Hidden, and not so hidden gems

[win3k]

Afternoon chaps

Having played-to-death a good portion of most of the current crop of new releases (Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3: I'm looking at you), I thought it might be jolly to shout out and learn about great games that have now fallen off the charts/ been forgotten/ under appreciated/ critically panned/ delete as appropriate.

My h'penny's worth: Beyond Good and Evil


Designed by a Frenchman (take THAT, UK/US/Japanese dominance), it's a rather lovely looking 3rd person adventure starring Jade as a photographer with ninja tendencies and a pig for an uncle. Yes.

Conspiracies, hovercraft races, and a Pokemon-esque gotta-collect-em-all minigame involving photographs of the fauna of Hillys (the gameworld) are shot through with weirdly anthropomorphic NPCs (including a Rastafarian Rhino-run garage). Play combines elements of stealth (get seen in some places=instadeath), combat and (admittedly rudimentary) puzzle solving. For me, what makes this game a gem is the fact that none of it grates, or appears disconnected from other parts. Yes, having fixed save points can be a chore, and character development is limited to increasing volumes of health bar, but minor niggles aside, this game should be played by anyone who cares about PC gaming.

So let's have at it - what gems have you that perhaps didn't get the attention they deserve?

win3k

[SweatyPyro]

Can I say Tron 2.0? Because that was a really good game.

[TronFAQ]

A bunch of games I think are absolutely worth playing, if you haven't already:







Those are the games I have personal experience with and have actually played.

You can download the first System Shock for free now, ready to go on XP or Vista.

http://www.strangebedfellows.de/index.p ... 211.0.html

Notice I left off Thief: Deadly Shadows (aka Thief 3) and Deus Ex: Invisible War (aka Deus Ex 2). They both suck, don't waste your time. (Though Deus Ex 2 sucks less than Thief 3. Deus Ex 2 is tolerable I suppose, while Thief 3 is abominable.) I also left off STALKER: Clear Sky because I haven't played it yet. I hear it's not so hot, either.

World of Goo is very nice, for a casual game. But I recommend picking it up when it's on sale, like I did. At $5 it was a no-brainer. But at its regular $20 price . . . eh. Not sure it's worth that much.

I'll try thinking of some more really good PC titles, later.

[win3k]

Morning chaps

Can I say Tron 2.0?

Never heard of it.

Thief: Deadly Shadows

This. I bought it off the cheap rack, installed and played. What a poo-coated turd of a game. Are the predecessors really any good?

World of Goo

Brilliant, but only if you grab it from the sale (not worth the full price, IMO)

Anachronox

Tells us more, precious.

Dead space

Been debating getting this - might just give it a go

win3k

[Daddyo]

I can't seem to enjoy anything more than Battlefield 1942 often with it's Desert Combat mod

• 

I've been playing it almost regularly since 2003 with friends. I always seem to find new & often funny physics with it, and still get into new situations that are hilarious. Tons of maps & vehicles with the basic game, that no future version seemed to come close to. And lots of servers are still loaded with people. In my opinion the best 'simulation/arcade' game ever created.

EA's BF 1943 is supposed to come out soon, but with what, 3 maps (or something ridiculous), and probably no moving battleships & carriers like BF2...

[TronFAQ]

This one goes without saying. But, there. I said it again.

Win, I'm pretty certain you've already played the System Shock games and Deus Ex. But I included them anyway, for anyone else reading the thread. I'll also include a few more that I'm sure you've played, too.

Since I started off with a Monolith game, let's raid their archives for a few more worthwhile titles.




I left out Contract JACK for obvious reasons. It sucks balls. I don't know what Monolith was thinking when they made it. I also left off FEAR because I didn't think it was that great. Good, but not great. I haven't played either of the expansions: Extraction Point or Perseus Mandate. I heard the former is okay, while the latter is rubbish.

I also left off the AvP2 expansion Primal Hunt because it sucks, too. Though I suppose, these days, you can pick up AvP2 Gold for next to nothing and get Primal Hunt in the bargain anyway.

And based on the reviews of FEAR 2, it sounds like I should wait until it hits the bargain bin. Console-port-itis.


How about: "I haven't played it myself yet, but heard it was good?"






