[RLacey]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

No One Lives Forever

I dont know if it fits in this category, although among old-time PC gamers is reasonably well known, to the new generation is an almost unknown game.

I still think both games, specially the first one, are one of the best FPS ever made. It had brilliant level design, a charismatic main character, a great setting that was a parody and homage to the 60's and to the Bond films, excelent gameplay... i mean its almost perfect. It's a pitty Monolith is doing those crap FEAR games and keeps forgetting about this masterpiece

No One Lives Forever 3 is a game I would almost instantly preorder...

[geggis]

Originally Posted by nomadsoul

VAs = Voiceactors, overhead RPGs that came around that time like Planescape, baldurgate, Nox etc. many had very low number of actual voice overs, some had none.

It becomes more involving and alive if there are VAs playing part for most of the lines, not all since Planescape had huge amount of text.

I disagree here. One of the things I loved about that time in game history was the way it just skimmed literature before bowling down the cinematic/movie path where (bad) voice acting was to become predominant. Like a book, Torment allowed you to read sections over again and mull them over whereas voice acting would have prevented this. As it stands, what little voice acting there was was excellent.

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

[B]...The graphics still look appealing.

I remember Alundra, it came out around the time JRPGs hit the west bigtime (1997-FFVII). That screenshot looks really nice, it's aged very well indeed. I never played it but knew a few people at school who enjoyed it.

[Crunchy in milk]

I have tried to play Wizardy 8 numerous times but even with enemy movement speed ramped up to instantaneous the battle's become push-you-to-the-brink-of-insanity-tedious. This from someone who has played through and completed many Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior games.

I dream of a modern day revival of the first person turn based dungeon crawler.

To keep the thread going though, I thought it was a shame Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland never got a release in the USA. Its a damn good game and its Europe only western release doesn't give me strong hope its recent sequel will get an english language version.

[Zack]

I haven't played Anachronox and Outcast in years, but they were two of the most original and action-packed adventure games I had ever played.

I never got around to playing The Thief games, but I love stealth action, (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, the first one is my all-time favorite game), so I should try them out if I can find them. And finally, The Operative: No One Lives Forever is one of the best shooter games I've ever played. The Voice acting is hilarious, there are great gadgets to use, and Cate Archer is an awesome heroine (I also have a crush on her, every time I play the game) No One Lives Forever 2 is a good game, but I prefer the first one.

Other than that, I can't think of any games I've played that nobody has heard of.

[ggreen737]

Big thanks to Gazzoid, I started playing Alundra on an em**ator a few days back, this game rocks! I'm liking it better than Zelda so far, it really is a blast to play. Freakin' difficult as well, in a good way though

[DustyShinigami]

Hey, no problem. Glad you're enjoying it.

[Henke]

I've played Anachronox, Outcast, Planescape: Torment, Omikron: Nomad Soul and they're all good. I don't really think they are underestimated. Don't all these titles have a fairly large group of followers?

[geggis]

Yes they have, like a lot of good games, but I've never met anyone personally who's played Planescape: Torment which is crazy considering I know a fair few life long gamers who all love RPGs. It must annoy them because I don't stop harping on about it. That and Dwarf Fortress.

[YAZ]

Originally Posted by Henke

I've played Anachronox, Outcast, Planescape: Torment, Omikron: Nomad Soul and they're all good. I don't really think they are underestimated. Don't all these titles have a fairly large group of followers?

All this games are wellknown, even here in France (I've got all of them and played/finished most of them (except Planescape, too complex : I felt the sensation there where no ending : too much possibilities O_o")).

