Yoku’s Island Express. Before playing it, I didn’t like pinball or search-action games (metroidvanias). I ended up loving it. I still don’t really enjoy pinball on its own, but I now have a deep love for search-action.
It’s definitely the best pinball-metroidvania postal service simulator available.
I want a modern Road Rash or Destruction Derby.
Road Redemption was a Road Rash-esque attempt some years ago. I remember the performance was kinda shitty, but the game was mostly fine.
Sexy Parodius is a bit sketchy, yes. But, it’s easily the most-fun shmup I’ve ever played. The music is fantastic, too. I’ve managed to 1cc the game, but I’ve never beaten the bonus stage which is just so ridiculously difficult, I question whether it’s even possible without a very specific strategy or something.
Unfortunately, the best version is the arcade one, and MAME doesn’t do the best job with it. Still playable, though.
It was one of the first PC games I played as a kid. Incredibly simple mechanics: you are a marble and you roll and try to reach the finish line (sometimes you need collectibles first). But the level design was top notch. Perfect blend of challenging and rewarding.
Retro/Grade is a rhythm/shooter mashup where you travel backwards through time and un-fire a bunch of lasers to un-kill a bunch of ships. It was designed for a guitar hero controller if I recall? I found the visuals nauseating and the music lackluster but that premise is gold and deserves another chance.
Also PLEASE play the music backwards??? It’s a game about going back in time, c’monnnnn.
Don’t know quite how underrated/forgotten this is, but I wanna see a remake of Vib-Ribbon. That, or have an open source clone of it made by someone who actually knows how to properly program (not me), if it already doesn’t exist.
Technically there is a successor to Vib-Ribbon but it’s iPhone only if I recall? “Russian Dancing Men”.
Too bad I don’t have access to any apple products I could use to try it. Gonna have to look into this.
Edit: looked it up and it looks like something similar to Vib-Ribbon in terms.of gameplay, but from what I can gather, it’s been over a decade since any updates. Also, I’d hope for a PC port of a Vib-Ribbon clone because there’s no way you’re getting me to play any more rhythm games where you have to use a small touch screen to play. No idea if that Russian Dancing Men has the ability to take local files stored on your phone and use them to generate levels, though, or where you’d go to get a legit copy of the app anymore even if you have an apple product able to play it.
Ark the lad twilight of the spirits. One of my favorite classics!
Underrated:
- Scarlet Nexus
- Wii U Gameland
- Colobot
Deserves a Second Chance:
- Atomega (Died because ubisoft didn’t update it)
- Biomutant, Lots and lots of dialogue but I actually liked it
Kolibri for the Sega 32x addon for the Genesis/Megadrive. Most of the reviewers that weren’t down with the game either complained about the difficulty or lack of story/making sense, but it was a beautiful game for the time that took the space shooter concept and made it into a game that was somehow chill while also being difficult enough to sometimes momentarily make you want to rage quit. If you enjoy games like the Raiden series, you’ll enjoy this.
Shout to Knuckles Chaotix (the most unique take on Sonic gameplay of the classic 2D era) and also Shadow Squadron (very Star Fox-esque), which are also slept on because 32x.
Exclusive to the Genesis/Megadrive, it’s a crying shame that the Vectorman games never received a third iteration and have seemingly disappeared into the grey goo of IP purgatory. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 were amazing for the time: they were arguably the best 2D platformers of the era, graphically beautiful, oozing with charm, and with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it all. It’s crazy that the developers were able to squeeze the performance they did out of the hardware and playing emulated versions of it now still doesn’t compare to how it feels and looks playing it on the original hardware with a CRT and a nice sound system (but you should still check it out absent that setup).
On PC, also from the 90s, Descent was truly groundbreaking and unique. It’s an FPS that said “what if you were playing as a space ship and had six degrees of freedom to move about?” It was also the first truly 3D FPS game.
Descent did get 2 sequels and also a spinoff, Descent: Freespace and later Freespace 2. F2 has seen a HUGE amount of mods, partly due to the engine going open source back in 2002
Freespace 3 could be awesome, what with Elite seeing a rebirth.
