Lost and forgotten (except by us)

[Siobhan]

I knew somebody would find something. Rather telling though that they barely made it.

 

[Jasede]

I actually made sure to check all pages to see if nobody mentioned the games I am about to share with you yet. I will go from less obscure to more obscure.

1) You all know Syndicate was a great Bullfrog game. Did you know it had a pretty much forgotten sequel? It was called Syndicate Wars and uses a pretty cool 3D engine. Its stand-out feature was that every single building could be destroyed. The game plays pretty much like Syndicate 1 but it feels like it has less personality. However, when you play as the cult faction (the game has 2 different campaigns) you get to enjoy some pretty cool, if campy, cult writing.

2) Here's a game that's so obscure there's not even a walkthrough for it on the internet. At least there wasn't one ten years ago. All I could ever find was a hint document that was meant for tech support or something - but it doesn't guide you through the game. In this game, called Millenia - Altered Destinies you are a guy in a space-ship that can travel through time. Your job is to seed a galaxy in such a way that all 4 different species you seed achieve a balance of power. You do this by fucking with their technology and relaying orders to your advisor on the planet, through very cool dialogue segments. It's a very unique game and I am sure few of you ever played anything like it.

3) Reunion, an obscure science-fiction strategy/adventure kind of game, in the same vein as Alien Legacy. It's mediocre but has some cool ideas:

4) And for the last one, a game I am sure none of you ever heard of. Laser Lords, a CD-I exclusive. Yes, the Philips CD-I. It's the only game worth playing on the console. It's an obscure, rather risque adventure games that was ahead of its time in many ways. Almost all the puzzles have multiple solutions and the game is enormous. It's also fully voiced in really racist/humorous accents.

 

[Tehdagah]

I forgot this one.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Yep, heard about, and tried Reunion. It sucks balls. Which is a shame as there's nothing else even remotely close to Alien Legacy, one of my all-time favorites. God dammit why are there no Alien Legacy type games?

Also heard about Syndicate Wars but everyone at the time said it wasn't worth the effort so I never tried it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Reunion has lots of nice ideas, but poor execution. There are timed objectives which you must respond to by building up decent defense forces in time, about 2 or 3 of them. It feels like several game ideas stitched together. The intro was mindblowing back in 1994, though.

Syndicate Wars continues from the difficulty level set in the American Revolt add-on from Syndicate. Granted, the original Syndicate was laughably easy which might explain the difficulty jump, but to this date I only know one guy who's ever beaten all the missions in American Revolt. (I myself had 3 missions left when I gave up.)

Did you guys know that Arcomage, the in-built card game found in Might & Magic 7 and 8, was apparently released as a standalone game? An oddity and a rarity, if true.

 

[:Flash:]

Hexplore (1998)
A decent hack and slash action adventure role-playing game with real-time combat in which you control four party members. The graphics were voxel-3D and the game allowed 360º rotation. The game had tons of secret areas, great environment, interesting levels, and puzzles that required the use of all four characters to pass. It is a very underrated game and I haven't heard anyone talking about it. The game crashes on newer systems, but a fan-made fix is available.

I remember the ad for this game in German magazines. It had nothing to do with the game, made me remember it, but actively made me not want to try the game.

 

[Jasede]

It's a great game. I only played the demo maybe 15 years back. It was really, really long and really cool.

 

[Duraframe300]

If we are talking german marketing commisioned games, we might as well be talking adventures. Because theres a shitload

Abenteur Atlantis

commisioned by Knorr

Knorrli is fucking creepy.


Dark Shadows 1+2

Because back in MY DAY morals were teached by the Bundesministerium through the use of computer adventures. Everyone's so fucking lazy nowadays.



My favourite of those were the ones by the now defunct bank LBS though. Victor Loomes (Which my 8 year old mind thought was hilarious) and both Vision games which actually had a pretty interesting structure for an adventure.

 

[Jasede]

German games were weird...

Erotic German hospital simulation "Bliing!"


There was also this really strange German game about voting. I can't remember the name but it was satirical. To win the vote at the end you had to win a debate by throwing rumors at the opposition.

Ah here it is, "Hooray Germany"

And here is a German game about finding employment in a science fiction sky city called "Skyworker".

Look at how German the menu is! I am not referring to the language but the words: "time", "time remaining", "money", "success". Swabians must have made this game.

