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[autobzooty]

God of War 2 first level!

That's exactly how i felt when i played it for the first time so good!

What was more amazing was that the game actually got more epic from that point on.

 

[gunswordfist]

What GTA3 did for sandbox games.

 

[shuyin_]

Ok, a big wtf @the Shadow of Memories people.... I mean, Shadow of Memories? Really?
While i love adventure games and i consider SoM a good game (way better than the shitty DS spiritual sequel), its concept was neither fascinating nor original. There were many games before it that dealt with time traveling/paradoxes (change the past to remodel the present).

I understand posting a gameplay concept that seems fascinating for its time(like Prey and many others that have been mentioned), but what exactly is fascinating about a game that borrows all of its features from previous games? The concept and its execution are not innovative, original or fascinating as, they weren't exactly new... so yeah, why are you guys mentioning SoM in this thread?
This thread's title isn't 'hidden gems' or 'what games you like that everybody else hates'

 

[Rocket786]

While it may not have played out as how I had hoped, the concept behind this game just BLEW MY MIND! Climb anything, anywhere. Hadn't seen something like that in a game ever. Too bad the final game wasn't very good. Well thankfully part 2 is living up to all the promises of the first game and then some, but before part 1 was released, my MIND WAS BLOWN by the concept.

 

[gunswordfist]

I think U.F.O.: A Day In The Life and Endonesia are brilliant gameplay ideas.

U.F.O. is a hidden object puzzle game like Pokemon Snap, Where's Waldo, I Spy, or casual adventure games, except that you can't see the hidden objects. Your alien brethren crashed into an apartment complex (luckily, they and you are cloaked) and are trying to escape to the mothership before they die. You can warp to any moment in time (within 24 hours) and space (within the apartment complex).

So, how can you find them if they're invisible? You look at environmental visual and audial cues that show the apartment changing over time (the game plays out in accelerated real time). If a well-trained cat doesn't use its litterbox, it's probably because something's in it already, for instance. You take a picture, get it developed, and if an alien's in the negative, the mothership beams them up.

So, why isn't it a guessing game? Because you have to tail people and discover their habits in the Love-De-Lic style. An alien will always mess with a new object or being, so you never have to wait in an empty room taking random pictures. You can also guess where aliens will be based on the apartment dwellers' habits and personalities.

So, why isn't it boring? While you're waiting, these people are doing funny, shocking, and dramatic things. The game takes place over 24 hours (And that's great, because you don't need a demo level. Most people will be asleep at 3 A.M., so that functions as a demo level, for example.) and an entire story is told over the course of those 24 hours. You can only play 1 hour at a time before getting sick, so the game basically plays out in 24 serialized episodes of 9 different rooms/series. As you find more aliens, more environments and events occur to give you access to more aliens. It's quite elegant.

So, if it's just 9 different serialized plays, why is it amazing? Remember when I said you can travel to any point in time and space? When you warp aliens out, whatever they were affecting isn't affected anymore. I don't want to spoil the game's story, but when something changes, you get to essentially watch an "alternate timeline" of what occurred when you did something or your alien buddies didn't. So, if an alien tripped a salaryman during his morning jog and he was late, his boss could flirt with his secretary (who likes the salaryman) and had to stay late at the office. If you capture the alien who tripped him, he gets to work on time, the boss gets romantically frustrated, and you get an AWESOME payoff when the boss uses a "secret room" for his...weird...fantasies. Then, someone else comes in if you solve their problem, and more hilarity ensues. Awesome. PLUS, at 10:00 p.m., an alien outlaw faction arrives and reveals that THEY have aliens scouting out Earth. They threaten to blow up Earth if you don't save their buddies in 2 hours, Earth sees the U.F.O. in the sky, and the military threatens to blow YOUR buddies up. Since this whole game's about choice and how one should live one's life, you get to see 2 awesome emotional payoffs. 1st, you get to see how these people you've been with act when they think they're going to die. Minor, not-that-interesting spoiler here: for example, the Japanese salaryman comes home late and goes straight to sleep, thinking there's going to be another day tomorrow that he has to work, work, work through. So, you get social commentary like that on career-obsessed people (that's the least good one by a lot, but I still think it works as satire, especially if you've been with for 24 hours). 2nd, these people talk about what they WOULD have done today if they knew the world was going to end. Since you've seen all of their possible actions, you get to see if they're lying or not. It's extremely powerful.