Some of the best games not really famous I've played/got :
- Zork Nemesis/Grand Insquisitor (PC Adventure)
- Isabelle (PC Adventure)
- S.P.Q.R (PC Adventure)
- Galapagos (PC weird stuff)
- Of Light & Darkness (another PC weird stuff)
- Zero Zone (PC Aventure)
- Jewels of Oracle II The ultimate Challenge (PC Puzzle game)
- D (PC Adventure)
- Arcanes (PC Strategic/Rôle)
- Ballance (PC puzzle/arcade)
- Constructor (PC Strategic)
- Down in The Dumps (PC Avdenture)
- Fable (PC Adventure)
- Flower Sun and Rain : Murder and Mystery in Paradise (NDS weird stuff)
- Hardline (PC Action/Adventure)
- Haunting Grounds (PS2 Survival Horror)
- Nine (9) : The Last Resort (PC Adventure)
- Rule of Rose (PS2 Weird Adventure/Survival Horror)
- Shadows of Memories (PS2 Adventure/Action)
- Starshot (PC Arcade)
- Technomage (PS1/PC RPG)
- Glass Rose (PS2 Adventure/Action)

[CrimsonBlue]

An under-represented genre in this thread, but Rumble Racing was one of the early PS2 racing games, and reminds me of a mix between Super Cars 2 on the Amiga and Daytona USA on the Dreamcast. Still stands as one of my favourite PS2 racers, and it'll be part of my collection of PS2 games for a long long time.

Also, The Mark of Kri on the same console.

[Blackheart]

A lot of my fav titles are ones that are reasonably known amongst hardcore gamers ages 25+, younger gamers probably won't know these titles or won't like them. Some of them have a strong underground cult following, but didn't get enough attention so they remain underrated in the overall majority.

Blacksite - Area 51: Love this shooter with mild adventure segments, a great followup to the first Area 51 which I really enjoyed. It got a lot of crap for a lot of reasons such as difficulty, lack of squad controls, weird glitches, etc...The weapon models are nice, very good unique selection of weapons, loved the sniping perspectives, good story and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked the quirky characters and the dev team's sense of humor. I liked how you had to fight your way through various residential and commercial levels to get to the base in an "urban War of the Worlds" style game. Overall it's a well rounded and solid action game with some thrilling sequences and while there may be some random glitches such as clipping, it's nothing that will crash the game. I think the majority of people out there were hating on it simply because they sucked at it.

F.E.A.R.: Someone was hating on this game calling it "crap" comparing it against an uninspired and unoriginal mediocre title No One Lives Forever. Again I think this is someone slinging insults out at a popular title like FEAR because they weren't any good at it. "NOLF had a great story"....are you frigging kidding me? It was a complete old school Bond (Roger Moore/Sean Connery era) ripoff in story, design, and art style the only exception being a female lead. There's a dangerous organization, H.A.R.M., plotting world domination and they need a secret operative to take it down...real original, been there. She's the best this "nonexistent" covert ops organization has....done that. She's the only one who can succeed in this mission and the fate of the world rests in her hands...wearing the t-shirt. Could the writers have ridden the work of Ian Fleming's nuts any harder? I don't think so, they should've been sued for plagiarism. I got really sick of that annoying, condescending feminist nazi with a stereotypical "baditude" really quick. At least Bond, cocky as he was, was a playa with charisma. Give him a sex change, strip away his personality and you have NOLF.

FEAR, on the other hand, was a good game undeserving a lot of the flack people gave it simply because they couldn't succeed at a genuinely challenging title. Love it or hate it the game did have an original plot, unlike NOLF, it was creepy successfully building atmosphere, unlike NOLF, lots of unique weapons, cool abilities, and enjoyable gunplay, unlike NOLF, and it built tension. I know there are NOLF lovers and FEAR haters who can argue every point I just made, but one thing they can't deny is something FEAR will always have other NOLF is a complex AI. In NOLF if I run down this hallway cowboy style the majority of enemies will stand in place making it easy for me to shoot them or if I hide behind this wall eventually they will come running around the corner so all I have to do is wait. Real challenging.

FEAR is a whole different story and was one of the first shooters to integrate a revolutionary AI which would adapt to the player's offensive and defensive patterns (not so much on easy). FEAR changed everything thrusting the bar on shooters higher because no more would enemies blindly charge you like morons. On normal and hard difficulty they moved like legitimate soldiers, they operated like a military unit, they would study your offensive strategy as they took cover and counteract your attack patterns, hell they would even split up and flank you if they had the opportunity. Of course people who didn't like FEAR shot it down, but never did they accountability on their own gaming skills. No, no, no of course it's the game's fault...it's the one that sucks .

