Kinetica - a racing game where the ‘vehicles’ are people in mechanical suits that make them look like sexy mecha, racing to old techno
Bloody Roar - a series of fighting games where you fight as people who can suddenly shift into other forms, some recognizable animals and some abstract, and with the ability in some arenas to kick people through walls or over ledges into new arenas
Forsaken - 3D hover vehicle battles
Tiny Tank - a game where you play as a sweary AI tank
Megaman Legends 1 and 2 - Megaman as a 3d adventure game with a storyline and characters
Gitaroo Man - a rhythm game I enjoyed, later imitated by some others
Shadow of the Colossus - more known but not cared for these days. A game in which there are only boss battles. A subtly told story. Part of the ICO universe.
Titan Souls - One boy, one bow, one arrow that can be magically recalled to the bow, and giant stone destroyers that he must conquer with nothing more. Kind of a 2D Shadow of the Colossus
BPM: Bullets Per Minute - everyone has the idea for a rhythm FPS. This is the only one that does a good job of it.
Receiver - a game in which you don’t just hit R to reload, but have to go through the full manual of arms, dropping the clip, holstering the weapon, loading each round into the clip, drawing the weapon, seating the clip, racking the round, checking the chamber to make sure it fed correctly, aiming, firing, clearing the jam, all while worrying about killer robots.
Valley - a movement game that has such an amazing feeling of freedom in its movement
Tunnet - lovecraftian network technician game
I remember Kinetica! Loved playing it when I was younger. Still have the disc.
It was a great concept, well executed for its time.
Receiver
So good. The slight differences between weapons means that the muscle memory you’ve built up ends up tripping you on the next run.
Did you see the GDQ run of Bullets Per Minute? That’s what sold me on the game last year, such a cool game
I did not. I’ll have to check that out.
Dysmantle.
Casual post apocalyptic survival etc game. It’s also available on consoles, switch and mobile.
Guardian Heroes was an outstanding RPG beat 'em up on Sega Saturn. It had
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a two player co-op storyline with branching choices to get alternate endings
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unlockable characters for a 6-player arena mode
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incredibly unique characters to unlock, spellcasting with ➡️⬅️⬆️⬇️ input
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and a kick ass soundtrack.
Nothing has really scratched the same itch since (yes, in aware there’s a sequel, but it’s terrible).
The anime Uncle From Another World talks about Guardian Heroes a lot. It’s a fun show you should chek it out.
That sounds great. The kind of game I’d’ve loved but never had any Sega consoles (and no one really spoke about emulating them) so missed all of it.
If you have an Xbox, by some miracle they have it available, and it’s $5. I highly recommend it.
Alas, also no dedicated gaming device newer than a 3DS.
I am thinking about getting a Steam deck of some kind though. Maybe it’ll be playable on that?
I’m seeing online that it can be emulated (assuming PC is what they’re referencing in the post), but I’m not seeing it directly through Steam.
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Cyber Empires (PC), Shadowrun (Genesis), Betrayal at Krondor (PC).
Betrayal at Krondor was amazing. Masterfully written, with fun riddles, and that music chef’s kiss
Shadowrun for Genesis was amazing! Ahead of its time. The way it semi randomly generated jobs for you to do was pretty unique. Like Bethesda radiant quests, but decades earlier and better. I really enjoyed rising up from the weakest street runner to someone with enough reputation to skip the line at the expensive club.
The leveling system was also pretty advanced for Genesis.
Also the cyberspace hacking was wacky and fun.
Oh man I haven’t thought of Cyber Empires in so long. I remember tunneling through walls so my missile bots could obliterate the enemy base.
I think I’d have to say La-Mulana.
Urban Terror
When the homie busts out the Urban Terror USB stick at the LAN party
Endless Sky According to wikipedia it is a space trading and combat simulation game. Its free and open source, has a lot of content (even more with plugins). You do missions to get the storyline forward and to get money, you can also mine asteroid, trade with other planets, attack other ships and plunder them. You discover new species and Outfits to make your space ship better, etc.
I’ve been playing a single ship only save this time around and it’s been a ton of fun. I allow myself to use fighters if a ship has a fighter bay, but no escorts (except mission NPCs of course).
I don’t know why but I absolutely love asteroid mining. It’s not like it’s deep or complex, but it just feels so satisfying somehow.
Shadow Tactics Desperados III The Thaumaturge
I prefer Commandos. I heard they’re making a new one. Not sure if it’s been released yet.
The was a Stargate SG-1 tactics game that came out, but it was so disappointingly terrible that I never finished it.
Some more recent ones:
- Hammerfight (2009)
- Brigador (2016)
- CrossCode (2018)
Hammerfight
Oh, yeah, I liked that one. Pretty unusual game. Kind of a faux Middle East setting, mouse-controlled aircraft using in significant part melee weapons. Not incredibly deep, but the core gameplay loop did a good job of sucking me in.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/41100/Hammerfight/
Brigador
https://store.steampowered.com/app/274500/Brigador_UpArmored_Edition/
CrossCode
I love crosscode so much. My #1 game
The entire Pang series.
Bugsnax. It’s like Pokemon Snap/Legends Arceus, but the Pokemon are food items, like a sub-sandwich centipede or a lollipop dragonfly. You can feed them to people, and when you do, their body parts turn into the food they just ate. It’s great!
Gotcha Force for the GameCube slaps hard and I want another one so bad. I’ve only met 1 person who also played it back then. Ahhh fuck just talking about it makes me wanna download it now
Epistory and Nanotales
Both fantastic games with beautiful graphics and good for typing practice.
Hmm. I don’t know if they’d stand the test of time, but a few older games I enjoyed a lot back in the day that aren’t going to show up much of anywhere due to age:
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Loony Labyrinth, a 2D video pinball game for the Mac and Windows by Little Wing Software. I’ve played huge numbers of tables on newer and more sophisticated engines, but that table kept me coming back for more hours of gameplay than any later ones. Not on GOG or Steam, though Little Wing sells copies directly.
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Flying Nightmares, or AV-8B Harrier Assault. Untextured polygon flight sim where you’re operating off a US amphibious assault force; probably one of the few games kind of like Carrier Command 2 that I can think of in that you can also control other of your forces (though Flying Nightmares focuses on operating the Harriers, and Carrier Command 2 the amphibious assault ship). Doesn’t look like GOG or Steam have them.
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Eufloria. Steam link for an HD re-release. One of those “real-time 4X” games, but using plants and seeds and minimalistic graphics.
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Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. A spiritual successor to Carrier Command. One has an amphibious assault ship, can construct autonomous vehicles and move your ship around. Unlike Carrier Command 2, this is a single-player game. Wish that someone would make a more single-player-oriented Carrier Command 2. The graphics haven’t really kept up with the time, and it tends to encourage exploiting the AI’s weaknesses, but I’ve had a lot of fun with it.
It’s not exactly unknown within its niche, but because it is niche, Rule the Waves 3, a game that simulates naval fleet command and development.
EDIT: Oh, here’s an oddball, not quite as old game: Ghost Master. One acquires and upgrades different types of ghosts, then places them and uses their abilities to scare humans away from a location. Nothing else very similar to it out there that I’m aware of.
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Wiz n’Liz
