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[Rell]

specifically I'm remembering Bad Mojo for some reason.

Growing up I had a good friend who happened to have a pretty hardcore nerd for a dad. We had diskettes upon diskettes of DOS shareware games. Mostly Raptor and Halloween Harry,

And the grade school I went to had a computer lab full of relic Apple IIs loaded to the brim with MECC software. There was an RPG (complete with what I now realize must have been nearly 100% plagiarized Ultima assets) where the random battles were arithmetic problems, and the boss battles were longer "story problems." Each step cost you food and other bullshit of the era.

Those Apple IIs were the shit. Somehow I think they could send email or something. There was a bizarre web portal that allowed extremely limited access to communication type stuff. There was no GUI to speak of, and definitely no mouse controls. Everyone would race to the computer lab because only about a quarter of the monitors had color displays. This was in the mid 1990s. One of the kids at the school had a father who developed software for Microsoft who was absolutely appalled that the school was hamstringing the students' computer aptitude with irrelevant equipment. It was an awesome memory of a bygone era of computing, but he was really right about the level of involvement computers would have in day to day life.

 

[TheBear]

I've enjoyed this thread. PC Gaming has seen some weird shit. Thanks for the memories!

 

[C4EMGEN]

I'm now on a mission to try and help you. Had no idea what game, but started looking for it just on the odd premise alone.

Is it one of these weird Victor Vector and Yondo games?

if it is, these games look amazingly weird.

Wow! Thank you so much! I've been looking for this for years.

How did you find it?

I remember it looking a lot better though, haha. Full screen, smoother animations and everything... And yeah, you're right - it was very weird. But I loved it, even though I kept getting stuck.

Ah, the memories. I was 8 or 9 back then. That's nearly 20 years ago!

 

[Zodzilla]

Wow! Thank you so much! I've been looking for this for years.

How did you find it?

I remember it looking a lot better though, haha. Full screen, smoother animations and everything... And yeah, you're right - it was very weird. But I loved it, even though I kept getting stuck.

Ah, the memories. I was 8 or 9 back then. That's nearly 20 years ago!

Hey, no probs, just like helping people out. Ended up going to MobyGames and reducing the search to "3rd Person Adventure Games with a scifi setting" and kind of clicking on the ones that I didn't know. That one had such a weird name that I had to give it a shot.

But yeah, nostalgia really does add those rose tinted glasses - I flipped through my PC Gamer mags so many times growing up and had all these amazing games lined up for when I could afford them. Now that I can afford them and get them off things like GOG though, it's like a wake up call that most of them were pretty terrible looking. I mean, One Must Fall once looked impressive. Now it just kind of looks like butt.

This thread is a pretty nice trip down nostalgia lane though. Hadn't thought about Stunt Island or Sopwith in ages.

 

[Blizzard]

Linux games count right? Hopefully no one beat me to these.

XBlast, Linux Bomberman clone. The graphics looked good to me as a kid, and it was actually a lot of fun in local multiplayer. Fast paced and crazy.

XEvil, crazy sidescrolling multiplayer deathmatch. I just spent maybe 20 minutes trying to find a screenshot of the original 1.5-ish version. With version 2.0 and newer they added Windows support, drugs, dogs, and updated the graphics...but I don't like the new graphics much. I remember the original clean graphics fondly.

There were some neat mechanics like ninjas and aliens running on walls and ceilings, frog-guns to turn people helpless, very strong robots that couldn't climb ladders or use weapons, soul-swapping rays to switch places with your opponents (who were potentially buffed and had tons of weapons on them), face-huggers that would turn certain classes into aliens as an instant kill attacks, normal machine guns, powerful but slow-firing lancer sniper rifles, bombs, grenades (or grenade launchers, I forget), portals, etc.

Local co-op was fun for this too! Or at least, local co-op trying to survive as many levels as possible before the AI opponents overwhelmed us.

 

[Chairmanchuck]

Nostalgia trip... so many games in this thread I've played (some even enjoyed)

Wait Wait...

Are you... are you... my clone???

 

[SDBurton]

I'm sure some people here played it:

The journeyman project

This and Hover, all day every day.

 

[DannyDanger]

Clyde
&
Gladiator

Edit: Oh and Jetpack Christmas

 

[Warm Machine]

Bloodstone: An Epic Dwarven Tale
So obscure I can only find one picture of the box...

I'm going to go play this again right now.

Yeah. Played this. There was another game before this one in the series. As well these guys made the Siege! Series which was pretty great. The Roman version was especially good. They also put out a space game like Xcom but it was terrible. The whole company went out of business and their last product never shipped.

