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[kruis]

Another was Pandamonium for Sega Saturn and PS1

Pandemonium was the game that made me a console gamer. True story. The PS1 had sort of passed me by and then I saw Pandemonium running on a TV in a shop and I was sold. Those graphics were unheard of on the PC at that time.

 

[Famassu]

ELASTOMANIA!

Great game!

But have you played its predecessor, Across? I have.

Anyhoo, might as well try. Glanced through the whole thread and didn't notice these two being mentioned yet:

Alien Incident (one of the first games from Housemarque, the developer of Super Stardust HD)

Areena 4 (there's a small chance that no one HERE has played it, though I guess there might be a couple of others)

 

[biggersmaller]

Fuck this game is hard:

I also owned a Game.com, so I'll just add these two gems:

And yes, when Batman takes damage from an enemy it does sound more than just a little sexual.

Finally:

Google that shit for some FMV glory.

 

[VegaNine]

Tokyo Bus Guide

A love-it-or-hate-it bus driving simulator where you carefully observe the rules of the road. Requires patience, discipline, and above all, a respect for the law. Depending on your temperament, this game will either bore you or delight you.

Roommania #203

A love-it-or-hate-it life simulator where you take control of a ghost-god and spy on a Japanese teenager. By throwing invisible ping-pong balls at objects in his apartment, you can cause him do just about anything: watch TV, have a smoke, take a leak, or even find love. Depending on your temperament, this game will either disturb you or fulfill your sick fantasies.

Cool Cool Toon

A love-it-or-love-it music-rhythm game. A rabbit pulls two children into TV set and teaches them how to dance for the power of good. The game plays like many other music-rhythm titles from the late 90's/early 00's, but as far as I'm concerned, it tops them all with its catchy songs, charming characters, and all-around good cheer.

 

[mocolostrocolos]

 

[Brera]

Played it!

 

[sca2511]

Lufia, so goooood.

 

[Qasiel]

I still have this. Could never clear it. not the best of shmups
Never heard anyone mention this game ever.

I had this! Man, I completely forgot about it until I saw that cover, though. It was a fun shmup for the GB.

 

[Kiarushka]

Sailor Moon S

I didn't understand anything in the game except for the handful of English words..

 

[Gadfly]

Zork 1,2,3,...

 

[Chromax]

I'd like to know more.

It's a pretty old Diablo clone. There's 4 episodes and episode one is free. They never dropped the price for the other 3 episodes so not too many people played it.

3 classes with your normal warrior/mage/ranger. I felt the single player was harder than both Diablo 2 and Titan Quest due to the jump in monster levels throughout the game. Tons of loot and unique items, oh and you can play blackjack to earn uniques!

 

[GrayFoxPL]

Spriggan: Lunar Verse - PS1

Ultimate Stuntman - NES

Project Overkill - PS1

Eternal Ring - PS2

Ephemeral Fantasia - PS2
Groundhog day rpg - huge potential wasted on dull and cheap last portion of the game and a name no one is able to pronounce.

Bionic Ninja - C64

MMA Supremacy

 

[Freeza Under The Shower]

obviously not true, but it sure feels that way.

 

[Ahasverus]

Yes? YES?

 

[Corto]

SketchFighter 4000 Alpha

It's a Mac exclusive game from Ambrosia Software. It's a metroidvania-like shooter with a cute "doodles-in-graph-paper" art style.

 

[Philia]

Yes? YES?

NOPE. This game DOES NOT AGE WELL.

Ephemeral Fantasia - PS2
Groundhog day rpg - huge potential wasted on dull and cheap last portion of the game and a name no one is able to pronounce.

Played this. I didn't like that there's rhythm bits in this game.

 

[Wellscha]

So far, I win this thread

 

[ProXimity]

Monster Truck Madness.

 

[Shadow Hog]

a game about... kissing...

We have a copy of this. It refuses to run, so I've never played it. :I

An awful awful game, like a 3d Pacman, that has actually gotten and iOS port. If anyone out there has played this we can shed a tear together.

I have both this and its sequel on PC. I can't locate either. I'm not particularly troubled.

obviously not true, but it sure feels that way.

Heh, I know the feeling. Still, even if the game was a great showcase for UE3 (before every game in existence became a showcase for UE3), it had the misfortune of showing up roughly when I got into Team Fortress 2, and I never felt compelled to play it. Just didn't hook me like UT2K4 did...

Yobi's Basic Spelling Tricks (Windows 3.1)

Man, screw those rhinos.

