Underrated Games

[Zork Nemesis]

Have you ever found an older video game that you've never heard of (or heard very little about)? Have you decided to play one of those games and found it to be amazing, despite it's complete lack of publicity? A game that almost no one knows about that's awesome. Maybe you found it at a used game shop or perhaps downloaded a bunch of roms to find this one included, I want to hear about these kinds of games that people play.

For example, one of my favorite SNES games is HyperZone, one of the earliest games for the system. It's a rather simple rail shooter that utilizes the Super Nintendo's Mode 7 capabilities to provide an experience that, in my opinion, looks like F-Zero but feels like Star Fox. Despite being a short game, it was a hell of a lot of fun and had an excellent music score to boot (a couple I've posted in the random music thread). I've hardly heard anyone talk about it, i'm thinking it was overshadowed my many other early SNES games like Mario World, F-Zero, and Pilotwings. I don't remember when I got it (my brother bought it I think, but I was maybe 4 when he did) but I have a rom and play it quite a lot.

Another fantastic game i'm sure no one's ever heard of: Wetrix on N64. It's a 3D puzzle game kinda like Tetris where you have pieces falling on to a 3D plane. Rather than creating lines though, your pieces shape the plane and give it (or remove) mountains, which you use to maintain water that occasionally falls as pieces. The idea behind the game was to shape your land with the ever falling pieces and retain as much water as you could. You would then use fireball pieces to evaporate the water for points, but the game ends when so much water goes off the edges. It was an amazing game that I only discovered by playing video games at my local community center, but I loved it so much I bought a copy on eBay so I could play it at home.

What games do you enjoy that you're not sure anyone else knows about them?

[Will T.]

Some may have heard of this one for the undeserved negative publicity it received: Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Originally an idea for the GameCube, this ended up being Rare's first major Xbox release after they were purchased by Microsoft (which, by the way, was Nintendo's idea all along - they had two options: sell Rare to the highest bidder, or close them down for good in order to save money; be glad they sold them). It's a beat-em-up type game about a kid whose girlfriend gets yanked into a haunted house, and he has to punch, kick, and smash his way to rescue her from the mansion ruled by the crazed, airplane-obsessed Baron von Ghoul, and patrolled by his movie-monster minions. The controls are insanely simple (basically just the two thumb sticks for everything, with the occasional use of the A button), and they work brilliantly. Despite this though, the game is still a big challenge at times, in a good way of course. Usually in a good way, at least...

Unfortunately the move to Microsoft obviously generated a poop-storm from the fanboys, so the game was bashed repeatedly for all kinds of lame reasons, all of which were blatant cover-ups for "It's not Nintendo anymore, therefore it sucks." While the game obviously has its fair share of flaws, it's highly impressive for its time, both for entertainment value and many of the technical aspects - the Reaper character, for instance, was able to completely drain all color from any object that came within a certain radius around him as he moved, and every curtain in the game had really nice cloth-simulation physics on it, something that some popular modern game engines lack. The game was even nominated for a couple of awards. It won some not-so-prestigious awards as well - it was on Game Informer's "10 worst survival-horror games" list. Which is basically GI putting a "WE'RE NINTENDO FANBOYS" billboard over their heads, because GHOULIES IS NOT A SURVIVAL-HORROR GAME. By their same logic, one could make the statement that "Mario Kart is one of the 10 worst simulations of real-life racing ever." Ghoulies is a comedic beat-em-up that pokes lots of fun at the horror genre; the only "survival" involved is avoiding losing all of your health, and, like I said, the "horror" elements are all comedic and blatantly played for laughs. (There's also the fridge horror of the teenagers that Baron von Ghoul keeps tied up around his house in various, shall we say, kinky situations ... yikes.) GI only put it on that list to bash Rare/Microsoft, being the utter babies that so many of those sites are (I'm looking at you, IGN).

Rare made fun of Ghoulies a lot in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (another underrated game, BTW - just because it wasn't a standard platformer like the N64 games doesn't mean it wasn't fun), such as having Kazooie make a crack about its lack of popularity in the opening cutscene and the game's appearance in various trash receptacles throughout the game. It seems to have a cult following now, and there are rumors that Rare might be planning a sequel.

Oh yeah, there are also dozens of Banjo-Kazooie references hidden in this game. So many hidden references...

[Crusty Juggler]

Oh yes, I remember the controversy around Grabbed at the time. There was definitely a lot of angry Nintendo fan-boys, and a lot of unwarranted trashing of the game. I've played it and liked it.