But wasn't it was only released in Japan? Wrong! Well, it was, but 99.5% of the whole thing's in pantomime, since your alien language is gibberish and you don't understand Earth's languages.

All of this design ties together to make, basically, Pokemon Snap + Rear Window + Groundhog Day + The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Yeah. It's that awesome.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/lovedelic/lovedelic2.htm
http://www.youtube.com/user/SketchesOfMoondays#grid/user/C98EDBBD54634F3F

Endonesia's the better game, I think, but the artistry is less dependent on the gameplay. It's still brilliant, though. You're a tiny kid who hates his life. While waiting on a park bench, you get warped to this island. It's a standard (phenomenal) adventure game from there on, as you try to find out what the island is and how/if to return home. The brilliant bit, though, is that the whole game's about how adolescence sucks and how one becomes an adult. Your mop-haired kid gets "Emo powers" by helping people on the island. You can only get out of situations by harnessing your Emo powers/powerful emotions and putting them to good use. This means that you have access to all of your inventory/powers at all times instead of them disappearing after use, so puzzle-solving is based on observing islanders' habits, the environments, et cetera (like before). So, basically, it's an adventure game where your character IS the inventory. For example, you start out with no powers. After wandering aimlessly for a bit, you get the power of Hunger. If you use "hunger"on a mushroom-dog hybrid that's following you, it eats away some vines, opening up the next area. You later find these helium balloons that give you the power of Fun. If you use Fun on a fish in the water, it leaps out of the water, gets eaten by a bird, which gets eaten by an alligator. You then get the Food Chain power, which helps you learn an important lesson about life later on. After getting all 50 powers and unlocking all 50 gods of Endonesia, you get to make a final decisive choice about what being an adult means. Again, brilliant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endonesia
http://www.youtube.com/user/SketchesOfMoondays#grid/user/F6D30C2A672A33F1

Also, the SAME GUY came up with these ideas. Amazing..

I'm going to have to check those videos out. Those games sound brilliant.

 

[out0v0rder]

When designers use the clouds as bushes

 

[I_D]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleon_(video_game)
Made from the guy who invented Lara Croft.

It had actual pixel-pixel touching instead of hit boxes. It was amazingly effect and made the game very lifelike even though it had absolutely horrendous graphics.

 

[gunswordfist]

Shadow of Memories (a.k.a Shadow of Destiny)

http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/home/367317.html

Dear God do I love time travel games....even though I've only played Prince Of Persia Sands Of Time and Blinx...

 

[POWERSPHERE]

Spore: Before we knew too much...

 

[whatsinaname]

Crush! and Puzzle Quest. Both brilliant concepts and I keep going back to them.

 

[Lorr]

Demon's Souls
Summoning people to help me in demon's souls.
People leaving tips.
Watching nameless people die.
Watching faint ghosts of people playing live.
Getting invaded by people that seek to slay me.
Entering other people world to slay them.
Spoiler 3-4

Spoiler

Being a boss, or fighting a boss that is actually another person.

Yup. Especially what you have spoilered.

 

[gunswordfist]

I believe that I also heard that

Spoiler

if you open the save BEFORE he dies of old age, he sneaks up on you and kills you as soon as you load the save.

HOLY SHIT!

Spoiler

I've just heard about you being able to kill him by doing something with the game clock. I need to get the game again so he can scare the shit out of me even worse than he did my little brother and me. I was stuck while I had Snake prone and me and my little brother were like "WTF is going on?" and then The End came out of nowhere and shot a dart in his back, carried him back to the beginning and then it was like Snake forget everything/time went backwards because what happened was never acknowledged.

 

[gunswordfist]

Agreed. I remember having my brain bent with Prey's portals before Portal released. Thought it was too awesome.

I still need to beat Prey...and I've only played my copy once.

 

[astroturfing]

right now there's 3 games that totally blow my mind with their potential.

1. The Last Guardian

after seeing the large creature in motion, so beautifully animated... i'm just stunned. i have never had a sidekick like that in a videogame. a huge ass monster to travel, combat, solve puzzles with... and protect it from harm. all with glorious graphics and unprecedented animation. i'm so fucking immersed already. i need this game in 2010 so bad.