That last one, Beneath a Steel Sky, is completely free now. You can download ScummVM and the game files from here. A number of those titles are also available from Good Old Games.

Cryostasis isn't available everywhere yet, but will be within the next month.

Thief: Deadly Shadows
Are the predecessors really any good?

Oh, yes. Thief 3 is a piece of dung compared to the first two.

I didn't play the Thief games for a long time, because I'm not really into fantasy/medieval settings in games. But since everyone I knew was praising them, I finally bit the bullet one day. Glad I did, too. Didn't know what I was missing out on. They're really, really good.

Anachronox
Tells us more, precious.

Ah, Anachronox. It's a game you'll either love, or hate.

Basically, it's a twisted parody of the Japanese Role Playing Game. Final Fantasy on crack. Once in a while you get into JRPG-style battles in the game, which you may not enjoy because of the grind. But they're so absurdly done, you'll probably laugh more than you grumble.

It's the humour that really makes this game. That, and the soundtrack.

Dead space
Been debating getting this - might just give it a go

The story behind Dead Space, for me anyway, is interesting.

There was a rumour years ago, that EA had the team behind The Godfather game working on a new System Shock. Everyone predicted disaster. Then, what started as a System Shock sequel ended up becoming Dead Space. You can clearly tell where it drew its inspiration from.

Now, since this was an EA title, and not by Irrational: you'd think it would be a piss poor rip-off of System Shock. And that Bioshock would be the true "spiritual successor". Imagine my surprise when, after having played both, I liked the rip-off better.

Dead Space is the true spiritual successor to System Shock. It's a shameless rip-off, but it's just so damn well executed that I can't help but like it. A lot.

The one thing that pisses me off about it, though, is that it suffers slightly from consolitis. The devs, for some idiotic reason, hard-mapped some of the keyboard controls so you can't customize them to your liking. There are ways around it, but it shouldn't have been like that in the first place. And no patch has been released yet, to fix this.

[win3k]

Morning chaps



This is simultaneously brilliant, and bugged to buggery. In it's unpatched form, it's more likely than not that you'll hit one of the game-breaking bugs, but get it patched (the community is still actively working on this, just try to avoid the multitude of nude/boobie-laden skin patches[my eyes!]), and play something completely different to anything prior to TES: Oblivion in scope and ambition. For bonus points, try and complete the hotel level without taking a break/turning the lights on/soiling yourself. Sheer brilliance.



In classic style, this gets worse as you go through the sequels. Part 1 is the best of the bunch, part 3 is horrible. Painkiller is the antidote to any kind of sophistication in FPS games; hundreds and hundreds of enemies and hugely satisfying weapons (sub-woofers set to 11, please) set in abso-frickin-lutely massive levels (the cathedral level is eye popping) make part 1 essential viewing for fans of the bloody-silly-shootage genre.



I thought long and hard about recommending this; on one level, this is Tim Schafer at his mentalist best; the whole aesthetic of the game is utterly differerent to anything else, and "The Milkman Conspiracy" level had me rolling on the floor. BUT: without a good gamepad, the controls for this game are horrible. Try this with keyboard and mouse and you'll end up chewing the corner off your monitor in level 10 nerd rage.



Last ones for now; Peter Molyneaux's masterworks/trainwrecks [*delete as appropriate].

Very experimental AI made/broke these games, depending on who you talk to. Understanding why your giant monkey behaved in the ways it did in the original game was mystifying to the point of absurdity; you'd spend literally hours spanking your monkey (hur hur did you see what I did there?) to prevent it from eating villagers and it would then inexplicably start pooing on them instead. Part 2 drastically simplified the AI, bringing cause somewhere close to effect, but seasoned players have complained that the game is far too easy, as the enemy AI lacks any kind of cunning, tending to either launch repeated and hopelessly undermanned attacks, or bunkering down and waiting for you to go slap his head off. As always, YMMV.

win3k

[data_ghost]

By far the best money i've spent on a video game in terms of value. This game came out 3 years ago, but is still widely played now, and has spawned a huge number of mods that change the nature of the game massively. My favourite one has to Project Reality because i'm into nerdy high-realism shooters.