One of my favorite obscure old games is Rock n' Roll Racing. It had 16-bit instrumental versions of several 80's rock/metal songs, and a character that looked like David Coverdale! It was developed by Blizzard before they were known as Blizzard.

Also, I certainly remember Wetrix. Never heard of HyperZone though. I play retro games every weekend so I'll try HyperZone out soon.

[THE Flying chihuahua]

I kinda liked Alien Syndrome for the Wii/PSP.

[Plas]

General Chaos for the Sega Genesis. If you have a muti-player adapter you can up to 4 players duke it out.

One of my favorite obscure old games is Rock n' Roll Racing. It had 16-bit instrumental versions of several 80's rock/metal songs, and a character that looked like David Coverdale! It was developed by Blizzard before they were known as Blizzard.

Really fun game racing game. I remember renting it a few times back in the day. They also released it for the GBA in 2003.

[NerevarineKing]

Some may have heard of this one for the undeserved negative publicity it received: Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Originally an idea for the GameCube, this ended up being Rare's first major Xbox release after they were purchased by Microsoft (which, by the way, was Nintendo's idea all along - they had two options: sell Rare to the highest bidder, or close them down for good in order to save money; be glad they sold them). It's a beat-em-up type game about a kid whose girlfriend gets yanked into a haunted house, and he has to punch, kick, and smash his way to rescue her from the mansion ruled by the crazed, airplane-obsessed Baron von Ghoul, and patrolled by his movie-monster minions. The controls are insanely simple (basically just the two thumb sticks for everything, with the occasional use of the A button), and they work brilliantly. Despite this though, the game is still a big challenge at times, in a good way of course. Usually in a good way, at least...

Unfortunately the move to Microsoft obviously generated a poop-storm from the fanboys, so the game was bashed repeatedly for all kinds of lame reasons, all of which were blatant cover-ups for "It's not Nintendo anymore, therefore it sucks." While the game obviously has its fair share of flaws, it's highly impressive for its time, both for entertainment value and many of the technical aspects - the Reaper character, for instance, was able to completely drain all color from any object that came within a certain radius around him as he moved, and every curtain in the game had really nice cloth-simulation physics on it, something that some popular modern game engines lack. The game was even nominated for a couple of awards. It won some not-so-prestigious awards as well - it was on Game Informer's "10 worst survival-horror games" list. Which is basically GI putting a "WE'RE NINTENDO FANBOYS" billboard over their heads, because GHOULIES IS NOT A SURVIVAL-HORROR GAME. By their same logic, one could make the statement that "Mario Kart is one of the 10 worst simulations of real-life racing ever." Ghoulies is a comedic beat-em-up that pokes lots of fun at the horror genre; the only "survival" involved is avoiding losing all of your health, and, like I said, the "horror" elements are all comedic and blatantly played for laughs. (There's also the fridge horror of the teenagers that Baron von Ghoul keeps tied up around his house in various, shall we say, kinky situations ... yikes.) GI only put it on that list to bash Rare/Microsoft, being the utter babies that so many of those sites are (I'm looking at you, IGN).

Rare made fun of Ghoulies a lot in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (another underrated game, BTW - just because it wasn't a standard platformer like the N64 games doesn't mean it wasn't fun), such as having Kazooie make a crack about its lack of popularity in the opening cutscene and the game's appearance in various trash receptacles throughout the game. It seems to have a cult following now, and there are rumors that Rare might be planning a sequel.

Oh yeah, there are also dozens of Banjo-Kazooie references hidden in this game. So many hidden references...

Wow I didn't think anyone else played that game! I didn't have an Xbox, but I had a friend who did and he had this game. This game is a lot of fun and had simple controls. The reaper used to creep me out because he insta-killed you with his hand outstretched. Also, I liked picking up random stuff and beating up ghoulies. Very underrated game.

[arfy4]

I remember several games... There was Viewtiful Joe, which I didn't play much of but it was awesome. The sly cooper series was really awesome stuff. Because sometimes playing as the thief in a game is fun. I remember that the controls felt way different than most other games that I'd played, but they were still really good and I liked it. I still only have the first one, I remember playing the second one some and that it was awesome. I really need to play that again sometime...

[Plinko]

Viewtiful Joe was one of the most acclaimed GamePurse games!

I still play Faxanadu and River City Ransom on the Wii's virtual console (and Mega Man 2 which is both awesome but already highly regarded so it's not underrated), those games are still great and don't get mentioned when people think of the best NES games. Another criminally forgotten NES game is Cobra Triangle, one of RARE's early games that was overshadowed by other stuff but shouldn't have been.

I still revere Herzog Zwei for the Genesis. Rock n Roll Racing was pretty good for the SNES.