 

[DarkFlow]

Battlecruiser 3000AD.

I'd be impressed if anyone figured out how to play it.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Mission Thunderbolt

Mission Thunderbolt was a sci-fi, post-apocalyptic roguelike for Mac and Windows (I played the Mac version).

It's too bad there aren't more sci-fi roguelikes. This one is still pretty much my favorite.

 

[RibMan]

There are two that come to mind:

1) A Mickey Mouse game that had you waking up and walking towards Pluto or something like that. I was really young so I'm not even sure if it was a game or one of those learning software packages.

2) A demo of a Hercules game that came with my breakfast cereal. Again, pretty young, but I remember the graphics blowing me away at the time. Here's a screenshot of the game:

 

[The_Afroman]

I know someone played this.. but no one I KNOW. This was soooooo goooood.

 

[Uff duh]

Played the hell outta some Isle of the Dead back in the day. And that quote on the box "...The best knock-off of WOLFENSTIEN 3-D anyone has created" lol!

 

[mace999]

My favourite game that no one seems to have heard of let alone played is 'Heimdall' for the Amiga.

The intro was you wrestling pigs, and throwing axes to cut someones hair, this affected your initial stats, I never finished it because it was way difficult for me back then, it was a Core Designs game and it was isometric style ...... would love to know if anyone ever played or even finished it

 

[MayMay]

Unga Bunga. Hilarious, so much fun playing it on the same PC with my brother and my sister while we were still kids lol Some weird shareware game - not even sure if that existed outside of Germany. Probably not. It was basically.. 1-3 ppl on the same keyboard - deathmatch. You could collect items to use etc. and it was all rather funny. lol

100% sure no one here played and/or has heard of the game.

 

[The Shadow]

The two that come to mind are:

Fire Fight - http://youtu.be/IrTz2SpsIXA

Very similar to Desert Strike on the Genesis. I liked it a lot.

Zone Raiders - http://youtu.be/xt-HixevAP8

Zone Raiders was interesting because despite being an early texture-mapped 3D game, it ran really good on my old 486DX2. Granted, looking at that YouTube video, I guess it was only rendering half the screen.

Did any one play Slave Zero?

I beat it in one sitting. Kinda funny, there was an online service way back when that game came out that allowed you to purchase or rent games online. They had a trial where you could rent a game for like 12 hours for free so I rented Slave Zero and finished it before the trial was up.

I have this somewhere in the garage. Actually liked it back in the day. I heard years later that EA and the developers had tried unsuccessfully to secure a Batman license but made the game anyway.

I'm sure some people here played it:

The journeyman project

It was re-released twice back in the day. Pretty sure lots of people played it.

 

[wowami]

1986 - Ski Trip To Italy.

Mysterious Stones, ate my holiday spending money. :-(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjs3XCv1slw

 

[Lijik]

I wish i could find this "100 games in one!" cd i bought for a laugh at a dollar store back in like 99/2000.It had so many weird obscure mid 90s shareware games, like whoever made it put the entire contents of a download site onto a disc.

The three games I remember are a myst clone that took place in a pyramid or temple of some kind, a space rts that turned out to be a game a dad programmed for his son according to the help file, and a weird platformer made in klik n play where you played as some blue thing

 

[Orayn]

Arcade America

Holy shit, thank you for helping me remember the name of this game. I've been trying to figure it out for years.

 

[DarkFlow]

Anyone remember this gem? It came with our Micron Computer back in the day with our screaming Pentium 200 MMX. Shit was fun as hell.

 

[PastorOfMuppets]

I got two to add to this nostalgia thread.

Odell Down Under. An edutainment title with a grinding mechanic. You started off as a tiny fish eating plankton and everytime you ate a certain amount of stuff, you evolved into a bigger fish. Your diet and predators would often change each time you evolved.

This one is really obscure - Youngblood. It was based on a 90's Image comic series by Rob Liefeld - one of the most notoriously terrible artists in comics. It was a top down RPG in the same vein as Diablo. You took control of a team of superheroes - each with their own strengths and weaknesses and fought your way through various levels. The game was included on many magazine demo disks at the time but was never completed. You can still find the demo floating around the internet as freeware though.

 

[Thing on a Spring]

One of my favorite games on the C64 was Chiller. Don't think it was a very popular game but I loved it. Avoiding the deadly popcorn in the cinema whilst trying to collect the crosses was a delight. I don't think I ever finished it. Might have to pay it a visit again soon and see what's up.