[TronFAQ]

Some more titles I thought were good:









Another World is also known as Out of this World outside of Europe, but I couldn't find a decent box shot for it. Flashback was a semi-sequel to Out of this World.

A lot of the early Star Wars games were actually good. I'm sure lots of people have played Jedi Knight and Dark Forces. But I bet not many have played Mysteries of the Sith or Shadows of the Empire. (Of course, getting Shadows of the Empire to run on a modern PC might prove problematic. I think it only supported 3Dfx Voodoo cards and Glide.)

I left Jedi Outcast (aka Jedi Knight II) and Jedi Academy off the list, because I didn't think they were that great. Good, but not great. The best part was the light saber combat system. But other than that, I thought they weren't as good as the original.

Of course, everyone has probably played KOTOR as well. But I'm not sure how many played KOTOR II. KOTOR II gets a marginal pass from me, because it started off great. It was only toward the end that the game fell apart. That's all thanks to LucasArts rushing the game to market in time for Christmas. There's a fan project that's nearing completion, that's supposed to fix the game and restore a lot of content that was cut out in order to meet LucasArts' deadline.

I haven't played Elite Force II yet, so I left it out. I heard is was okay, but not as good as the first one.

I threw Duke Nukem 3D on there because now's a great time to play it. It's available from Good Old Games for cheap, and there have been some recent fan updates released that turn it into an almost completely new game. Full 3D (not 3D plus 2D sprites), proper mouselook, better textures, and so on.

[Daddyo]

Duke Nukem 3d - the first game I probably could have been declared a video game addict on. It is open source now, I did a compile of it, but everyone has probably hacked it to death so a real pain to play online. If you guys ever wanna try it, maybe we can set it up. It might be the map level file is not legally free though, but is available through alternate sources. It's hard to play now that real 3d stuffs been out for a long time.

That vampire game you guys mention - I wanted to try it because Dan Ash of Love & Rockets / Bahaus did the soundtrack on it, so I'm sure that part is great, evil, & spooky. I'm just not into the gore scene...

[win3k]

That vampire game you guys mention - I wanted to try it because Dan Ash of Love & Rockets / Bahaus did the soundtrack on it, so I'm sure that part is great, evil, & spooky. I'm just not into the gore scene...

Surprisingly, it's not that gory. It's much more about the creation of an alternative view of the world: one where vampires co-exist with, but unknown by ordinary humans.

Also, there's a bit in it where you get to fight someone who's (a) completely fruit-loop deranged and (b) armed with a prosthetic limb. Yes.

win3k

[Daddyo]

Also, there's a bit in it where you get to fight someone who's (a) completely fruit-loop deranged

I come up against these types all the time

(haha)

I'll see if there's a demo

[TronFAQ]

Win, if you decide you want to give the Thief games a try, I put together a list of updates you'll want to grab. I wrote up a post on TRON-Sector a while back, listing them all for each Thief game. You may want to grab them now, since some of the files are hosted on Filefront and it's shutting down in the next couple of days.

I'm sure that the files will eventually end up being hosted somewhere else, but this way you don't have to track them all down again later.


BTW, I thought I'd mention something really bizarre that I read about. Since you mentioned Beyond Good and Evil is an overlooked gem, it just reminded me of this.



http://www.giantbomb.com/news/get-beyon ... heese/946/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Apparently, here in Canada you can pick up a "free" copy of Beyond Good and Evil if you buy a specially marked package of string cheese.

Yes, I know this is pathetically sad news. But, I may as well take advantage of this the next time I visit the supermarket. Maybe I can pick up some extra copies and send them out as gifts.

[win3k]

Apparently, here in Canada you can pick up a "free" copy of Beyond Good and Evil if you buy a specially marked package of string cheese.

Words fail me. That is bizarre.

I'll grab the other thief games on my next trip to PC world; thanks for the list of updates.

Cheers

win3k

[TronFAQ]

Well, I can confirm the Beyond Good and Evil inside string cheese packages thing is for real. I picked one up today. It cost me $5, which isn't too bad a deal for both items in one package.

Yep, it's bizarre. But hey, now I have something to snack on while I play the game. And it was an easy and cheap way to pick up a recommended title.