Prince of Persia series: Probably the greatest series of very well written action-adventure games I've ever played. The acrobatic Prince embarks on a legendary journey that literally spans time...filled with complicated characters in an epic story, extremely fun combat (especially in Prince of Persia: Warrior Within), good to great graphics, satisfying environmental puzzles, unique abilities like the wall run, these games literally have it all. A lot of older gamers are familiar with these titles or at least have heard of them, it's a shame they didn't get more attention than what they did.

[Little Writer]

Prince of Persia? Are you kidding me? Huge fanbase last I heard! I thought everyone had played them. Just look at the amount of anti-Gyllenhaal topics all over the net

[Roper Klacks]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

F.E.A.R.: rant...

It was me that called FEAR crap. Obviously i respect your opinion, but i think its a bit stupid to say that i (or anyone for that matter) didn't enjoy it because i wasn't any good at it... Anyway, FEAR is a very popular and well known game so i think it doesnt fit in this thread.

[ggreen737]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

It was me that called FEAR crap. Obviously i respect your opinion, but i think its a bit stupid to say that i (or anyone for that matter) didn't enjoy it because i wasn't any good at it... Anyway, FEAR is a very popular and well known game so i think it doesnt fit in this thread.

Agreed. I beat FEAR in like 6 hours, on normal, and while it had some fun scares, I was like MEH.....

[Fantasysci5]

I like a series of books people haven't even heard of, "The Dreaming Dark" series; "City of Towers", "The Shattered Land", and "The Gates of Night". The new D&D World, or whatever they're calling it, "Eberron" was created by Kieth Baker, and I LOVE it, but no one seems to know it exists!

Well anyway, this post was relevant, they made a game based on it called, "Dragonshard" (a RTS-RPG kind of game) that no one's heard of, either. *sigh*

[Blackheart]

Originally Posted by Roper Klacks

It was me that called FEAR crap. Obviously i respect your opinion, but i think its a bit stupid to say that i (or anyone for that matter) didn't enjoy it because i wasn't any good at it... Anyway, FEAR is a very popular and well known game so i think it doesnt fit in this thread.

You're right, it was a stupid thing to say. I neglected the fact of different people's taste and not everybody is going to appreciate the things I do in the same way. Of course every gamer friend of mine or anyone I met who dissed FEAR never beat it, so I said what I did out of personal experience.

@ggreen737: Play it on hard, that's where the AI is the most adaptive and really cunning. I bet you'll have a hell of a time playing through it in six hours then.

[DustyShinigami]

Originally Posted by Blackheart

Play it on hard, that's where the AI is the most adaptive and really cunning. I bet you'll have a hell of a time playing through it in six hours then.

Yep, FEAR is certainly difficult and the enemies more cunning on hard mode. I died a LOT! And I'd be very surprised if anyone out there beat it under six hours. Even a fair number of the 360 achievements (single player) are a bitch to obtain. I did manage those though.

Anyway...

Another favourite game of mine that nobody has played - Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase. This game seems to be quite obscure now. It was the first PC CD-ROM game me and my brother played on our very first Windows computer - Windows 95. It was created by Blue Byte in 1995. The same company who made The Settlers games.
As I said, this game is very obscure. My first copy got damaged years ago and thought I'd lost the game forever. Then, a couple of years ago I found 1 copy on ebay for as little as £7. I've never seen it on ebay since. There are a few Abandonware sites that offer it for download, but there's no sites/stores that actually sell it. Hopefully one day GOG.com will sell it.

