psychonauts (xbox, ps2). A fantastic 3D platformer where the levels are played inside minds of various people at a summer camp for gifted youngsters. Apparently, no one bought this highly creative and hilarious game either.

[Hidden_Darkness]

Kishin Douji Zenki, Game Gear


If this were on the Master System it would be that system's best game.

I'm inclined to say Zenki is more awesome than the GG Shinobi games.

I have that game, I was surprised to see it mentioned since it's not very well known.

[Kamahl]

Yeah, Zenki is pretty damn good.
A few more games I really like, but are usually forgotten. For the Amiga this time:

Virocop
An awesome overhead shooter with great graphics and great sound. Basically you're a robot cleaning viruses inside a PC, and you travel through a lot of different "games" to do it. Has a pretty cool upgrade system, robotron style multiplayer, and the AGA version has an entirely new stage (the best in the game).



More screenshots:
http://hol.abime.net/1575/screenshot

Video:


Disposable Hero
An awesome 50fps shooter with great graphics and music for the amiga. Has a really unique upgrade/shop system, where you need to pickup blueprints on the map, and then choose a combination of upgrades on the shop.
It's just awesome.



More screenshots:
http://hol.abime.net/365/screenshot

Video:

[Curryman123]

I recommend S.o.S for Snes. One of my favorite games on the system, and not many people know about it.



The premise of S.O.S is simple: you're a passenger on a sinking ship (which has turned over), and you must escape. However, you only have one hour to make it to the exit before the ship starts filling with water. Make it out in one hour, you've beaten the game. Fail, you lose. Your only enemy here is the clock, and your only savior is exploration.

BAD MOJO (PC)

"Bad Mojo tells the story of a young man named Roger Samms, who is transferred into the body of a tiny cockroach by a strange pendant. To retain his human form, he must journey through his dilapidated apartment to find his unconscious body, which is fairly troublesome given his state as a creepy crawly little bug."




BLOOD for the PC (3D realms/Monolith)

"A first-person shooter in the spirit of schlock horror/slasher flicks, the gameplay of Blood is witnessed through the eyes of the player-controlled character, Caleb, and consists of fighting the hordes of various enemies as he traverses the levels of the game. In single player mode, the objective of the player is to lead Caleb in his quest of revenge against his former master: this is achieved by navigating the levels of each separate episode, looking for an exit, until the "boss" level is reached and a showdown against a large opponent takes place. Each episode can be played separately, in no particular order, albeit these are organized to follow the game's storyline."

[Lastcallhall]

Sword of the Bezerk: Guts' Rage



Yeah, it's a beat em up, but I dig the storyline, and IMO it gets a lot of unfair flak.

[NeoZeedeater]

Kishin Douji Zenki, Game Gear

Good call. The internet is full of Game Gear bashers. And not surprisingly, this is always one of the games they haven't played.

BAD MOJO (PC)

I didn't play Bad Mojo until 2007 but I gave it a very positive review (looking back, my writing's a little awkward but I think it gets the point across).
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/review/retro/bad-mojo-pc/

This thread has served as a good reminder of games I want to try again, like SOS. And I'm hoping for more games I haven't played before. So far there's just Shark: Hunting the Great White. So I downloaded it. I'm happy it seems to run perfectly in Vista. And it's pretty cool from what I played.

[Baloo]

This is Magical Tetris Challenge for Nintendo 64. One of my favorite incarnations of Tetris, it's a fast-paced version of Tetris where 2 players (or 1 and the computer) battle back and forth by making lines, combos, and tetrises in order to send harder blocks to use to their opponent and get them to the top faster. The first person to get to the top loses! Such an underrated game!

[NeoVamp]

Each poster picks one game

Describe it a bit and/or post pics or videos.

Figured I'd just quote these two since some people seem to have complete skipped the original post.


Also, Blood? really? that's like the Halo of its time, that's hardly an "overlooked" game.

[Kamahl]

It was pretty overlooked over here, most people I know didn't know about it, and we're talking some hardcore geeks here :S.