Very cool, I’ll check that out. Thanks!
Anachronox. Ion Storm at it’s best. Engaging plot and characters, humor well ahead of its time for a game script, and party members and environments that I’ve still never seen many games match to this day. I don’t know why it didn’t become huge, I think the rpg crowd back then was still pretty married to sword and sandal conventions. If you like old games, I can’t recommend it enough.
Unreal Tournament, the one that was abandoned in favor of Fortnite (eugh). Like sure it would never be a big hit like Fortnite, Arena Shooters are out of fashion after all, but Epic didn’t even give it a chance for starters, they basically just rushed it out the door with a skeleton crew, no budget whatsoever and were begging for community members to do free work on the game for them. In retrospect the game was doomed to fail from day one.
It STARTED from the work of community members. Then Epic jumped in and took over with the promise of their backing of the community team. Then once they had control over it they scuttled the ship.
Desert Strike was so cool.
I had forgotten about this game. It was a fun time. I think there was a Jungle Strike also
The last memory I have of Desert Strike going to a local video game and card game place (Heebeegeebees in Ogden, Utah before they expanded) with some of my siblings and buying this for some portable system (GBA?) and starting to play.
I then heard the owner (who was still in the shop back then) say “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”. It had transpired that one of my siblings had tried to steal something. Cops got called, fun times.
For those curious, the rumor was that the easy way was police and the hard way was him chasing you with a bat
Someone is making a new one. I have it wishlisted on Steam. It is called Cleared Hot. Granted, I heard about it a LONG time ago and it still isn’t out.
Soviet Strike was really good. One of the first PlayStation games I played (rented from Blockbuster!)
I remember being blown away by the video cutscenes in a game.
Woah, I didn’t even know about this one.
Urban strike as well! I think it was urban strike that turned into a kind of top down shooter when you assaulted an enemy base about halfway into the game. 10 year old me could never get past that part.
Super Thunder Blade did this, same era too.
OMFSM YES! I’d forgotten all about that great game!
I could never figure out how to not get blown to smithereens by the SAM sites.
Kill the radars. If you haven’t killed the radar sites, the Rapier SAM sites are faster to detect, track and fire on you.
Holy shit thank you. I’m gonna go give it a try. Haha
Let me know how it turns out.
Game strategy advice for a 30+ year old game? I love this so much, you guys are awesome.
FreeSpace 1 and 2!
Btw btw you can co-op the campaigns with 3 friends
Time to install FreeSpace Open again. 😄 For those who have managed to miss that project: it’s a completely rebuilt engine for FS2. Together with the MediaVPs from The FreeSpace Upgrade Project it makes the game look pretty modern again. Take a look at https://wiki.hard-light.net/index.php/Getting_started if you need instructions.
I believe even there is even a mod available which allows playing the first FreeSpace in FSO.
These were godly at the time, but due to storytelling, modding community and mission editors. Flight model and combat mechanics were little too “Wing Commnder” even back then. Todays space pilots would need something more in line with Elite Dangerous, Helium Rain and Star Citizen.
I’d definitely play an updated Freespace game.
Battle for Middle Earth. With the resurgence of RTS games lately, including many older ones getting remastered, I would absolutely love to see a proper remaster and release of BFME2. Unfortunately rights issues mean it’s very unlikely to happen.
Total War: LOTR would be pretty neat
I’ve been wanting this game for a long time
Just a way to legally obtain a copy without paying hundreds of € for an old scratched CD would be nice
It’s not really forgotten, but Wing Commander has been abandoned, and a proper modern rebuild of it would be fantastic.
Also, I want a new Deer Avenger.
If you like Privateer, check out Double Damage Games “Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw”. Excellent game with a lot of sadly lost potential due to the dev being run out of game development by hostile and entitled “gamers”.
Isn’t Star Citizen a sort-of spiritual successor?
It was supposed to be. I have to admit I haven’t paid any attention to it in many years so maybe things have changed, but it had turned into more of a vortex of ego, fleecing a fanbase, and sunk-cost fallacy, than a spiritual successor to anything.