Last night, while I was racking my brain for a list of games for this topic, this game came to mind, but I didn't have a name to attach it to. Now I do. Thanks!

Incidentally, I wound up discovering these games through another obscure PC title:

Adi's [insert subject here]
Some Sierra-published edutainment software. You take tests on various subjects, and unlock games. Yobi's Basic Spelling Tricks was one of them, but it wasn't all educational stuf - Gobliiins was another, as I recall. I don't recall maxing out any of them, though, and given how old they are, they have almost no chance of running on my Win7 x64 machine at this point.

Also, one more obscure game:

Dr. Brain's Action Reaction
At some point in the late 90s/early 2000s, Sierra stopped making Dr. Brain games and some company called Knowledge Adventure started making Dr. Brain games instead. Sierra's featured an elderly, mad-but-generally-benevolent scientist. Knowledge Adventure's featuring a young and hip orange-haired dude. If there's any connection to these two Dr. Brains outside the name, I'm not aware of one.

Regardless, KA made several titles for their doctor, and this was one of them. A sinister mad doctor (well, dentist), the head of S.P.O.R.E. (Sinister People Organized Really Efficiently) has captured you and Dr. Brain and imprisoned you in his deep sea lair. Fortunately, Brain has broken out and into a control room, and breaks you out as he needs your legwork to bring the facility to its knees as you both escape. It's like a first-person puzzler (long before Portal made this vogue) built off of UnrealEngine1 - every subsystem is apparently powered by various puzzles, and shut down once the puzzle is solved. Puzzles involve rerouting giant colored balls into the correct colored bin through twisting pipes, kicking colored balls into the correct bins while avoiding drones, directing colored drones into the correct bins (y'know, I'm sensing a pattern here), navigating mazes of floating platforms, navigating mazes of portals (just like the ones in Portal, complete with the whole "window to another part of the level" aspect, only they're fixed in place), toying with antigravity... all the while avoiding guards who'd pummel you to death, armed only with a "helping hand" (which can temporarily stun the guards, at best, or otherwise flick switches from afar).

Plus, it's the only FPS I know of where you can play as a Scottish dude in a wheelchair. Who can apparently still jump. Don't ask, I couldn't explain it.

Another game that's fairly obscure would be Glover, but I'm fairly confident I'm not alone in having played that, so I won't go into the whole spiel.

 

[Aeana]

Yes? YES?

My favorite of Quintet's games by far.

NOPE. This game DOES NOT AGE WELL..

I just replayed it last month. Still love it.

 

[Popstar]

.

 

[RiderKairuu]

This and Great Word Adventure. Don't judge me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3aaIc3Zl2k

I can tell who had those computers now because Math Adventure, Word Adventure and GNOME came with my Packard Bell haha.

 

[Randy Lanzarote]

Fragile Allegiance, put so many hours into this. Very little story, lots of micro management, but I put so, so many hours into it. One of the first games I played over lan as well.

 

[Vargavinter]

The Detective Game for Commodore 64

Your sent up to a Mansion to solve a murder, and not long after you arrive the killer strikes again and you need to collect evidence to find who's the real killer.

I loved this game as a kid but i really never finished it due to was only six when i played it and english is my second language.
But non of my friend ever played it and i cant say i know anyone except me who actually played it.

 

[RepairmanJack]

Seventh Cross: Evolution for Dreamcast. I actually loved this game on the premise alone. Nobody else seems to have played it, or at least no one remembers it.

 

[DCharlie]

Seventh Cross: Evolution for Dreamcast. I actually loved this game on the premise alone. Nobody else seems to have played it, or at least no one remembers it.

haha, not only did i play Seventh Cross - i played it in Japanese when i didn't know any japanese at all! That gene edit colour grid was even more bewildering!

I was curiously addicted to it too.

 

[RepairmanJack]

haha, not only did i play Seventh Cross - i played it in Japanese when i didn't know any japanese at all! That gene edit colour grid was even more bewildering!

I was curiously addicted to it too.

That's funny the first time I ever played it was on some Japanese magazine demo. Then I hunted down the full game in English. Game was addicting. I can't remember if for some reason it wouldn't save or if I just started fresh every time I played it, but I always started from the beginning and tried to start a different way than before.

 

[VegaNine]

Seventh Cross: Evolution for Dreamcast. I actually loved this game on the premise alone. Nobody else seems to have played it, or at least no one remembers it.

One of the first Dreamcast games in Japan... and an odd choice for UFO to localize as their first title.