Dr. Drago is a strategy game in which up to 8 players can play. The objective is to reach a certain destination in the world, which is randomly chosen by a commentator, before the other players. Doing so, you'll get paid a nice sum, which will increase as the number of races go on. You can choose to do from 2-300 races and your player needs to be the one who beats the final race and has the most money in order to win.
The game plays out a bit like Monopoly. You use a slot machine which will display how many moves you can make (1-6). Then, you follow the dotted lines to a tile. Moving to a tile will be classed as 1 step. Once you've run out of steps you'll have no choice but to land on a certain tile. All the tiles have colours which will be either - red = lose money, blue = win money, yellow = you'll get a Playing Card (these can be used to your advantage), purple = purchase/sell whichever Playing Cards you want (you can only carry six), and striped/grey tile = a city/destination (you can purchase/sell properties which will help you earn money). There are also some little red dots that you can switch on or off in the options. Pressing Enter on these will give you some info/history on some of the places you can travel to.
After the first race, an unlucky player will have to put up with Dr. Drago himself, who will do dastardly things with your money. He'll either spend some of your cash on himself, purchase properties for himself, cut up 1 of your Player Cards etc. You can shake him off by driving past another player or by using a specific Playing Card.

The premise and the gameplay are simple but fun - it's addictive, the game is colourful and wacky and the music is catchy. This game brings back memories. For anyone who's interested check out a video here. I wouldn't recommend you watch it all, but just some of it just to see what it's like.

[Fien]

Originally Posted by YAZ

Some of the best games not really famous I've played/got :
- Zork Nemesis/Grand Insquisitor (PC Adventure)
- Isabelle (PC Adventure)

Hey, another fan of Isabelle! Great, I thought there were only two of us in the entire universe, Steve Ramsey aka Flotsam, and me.

[ozzie]

Originally Posted by Gazzoid

Another favourite game of mine that nobody has played - Dr. Drago's Madcap Chase. This game seems to be quite obscure now. It was the first PC CD-ROM game me and my brother played on our very first Windows computer - Windows 95. It was created by Blue Byte in 1995. The same company who made The Settlers games.
As I said, this game is very obscure. My first copy got damaged years ago and thought I'd lost the game forever. Then, a couple of years ago I found 1 copy on ebay for as little as £7. I've never seen it on ebay since. There are a few Abandonware sites that offer it for download, but there's no sites/stores that actually sell it. Hopefully one day GOG.com will sell it.

Dr. Drago is a strategy game in which up to 8 players can play. The objective is to reach a certain destination in the world, which is randomly chosen by a commentator, before the other players. Doing so, you'll get paid a nice sum, which will increase as the number of races go on. You can choose to do from 2-300 races and your player needs to be the one who beats the final race and has the most money in order to win.
The game plays out a bit like Monopoly. You use a slot machine which will display how many moves you can make (1-6). Then, you follow the dotted lines to a tile. Moving to a tile will be classed as 1 step. Once you've run out of steps you'll have no choice but to land on a certain tile. All the tiles have colours which will be either - red = lose money, blue = win money, yellow = you'll get a Playing Card (these can be used to your advantage), purple = purchase/sell whichever Playing Cards you want (you can only carry six), and striped/grey tile = a city/destination (you can purchase/sell properties which will help you earn money). There are also some little red dots that you can switch on or off in the options. Pressing Enter on these will give you some info/history on some of the places you can travel to.
After the first race, an unlucky player will have to put up with Dr. Drago himself, who will do dastardly things with your money. He'll either spend some of your cash on himself, purchase properties for himself, cut up 1 of your Player Cards etc. You can shake him off by driving past another player or by using a specific Playing Card.

The premise and the gameplay are simple but fun - it's addictive, the game is colourful and wacky and the music is catchy. This game brings back memories. For anyone who's interested check out a video here. I wouldn't recommend you watch it all, but just some of it just to see what it's like.

I totally agree, awesome game. I played the german version called "Die total verrückte Rally" when I was litte. My uncle gave it to me as a birthday gift. He had no understanding of computer games, but made a good guess with this purchase!
I rarely played it with another person, only with my father sometimes. I didn't know anyone who was willing to play such a game with me. I think that hasn't changed. So I only played it in single player mode...was still great fun though!

[Henke]

Anyone who played Montezuma's Return?

It's an excellent firstperson 3D remake of an old platformer called Montezuma's Revenge. If you recall the funniest moments in the Indiana Jones movies (chased by a boulder, riding a minecart ect.) and then visualise a game on acid filled only with scenes like that and you're fairly close. A highly overlooked game which I truly recommend.