This was another one that came free with our C64. Little Computer People! It was basically The Sims before The Sims. had no idea what to do in it so I sat with my oldest brother and watched him play it. The cover was creepy as hell.

I think this was the first flight game I ever played. Blue Max. I'm not sure how well it was received on the whole but I couldn't get enough of it.

 

[Craft]

I also effing loved this game right here... Worms before Worms existed!
I think it was called Gorillas or QBasic Gorillas...

Funnily enough one of my friends has made an online version of that game, check it out:
http://multiplayergorillas.com/

 

[Gangxxter]

2) A demo of a Hercules game that came with my breakfast cereal. Again, pretty young, but I remember the graphics blowing me away at the time. Here's a screenshot of the game:

I have the full game on PS1, was one of the first games I got. I liked it a lot.

Anyone remember this gem? It came with our Micron Computer back in the day with our screaming Pentium 200 MMX. Shit was fun as hell.

Of course I remember this gem! This was my favorite game in my childhood. This and of course Motocross Madness 2.

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

I played this! It was a pretty cool game. I could never finish it though >_<

Wooop! So glad someone else actually played this game haha. I used to know all the passwords for each level haha.

 

[Slair]

Played the shit out of a shareware version of this back in the day:

 

[Sodding_Gamer]

MAJOR NOSTALGIA GOOSEBUMPS HERE!!!
I looked FOREVER for the name of Flying Tiger. Haven't played it for at least 15 years. Loved it and introduced me to the Shmup genre and I loved it ever since.


.

Haha dude I literally had to go into my attic a few years back to find out the name of the game because it was bugging me for years. Was a great game!

 

[doofy102]

Oddball storybook game full of cool references.

 

[genbatzu]

it was a political advertisement (canvassing?) for a german party. a point an click adventure with a lot of references to the political situation in germany. it was great!

(e.g. there was a hole on the second floor you somehow had to cross. It was labeled as "Steuerloch" (en.: tax gap) and to close it you had to throw money at it.) loved that game
(the frozen guy with the "K" is Helmut Kohl, the (then) Federal Chancellor)
also on the floppy disc was the sentence: you are free to copy and distribute this game

 

[Freshmaker]

Skyfox popped up on a lotta platforms.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQLFwUu5cTY

Wasn't bad as far as arcadey shooters went.

 

[soepje]

Whoohaa, quite a trip down memory lane.

Prehistorik 1 and 2:

Prehistoric 2 was one of my favorite games back then.

Word Rescue

Totally forgot about this one.

Alley cat

For some reason i remember this to be more pink.

Captain Comic, my first platformer, as far as I can remember. I never did make it past the moon level.

Played it, but never finished it either.

@C4EMGEN
scorched earth

star goose

Played both of them a lot. Great games.

So eum, maybe Volfied?

 

[Femmeworth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UumhSi5eROU

Some fond memories of this.

 

[Screaming Meat]

One of my favorite games on the C64 was Chiller. Don't think it was a very popular game but I loved it. Avoiding the deadly popcorn in the cinema whilst trying to collect the crosses was a delight. I don't think I ever finished it. Might have to pay it a visit again soon and see what's up.

This was another one that came free with our C64. Little Computer People! It was basically The Sims before The Sims. had no idea what to do in it so I sat with my oldest brother and watched him play it. The cover was creepy as hell.

I think this was the first flight game I ever played. Blue Max. I'm not sure how well it was received on the whole but I couldn't get enough of it.

Oh, man. Chiller and Blue Max were great!

 

[PhantomZone]

C-dogs

I remember the original and played it a lot, the sequel not so much. It's funny looking at the wikipedia and how old it is................. i remember playing it in 95-97.

Another game i used to play quite a bit that was hosted on BBS places was legend of the red dragon and legend of the red dragon 2. They were pretty cool for text based games.

 

[PedroPanache]

I used to love this brilliant frogger clone on my Atari 800XL; it got ridiculously hard at about level 8 or 9. I played it on an emulator with save states to see what happened when you beat the last level, but I think it just repeats that same level over and over. Great game.

Perhaps even more obscure was one called Ghost Encounters. Hard to describe it, but you were a ghost who could change into various objects (like a shovel) to solve certain screens. It was incredibly simplistic, but engaging all the same. Sort of a mix between Bezerk and Avenger on the Atari 2600.

 

[ichtyander]

I remember playing a DOS based Street Fighter II that was HEAVILY modded and myself and a friend would often burst out laughing of it.

Everyone was on steroids and the thing had tons of hilarious bugs. Chun Li would send out copies of herself during Lightning Kicks (lol) or shoot stars while doing normals/punches.