 

[Harlock]

Steel Diver. Great game, unfortunately locked in cartridge when would be so much better in download.

On DS, Touch the Dead was a lot o fun too.

 

[Mama Robotnik]

I think you had your Sega Zealot rose tinted glasses on.

Exhumed was shit full stop on console and PC. Also, it was originally a PC game....

Saturn - October 31, 1996

PC - December 31, 1996 (note: Click here for a detailed breakdown of what I was saying earlier, that you emphatically denied, regarding the completely different and crap PC release.)

And rather than make that a drive by post, tell me why Exhumed was supposedly shit.

-It looked brilliant, with some really nice texture work, real time lighting, interestingly designed villains (mixing aliens with Ancient Egypt in quite a cool way) and ran at a stable, constant framerate.

-It had a nice moody soundtrack.

-It had some absolutely outstanding level design, with multiple exits, multiple paths depending on your present abilities, and massively rewarded revisiting area by opening up new paths on the world map.

-It had some diverse environments (especially at the time) with swamps, dark pyramids, volcanoes, ancient cities, an arena, a tomb, an insect hive, a space station, an alien outpost, and a surreal galactic plane.

-It had an incredible lineup of weapons and upgrades, all having secondary functions that permit exploration as well as aggression.

-Fantastic difficulty curve.

-It had more secrets than any FPS I have ever played. Getting all the team-dolls was an outstandingly well realised achievement.

-It was a critical success in practically every magazine that reviewed it. CVG even went so far as to retroactively give it five out of five the issue after they originally reviewed it (then scoring it four), saying the game exhibited far more excellence than was initially apparent.

-It was such an impressive development that Sega of Japan made a direct plea to Exhumed devs Lobotomy Software, a complete unknown in the industry, for them to bring Quake and Duke Nukem 3D to the Saturn.

So please, tell me how it was so unambiguously "shit full stop". I'm not saying your opinion is wrong, I'd just like to see such an absolute objective statement expanded upon, especially when it is concerning what I consider to be the Metroid Prime of its era. Thanks.

 

[Gattsu25]

Eternal Ring - PS2

One of my favorites on the PS2

Love it!

 

[DarkKyo]

Aw come on now, these two are pretty common in many gamers' histories...

 

[andregnreis]

Nice topic! I remember playing Rolo: To The Rescue (Genesis) and Heart of Darkness (PC), both awesome and difficult games.

The game that I think only I played would be Beasts and Bumpkins (PC). It is a RTS game with a medieval tone, and a lot of fun stuff. I actually think it had a deep system, since you could change prices on things, choose what punishment each crime deserved, etc.... and of course, it was a lot of fun! Everybody who played, probably remember the sound the women in the game makes when she is going to have a child

If somebody here liked the game, help us bring it on GoG! http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/games/beasts_bumpkins

 

[HueyFreeman]

Heart of Darkness - PC/PS1 (as far as i know)
I have never met anyone who has heard of it, let alone played it. It was really fucking hard for me! I never beat it. The intro was really cool. I hope someone on GAF has played it, because then I won't feel so alone.

here's the intro

Love it, still own. This is an Eric Chahi classic, creator of Out of this World and the more recent, awesome From Dust. It's the game that's kind of credited with putting him off development for a while too... rocky dev period, highly labor intensive hand drawn art style, and as you've pointed out, basically nobody played it.

But I have a hard time believing it's gonna be super uncommon on GAF. It was a low-moderate profile game when it released. Either way, you have mighty fine tastes... but seriously, nut up and beat that shit.

As for my own submission:

Come at me, bros.

 

[LFMartins86]

Loved this game when I was a kid. I think I never got to the end, the last level was hell for me at the time. I need to turn my Mega Drive back on to see if I can get finish it now.

 

[AGITΩ]

Even among SRW fans, I have yet to know anyone else that has played, let alone own this game:

It was actually my first Import I bought myself not long after its release.

 

[Amory]

Ordered this game, "Discover the World II" from one of those scholastic book flyers they handed out when I was in middle school. That game was kick. Ass.

You sailed around uncovering the world map

Hunted to feed your crew, a la Oregon Trail

Traded with the natives of discovered countries

And even got attacked by pirates and you could either pay them off or battle them.

Man I wish I could play it again...

 

[Gilby]

I've never gotten a reply no matter how many times I bring it up (cause it's awesome):

Deepak Fights Robots

 

[Shaffield]

I've posted this in another obscurity thread before, but I'm gonna say

There was never a Volume 2.

 

[Night_Trekker]

a game about... kissing...