2. Red Dead Redemption

a Wild West simulator from Rockstar. hard to imagine a better videogame. using the improved R.A.G.E. engine to create vast plains, mountains and prairie... along with Euphoria physics enabled horseriding (and taming with a lasso!), hunting 40 different species roaming in the wild etc... i KNOW it's going to be a unique experience and probably the best open-world game this gen (for me).


3. Heavy Rain

i've always wanted a videogame that features the mundane everyday life combined with an exciting plot. knowing that there are scenes where you just take care of your child, or go shopping etc... and at the background there is the constant threat of a serial killer entering the scene (or something else surprising) makes me really excited for the game. i cant wait to pour milk in a glass, and then suddenly have some lunatic break in the house through the window (you know SOMETHING like that is going to happen ). also the game looks great and seems to have some serious depth regarding all the choices you can make.. really awesome.

 

[KevinCow]

Shift
Portal
Mario Galaxy
Karoshi
Crush

These all made me completely change the way I looked at space and game mechanics.

 

[PBalfredo]

Pretty much everything in the first half of Indigo Prophecy. Having to cover your trail and avoid suspension for the murder, only then to play as the cops assigned to the case in the very next scene. Also the time limit on the dialog responses forced you to really think on your toes.

I remember playing the opening scene where I'm in the bathroom with the murdered man. I hide the body, ditch the murder weapon, clean up the blood and wash my hands. I then exit the bathroom and try to walk nonchalantly out of the diner when

Spoiler

the waitress stops me at the door because I didn't pay my check. Fuck! I hurriedly apologize, pay and leave, but I already made myself a suspicious person to the waitress and sure enough when the police arrive and I play as the detective the waitress describes me as a suspect and works with a sketch artist to get my face on wanted posters

Such a great concept that ultimately came to nothing since the ending of the game ditched the excellent crime thriller aspect for ancient Mayan QTE Matrix bullshit. Here's hoping for Heavy Rain.

 

[BlueScrote]

When designers use the clouds as bushes

I gotta say that did blow my mind when I saw it.

 

[HurricaneJesus]

The Gostak blew my fucking mind. It is a text adventure.

As wiki says:

"Most of the text of the game is in an entirely unknown language (fundamentally English in syntax and grammar, but with much of the vocabulary and even idiomatic constructions changed) which the player must decipher. For example, the game opens with the following text:

Glauds! How rorm it would be to pell back to the bewl and distunk them, distunk the whole delcot, let the drokes discren them. "

So yeah, you have to try and figure out what these words are meant to imply, and create what you think is the 'story' based on what you do. It is a mind fuck. Highly recommended. You can get it for free with a program to run it.

http://wurb.com/if/game/1670

Enjoy!

 

[JCX]

Shadow of the Colossus. Making the boss and dungeon the same thing and cutting out hacking apart waves of enemies.

 

[alba]

Buy a crappy real-life road car for 10,000 credits.

Drive on crappy races in order to gain some cash.

Get a licences in order to progress to a better races.

Drive in better races in order to get more cash in order to buy better cars.

Step and repeat untill you die.

Pin-point blowminded since 1997.

Right on bro! Still the best *cough* RPG *cough* I've played for sure

 

[BobsRevenge]

edit: nm

 

[FutureZombie]

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow's online multiplayer. It's amazing that this game came out 5 years ago, and there's nothing else that comes close to being as ingenious. The gadgets, the balance, the maps... my god. What a fantastic experience.

 

[platypotamus]

But wasn't it was only released in Japan? Wrong! Well, it was, but 99.5% of the whole thing's in pantomime, since your alien language is gibberish and you don't understand Earth's languages.

Please tell me what I need to do to play these two games in America. Is the second one possible without knowing Japanese? Is there somewhere they are available for sale to me?

 

[bigswords]

Diablo 1 and 2,

Nethack with nice graphics and multiplayer and random generated loot and pathways = win for me.

 

[Danne-Danger]

Eating the manual in Noby Noby Boy.

 

[Talon]

Come on, y'all. The third page, and this didn't get a mention yet?