 

[Lady_Error]

german marketing commisioned games

 

[vonAchdorf]

And here is a German game about finding employment in a science fiction sky city called "Skyworker".

Look at how German the menu is! I am not referring to the language but the words: "time", "time remaining", "money", "success". Swabians must have made this game.

What do you expect, it was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs (Department of Commerce for the kwas)?

Did you use games not only to learn Japanese, but also German?



Classic German soundtrack though.

 

[Jasede]

Turrican 2 "The Wall" theme rip-off starts at 2:34. Though let's call it a homage.

No, I was raised trilingual.

Compare 0:30:

 

[Tzaero]

Descent (PC)
obviously well-known among non-millenials, but I really feel like the game has been wiped from gaming history. It doesn't show up in many top 100 lists, there have been no attempts to desecrate the franchise with a filthy console reboot, nor any Kickstarter nostalgia bait. The whole genre is effectively dead

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/descendentstudios/descent-underground/description

It went ahead after a more faithful remake was nearly C&D'ed and got Herve's approval.

 

[spectre]

A few from me:

Abuse

I admit, I always sucked at platformers, so I didn't get far in this, but I remember it was pretty novel for its time, you moved the dude with keyboard, mouse was for aiming and shooting your guns.

Battle Bugs

A puzzle-strategy game featuring insects with different special powers.
I have a sweet spot for it because of the art style and it being my first WeGo strategy.

Die by the Sword

A sword fighting game with novel controls - you basically had full control over where the blade will go, possibly decapitating or disarming your foe with one well placed blow.
Dunno how it worked out in practice, as I was forced to play it on the keyboard with predefined swings, but it was pretty fun nonetheless.
I remember spending tons of hours on the arena mode, fighting different creatures of varyious difficulty.
Though the gameplay was pretty meh, jump puzzles weren't my thing, and it felt more like die by a miscalculated jump becaue fuck jump puzzles in TPP, rather than die by the sword.

Shadow Watch

A pretty elusive game, one that's been on my "todo" list since forever.
Essentially, turn based squad tactics in a cyberpunk setting.

Polanie

All you potato bros should start getting nostalgic feels about herding cows to make milk to train hordes of javelinmen.
Coupled with the obligatory garage-quality sounds for each unit.

It was essentially a poor Warcraft rip-off and I heard they made a sequel, but I never gotten around to trying that not to tarnish my boyhood memories.
It sounded like a cheap cash grab anyway.

One Must Fall 2097

My darling fighting game. Gameplay's so good, I even forgive it the animu bits and blocky design.
It was pretty advanced for its time, while controls were just directions and Punch+Kick, the whole system was surprisingly complex, allowing for freeform combos and various styles.
You would first select a pilot character with basic stats: power/agility/endurance and a robot to match this.

It even had a campaign mode with character development, secret characters and fatalities!

Quarantine

Interesting take on the fps genre, you are stuck in an armored cab in a dystopian, futuristic city.
Your job is to deliver various weidos wherever they want to go. Sounds simple, but due to a very hostile working environment, it pays to fit your wheels with a roof mounted minigun or a chainsaw.

Z

Very fast paced rts with a touch of toilet robot humor. You don't collect any resources, the goal is to quickly grab as much land as possible to gain access to factories which produce new units, given time and take out the enemy stronghold.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm not familiar with Shadow Watch and Polanie, but I recognize the others, especially Quarantine. I got to the third map in that one but couldn't finish one of the plot quests because the drop-off point was inside a building I couldn't reach from anywhere.

Battle Bugs is truly lost and forgotten, though.

 

[warpig]

Speaking of OMF2097, I think Metal Masters is worth mentioning.

OMF must have been inspired by it.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

i loved metal master as a kid. probably it sucked big time but i was in awe of its robots' customizability.

 

[:Flash:]

German games were weird...

Erotic German hospital simulation "Bliing!"


There was also this really strange German game about voting. I can't remember the name but it was satirical. To win the vote at the end you had to win a debate by throwing rumors at the opposition.

Ah here it is, "Hooray Germany"

At first I thought you were referring to "Das Amt" a game about being mayor of a Bavarian village.

Spoiler

A few from me:

Polanie

All you potato bros should start getting nostalgic feels about herding cows to make milk to train hordes of javelinmen.
Coupled with the obligatory garage-quality sounds for each unit.

It was essentially a poor Warcraft rip-off and I heard they made a sequel, but I never gotten around to trying that not to tarnish my boyhood memories.
It sounded like a cheap cash grab anyway.