Chulip is so fucking cool. I want more weird-ass Japanese games like this.

Argh I've wanted this game for the longest time.

It's super-cheap new and used. You shouldn't have trouble finding a copy.

We have a copy of this. It refuses to run, so I've never played it. :I

Does the disc rattle around in the tray? Might wanna try the tape trick (place two pieces of tape of the same size and length parallel to one another on either side of the disc's center hole). That should weigh the CD down enough so it will sit level in the PS2.

But if it doesn't work for some other reason, just buy another copy! It's seriously worth it if you like quirky Japanese games.

I loved Shadow of Destiny for the PS2. It was geared more towards the Japanese audience, and I can't imagine many mainstream only gamers would touch it.

Great game. Yeah, most gamers would turn their noses up at it.

Here's a good one, an obscure Dreamcast puzzle game developed by a handful of students and released in limited numbers - one of the real hidden gems on the DC;

Golem no Maigo/The Lost Golem

http://www.lostgolem.com - fansite with info on the game and an interview with the creators.

I love this game. Big thumbs up to you for even knowing what it is.

I also adore this game, but I had no idea there was a Sega CD release. How is it different from the cart release?

I actually really liked this game, but I never played the PS2 sequel.

EDIT

Oh. Oh oh...Please tell me someone else has played this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3eZSq_YRZI&feature=relmfu

I haven't played much of it, but yes it is awesome. Great soundtrack, too.

I mentioned this in my Obscure PS1 games thread but no one acknowledged having played it. Though I have heard mention of it (I think) on the Retronauts survival horror episode. This was sort of a Resident Evil clone, even though aesthetically it shared almost nothing. It was pretty bad.

I actually sort of enjoyed this :X

2D Platformer
Got this for my 9th birthday and was like "the fuck is this shit" before even playing it. Pretty good game in the end although way to hard for me at the time.

I think I played this at a friend's house once. Pretty good platformer from what I remember.

The Firemen

This game is awesome. I want to play the PS1 sequel so badly

Played 'em all. Lufia: The Legend Returns is not really a "good" game (though the battle system is great), but it's one of my guilty pleasures. I played so many hours of it. I can't remember if I beat it or not.

Rocket Knight Adventures is, of course, one of the best games on the Genesis/Mega Drive. Shame about that recent reboot :/

Yes? YES?

Played the shit out of it and imported the soundtrack. Get on my level, son.

Eternal Ring - PS2

Own it. Not a bad game at all, just rough around the edges. A maybe for King's Field fans.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I loved this game even more than Mario 64. Me and my younger brother must have beaten it 4 times.

 

[eso76]

The Detective Game for Commodore 64

Your sent up to a Mansion to solve a murder, and not long after you arrive the killer strikes again and you need to collect evidence to find who's the real killer.

I loved this game as a kid but i really never finished it due to was only six when i played it and english is my second language.

played this, me and a friend.
never beaten it

 

[DCharlie]

I know other people have played these but seeing as actually posting games that maybe only one person has played seems to have been abandoned ( ) :

Eliminate Down

Rendering Ranger

 

[jchap]

I don't know a lot of people who had a 3DO. One of my favorite games on it was called Crash'n Burn. You bought vehicles and weapons on the black market and raced for money to further upgrade. I really liked the game but it hasn't aged well.

 

[boingball]

Professional Football Simulation
http://hol.abime.net/1161/review

IR X SELW.FB5-TQ.SELHB8FLOTEC
I-Formation Strong Right, Fullback and HB eXchanged, Split End on Left Wing.
FB takes the ball to hole 5, trap blocking, toss play
Split End lead blocking, HB decoy to hole 8, flanker out pattern, tight end corner route

 

[NateDrake]

Oil's Well. Kind of a Snake type game but better. Had little cutscenes showing a dinosaur watching TV & then getting blasted with oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-JQS3iWjVA

 

[rpmurphy]

2D Platformer
Got this for my 9th birthday and was like "the fuck is this shit" before even playing it. Pretty good game in the end although way to hard for me at the time.

I've never played it but I have to say the music is pretty amazing for the SNES.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I know of no one who played this game.

It was my first western made RPG and made me realize that not every RPG from western developers is weak compared to those from Japan. It was the FFVII of WRPGs for me.

Pretty sure this was a launch title. I never played it but my BFF did and he said he loved it.

 

[gnarlycrow]

Majic Realm a dial-up pay-to-play MUD on ICE Online BBS in Vancouver BC. Good times.

 

[RiderKairuu]