 

[Sai-kun]

Halo 3: THeater mode. My god, being able to watch any part of a game, from any angle I want, frame by frame. Holy shit, it's amazing. :lol

 

[GhaleonQ]

I'm going to have to check those videos out. Those games sound brilliant.

They really, really are.

Please tell me what I need to do to play these two games in America. Is the second one possible without knowing Japanese? Is there somewhere they are available for sale to me?

"Other means," Ebay, ask Himeyashop to find a copy in local stores and ship it to you. You can play it on your computer with an emulator or with your Playstation 1. Like I said, you won't need any Japanese at all, so no walkthroughs are necessary.
Endonesia's REALLY text-heavy. It's an adventure game. It's quite easy to find and isn't expensive at all. You'll need a translated online walkthrough or my video walkthrough to get through it if you don't know Japanese. You'd also need to use your computer or a modded/Japanese Playstation 2.

 

[platypotamus]

They really, really are.



"Other means," Ebay, ask Himeyashop to find a copy in local stores and ship it to you. You can play it on your computer with an emulator or with your Playstation 1. Like I said, you won't need any Japanese at all, so no walkthroughs are necessary.

I'll see what I can find with the UFO one, take the wait and see approach on Endonesia, maybe an English version will happen...

 

[faceless007]

Braid. It made me think about puzzle-solving in an entirely new way. And then it did that four more times.

Gabriel Knight series: Play through and "solve" an actual historical mystery based on real people and places, with incredibly detailed research. Like The Da Vinci Code, but with good writing.

Riven: The Sequel to Myst: Explore a deeply immersive and complete world where every single object, device, and detail has a purpose. Even though you don't have any help or instructions, if you're observant and just think "What would that be used for?" everything falls into place and makes perfect sense. It blew me away that a computer game made up of pre-rendered still pictures could feel so perfectly realized and instill in me the thrill of being an anthropologist.

Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask: Playing through the same 3-day sequence multiple times, each time learning a little more about what's happening throughout the city and what the people are doing, until you have a complete log of who's doing what where. I never got that far into the game, but just the idea of doing that was awesome.

 

[baultista]

Prey was 1st. Game doesn't get enough recognition, and it actually does more with the portals it has.

Really?

The portals in Prey were NOT put to good use. They were basically used as doors throughout the entire game. There was really only one cool part where

Spoiler

you were looking at a model of a planet, then when you walked through the portal you became model sized and were walking along that model planet

Prey was a pretty solid game though. The story was intriguing, the weapons were unique and kick-ass, the "you can't die" system made playing the game seamless, and the puzzles were all fairly challenging, without being too difficult. The game also scores brownie points for having Coast to Coast broadcasts laced throughout the game (Art Bell ftw!)

 

[faceless007]

BC, I still still want this game

What game is that?

 

[-tetsuo-]

 

[Althoran]

Demon's Souls online integration. It is very subtle and not something I had ever seen before.
GTA's transition to 3D was epic for me.
LittleBigPlanet for the great and fresh idea of allowing everyone to create levels for the game. I have never seen that before on consoles.
Assassin's Creed. The way you can climb anything and the ease of doing it was great (AC2 is way better but credits for AC1 for doing it first)
Prince of Persia 1 (PC version). Incredible what you could do in this game at that time. The levels were pure genius.

 

[abstract alien]

Another vote for Braid's last level. A perfect ending, a perfect concept(story wise), and you actually play it. Like, actual gameplay, not a "take control of the camera while we show you something that would be awesome to play but you cant play it" type of thing.

My mind was blown apart.

 

[cuyahoga]

ZootFly will develop a series of games packed with the trademark over-the-top adrenaline-pumping action of Mr. T.

The games will feature knuckle-whitening action-adventure, furious brawler combat, gravity-defying platforming, and environmental puzzles.

The first game will see Mr. T take on Nazis and their gigantic machines in the varied universe of South American rain forests, lost ancient cities, industrial complexes and contemporary military installations.

Along with Mr. T and other characters from the graphic novel, the game will feature non other than Will Wright. In this universe, Will Wright is not a top-notch game designer but a top-notch American geneticist who was kidnapped and coerced to work on a diabolic plan. Mr. T and Will Wright will join forces to annihilate the Nazis and their hardware.

Greatest game ever.