I don't know if you're being ironic, but the sequel (Polanie 2) got a world-wide release as Knightshift / Once upon a Knight, and got quite some attention.
Polanie 1 was only ever released in Poland and Germany.

 

[m_s0]

Polanie 1 really is worth playing for the milk-based economy alone. It never gets old.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Sounds like Polanie inspired modern gaming world, just replace cows with gamers/casuals.

 

[spectre]

I don't know if you're being ironic, but the sequel (Polanie 2) got a world-wide release as Knightshift / Once upon a Knight, and got quite some attention.

Dunno about the sequel, it felt like a cash grab, preying on my nostalgia. Doesn't help that I'm not really into RTS.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Not so lost but probably forgotten, one less popular title in the "Sim" games: Sim Earth.

"God-game" genre where you watch your world evolve, controlling various elements of nature.

 

[DeepOcean]

Cossacks... man , I had a ton of fun playing the cossack series. I'm stretching a little the definition of Lost and Forgotten as the Cossacks series isn't THAT unknown but this game series deserved way more attention than it got. Microsoft must have spent alot of money to pay shills to praise the Age of Empires series because only that explain why it got so much attention while the Cossack series are mostly unknown by most players. There are Cossacks 1: European Wars and it's two expansions, Cossacks 2: Napoleonic Wars and the less well known American Conquest all made by GSC Game World (They are making Cossacks 3 right now.) and they pretty much share the same gameplay.

They are Age of Empires style RTS but on steroids, no... you don't play with 50 guys for your whole army, the army sizes on this game can get insane, hundreds and hundreds... no... you don't just make ships that cost 200 wood or whatever... here ships are floating fortresses and they cost what you expect floating fortresses to cost. This is a RTS wet dream of every history nerd and what is more even rare, a RTS game that gave a damn to single player with the campaigns being really fun. This game is like Age of Empires made for people with tastes. Who say the poor ruskies ukranians can't make good games?

 

[Renegen]

Some of the games in this thread I played in my hunt for DOS classics but there's only 1 area of obscure games that I feel I really know and that's Sierra games. I was a huge fanboy of theirs back in the day, I feel like I deserve the Cyberstorm brofists. So here is a truly forgotten Sierra classic.

Sierra 3D Ultra Pinball: Creep Night

Ah yes the mid 90s, where every big budget game was trying to be Myst, every small budget game was trying to be a pinball game. Sierra's entry is a smooth and highly addictive game set in a Halloween theme, I played the hell out of it due to a lack of better judgement. It really was a step above the other Pinball games because it had a clear theme, the board was highly interactive and the difficulty was just perfect. Back when spending $20 for a Pinball game with 4 maps seemed like a good idea, ah the 90s.

The Incredible Machine

Another game in that small period of history where it was fashionable to have Windows-like interface, The Incredible Machine follows the second tenet which is that for a $20 game you should get sandbox gameplay. Except the term sandbox had not been invented and so all the game offers is a series of props that you put together to cause mayhem and fun, if you're interesting enough to be able to cause mayhem and you're the type that can make yourself laugh. The game also had a series of levels laid out like a puzzle where a mouse had to make its way to his cheese. I think it was a huge hit so it's not that obscure but nothing stops a man in search of brofists.

Deadlock

Deadlock 2

Windows interface or glorious 640x480 resolution? The choice is yours if you prefer the first or the sequel and it's not the only choice you get to make in Deadlock, probably my favourite game for such a thread. This is one of the very best 4X games I've ever played, the focus is a bit more on building up your economy than the combat and that's what I loved it for. This game has all the features you'd expect, many different races, tech trees, city management, air and sea, diplomacy, spying, a market, psionics, it also features a really fun real time combat system where you have minimal control but that's very satisfying to play. Probably the only problem with the game is that the tech tree finishes too fast and most games are decided at full tech.

Dark Earth

And finally a game as obscure as it is good, Dark Earth. An adventure game with action elements that really demonstrates the creativity and skill of the French game industry of the 90s, this game was so good that I only played the demo... but I still remember it. The game had a pretty good real time engine for its time, it had the feel of an action game except it was a heavy adventure game. It never felt too frantic or lifeless, a great combination. I feel bad for not playing it further, I think it even won some awards.

 

[tuluse]

Dark Earth was the 2nd post, c'mon people.