Anyone know what was it?

Oh yeah, I played something like that actually. I think my version was called "Hyper Street Fighter II" and featured a badly drawn Andy Bogard. The graphics looked like they were photographed off a TV screen or something, all fuzzy and grainy.

There are a few homebrew PC versions of Street Fighter II, all Korean I think. They are all based on the SF2IBM homebrew game. Check out SFLIU, SFJENN and this article about the whole thing. Basically, the SF2 PC port was pretty bad so someone decided to make his own version. It was actually a bit better, gameplay wise, but still pretty bad.

 

[casmith07]

Can't remember, but it was on Mac. It was a RTS, and any time someone died, the narrator would say "Casualty" real nonchalantly. Haha.

 

[ЯAW]

Played the hell outta some Isle of the Dead back in the day. And that quote on the box "...The best knock-off of WOLFENSTIEN 3-D anyone has created" lol!

Most popular gaming magazine around here gave the game 12 points out of 100 and it still stands as worse game in the magazines history. I always wanted to play this.

 

[roddjbrown]

I'm not sure how obscure these are but my two would be:

Burnin' Rubber for the Amstrad GX 4000 (I would be surprised if many had even heard of the console)

Zool on Acorn

 

[Caleb187]

Can't remember, but it was on Mac. It was a RTS, and any time someone died, the narrator would say "Casualty" real nonchalantly. Haha.

I'm pretty sure the Myth series did that "Casualty" announcement but not sure if that's the one you're thinking of.

 

[Armitage Shanks]

One game that haunts me is called, I think, Omikron, it might even have been Omikron Conspiracy but it is NOT the Nomad Soul one that Google throws up.
I can't for the life of me find any images or info on it anymore (no matter how I spell it)

It was a PC game, an adventure, around the time of Space Quest 1, perhaps slightly earlier. It was very blocky, not an AGI game but it looked like it might as well have been. Very sci-fi, spacey, you walked around a city as a helmeted, suited bounty hunter of sorts. There was a limit to the number of things you could carry. Your main character was mostly white. The environments were quite blue.

That's all I can recall of it.

Anyone?

 

[ryanofcall]

This. I loved it! Until my dad's PC died and my save-file was gone... I never saved all the Zoombinis

 

[sephiroth7x]

This gave me endless hours of fun.

Hilarious stuff. Could do anything in it...to a certain extent.

Came with my our first ever family PC, that rocked a 700mb HDD.

SHIT THE BED!!

I made so many movies on that thing! Ended up going on this 3d movie maker film website where people submitted their movies and stuff! Bloody hell fire! Cheers for a real blast from the past there!

 

[Noogy]

An obscure C64 title called Pecos Pete. I had fond memories of this weird little western, particularly of the 'cow milking' minigame at the end. I had been looking for video of this game and couldn't find a single thing, so I eventually ended up replaying it a few weeks ago. It has quite possibly the longest load times of any game I've ever played, but underneath there are a few interesting ideas going on.

 

[ichtyander]

One game that haunts me is called, I think, Omikron, it might even have been Omikron Conspiracy but it is NOT the Nomad Soul one that Google throws up.
I can't for the life of me find any images or info on it anymore (no matter how I spell it)

It was a PC game, an adventure, around the time of Space Quest 1, perhaps slightly earlier. It was very blocky, not an AGI game but it looked like it might as well have been. Very sci-fi, spacey, you walked around a city as a helmeted, suited bounty hunter of sorts. There was a limit to the number of things you could carry. Your main character was mostly white. The environments were quite blue.

That's all I can recall of it.

Anyone?

It's probably Omnicron Conspiracy.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

I bet I win the thread with this one. Nobody else has played this (unless I'm wrong), but I sure loved it. Car Builder on Apple II...

Holy fuckshit! I played that game! It was amazing. I'm not sure where I played it though. Didn't have an Apple. May have been at a friend's. Might have been at my once a week talented and gifted class...

Anyway, you don't win the thread for obscurity as looks like others have played it too... But you do win the thread outright.

 

[Brerlappin]

I remember thinking Mutant Fighter was the SHIT back in the day. But i never saw it in any other arcade or ever heard of anyone else ever talking about it. It was a SF2 style game with mythological beasts. 12yr old me thought it was the raddest shit ever

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=mutant-fighter&page=detail&id=1709

 

[Powdered Toastman]

Tsururin Kun

 

[spanna]

Harpoon and its addon on the Amiga.
Not even sure you can class it as a game, it seemed to be more like a training tool for Navy commanders!