 

[Narag]

]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v299/ArcticZombie/n62jkg.jpg[/IMG]

Those are filled in on my map.

 

[Nex Superne]

Come on, y'all. The third page, and this didn't get a mention yet?

That completely blew my mind in 2004. Guess we'll have to rely on Valve to deliver the next seismic shift in FPS games.

 

[Insaniac]

Shadow of the Colossus

 

[Lidas]

Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow's online multiplayer. It's amazing that this game came out 5 years ago, and there's nothing else that comes close to being as ingenious. The gadgets, the balance, the maps... my god. What a fantastic experience.

Came to post this. Still one of the best/most fun multiplayer concepts I´ve come across.

 

[DR2K]

Mirror's Edge, especially the high hard to land jumps.

 

[Monocle]

- Shadow of the Colossus' entire premise.

- When Saved Films and Forge were announced for Halo 3 I knew they'd change everything for the Halo community, if not console FPSs at large. Sure enough, Halo 3 was released and things have never been the same. Machinima, speedrunning, visual art . . . the nontraditional applications are endless, to say nothing of the value these tools have brought to standard multiplayer.

- Real-time weapon switching in Devil May Cry 3.

- Juggles in Tekken 3. I was a fairly new to games back then, and juggles were like nothing I'd seen. I remember playing the game after having waited far too long, and discovering TekkenZaibatsu.com and being so impressed that Tekken's fighting system had such depth. The series turned me into a hardcore gamer all on its own.

- Okami's Celestial Brush. Little did I know that the rest of the game would be so brilliant that the remarkable feature just mentioned is nothing but a thread in Hideki Kamiya's grand tapestry. I really need to replay that game.

God of War 2 first level!

That's exactly how i felt when i played it for the first time so good!

Hell yes! I don't understand people who say the first game is on the same level as the second. GOW2 exceeds GOW in every way, with better set pieces, gameplay, pacing and replay value, and to top it all off, far fewer glitches.

 

[Monroeski]

What game is that?

BC. He says it right there in the post you quoted. :lol

 

[PuppetMaster]

Demon's Souls
Summoning people to help me in demon's souls.
People leaving tips.
Watching nameless people die.
Watching faint ghosts of people playing live.
Getting invaded by people that seek to slay me.
Entering other people world to slay them.
Spoiler 3-4

Spoiler

Being a boss, or fighting a boss that is actually another person.

I came to post this too.

 

[Bidermaier]

Eve Online. The biggest sandbox ever created. A whole universe in hands of the players.

 

[Mik2121]

I'm surprised nobody said it yet, but...

As far as simple design comes, almost nothing can beat Mario for the NES. Move, run and jump.

 

[jax (old)]

viewtiful joe time controls

max payne bullet time

paper mario. rpg with timing considerations + mario crew

SOTN. castle. castle.

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Kya: Dark Lineage

It is still amazing what they did in several parts of the game with the wind mechanics and the level layouts were very good. Some of them looped back onto themselves.

The end of the game is also REALLY surprising since

Spoiler

despite it being obvious that Kya's dad was the main bad guy, the fact that she LET HIM DIE after you beat him because she hated him anyway

made me love the story because it was different from almost any other game with that type of weak "twist" in the story.

I want this game to have a sequel so bad and I know it simply won't happen.

 

[webrunner]

The use of time in various ways has been an interesting experimentation in the last few years: Blinx, Braid, Sands of Time, Echochrono, etc, the use of rewind and repetition as a game element has been a welcome one.

But I think the game that is one shown at the experimental games panel at GDC: Achron, a multi-player competitive RTS where both players have the ability to travel through time to, for example, win battles they've already lost, destroy bases before the enemy can use them to mount their current offensive, and other things:
http://achrongame.com/

The game has a system where there are 'time waves' - any changes you make in the past propagate forward at 2x 'real time' speed, giving players the chance to prepare for the changes, or to go back and change them back before it becomes what actually happened. It's the only game design I know if that contains specific design elements to combat the grandfather paradox.

 

[faceless007]

BC. He says it right there in the post you quoted. :lol

Looked on Wikipedia for those initials and the only video game it listed was Bionic Commando, which I knew it wasn't.

Never trusting Wiki for games ever again.