Dr. Mario. Similar to Tetris, but the head to head competition aspect of it is much more fun to play.
Panzer Dragoon Saga a Saturn RPG that has wonderful-looking graphics with a style of their own, a fascinating if not very coherent plot, and a unique combat system. Still one of the most beautiful video games I’ve ever played: every location (viewed in 1st-person perspective) looked dusty from the desert in muted colours quite unlike the usual garish video games. And you got to fly a dragon.
Goemon Mystical Ninja 64 - insane Japanese madness, a quite wonderful 3D platformer with loads of subgames, singing and general weirdness on the N64.
Stunt Race FX a cartoonish racer on the SNES was great fun and had cool (for the time) Virtua Racer-style 3D graphics.
Exhumed, a console FPS, which was super-fast, and very well designed in an exploration-centred way. An early innovator, for a long time it was one of the best console first-person shooters.
Illusion of Time aka Illusion of Gaia, a brilliant SNES action RPG with a ton of charm, a great story that takes you round the world, and your character’s hair blows in the wind when you’re outside. You lead a group of children, each with a memorable character and a cunning excuse for deserting you before fights. It’s like Zelda but with character development.
I don’t know if Nights: Into Dreams comes into this category, since it’s widely acclaimed by critics, but came out on the Saturn, has never been sequelled or ported, and therefore was never widely known. But it was a fantastic game with brilliant graphics, tonnes of depth and a real imaginative dreamy quality. Fight opera singers and help your characters overcome their fears and hang-ups.
I’ll second Stunt Race FX.
Others (particularly Jman :)) have already mentioned Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, but I have to join the chorus. I have always loved playing sneaky characters, and these two games raised sneakiness to an art form. I’m impatiently waiting for Thief 3 and praying that they don’t screw it up.
Foots and skater made a good call with Eternal Darkness as well. Wonderful game–it’s well worth playing through all three paths for the strategy variations and the altered ending. I stayed invisible almost continously from the time I got the Mantorok rune each time; like I said, I like to play sneaky.
I’m going to add one of the Best Games Ever for the NES: North and South. Best civil war game ever!
I consider The Last Express one of the greates games of all time. While some reviewers rightly proclaimed it as extraordinary, a lot of them panned it for the graphics. The problem was that it was rotoscoped which made it look less ‘realistic’ but I really liked it. Not to mention that it allowed them to do an amazing thing – you could move around in the four cars of the train and have certain conversations almost anywhere; also the other passengers were always actually doing something. It was worth it to replay the game just to listen in on conversations.
The game also had a very intelligent ‘save’ system – it would always ‘rewind’ back to the last point when you missed something important. Of course it was necessary, but there have been a few games where you could miss something and not know until much later.
I’m in the middle of The Longest Journey and really enjoying it. I rather like the slow pace, and the fact that you can’t skip through things. It makes it more human. I’ve seen a new printing of it on the shelves at some stores, so maybe it’s doing okay now that word’s gotten out.
A C-64 game I enjoyed for hours at a time was the division-level wargame “Command Series” (which Sid Meier worked on). It had Decision in the Desert (North Africa) & Crusade in Europe (1944 France) and, bizarrely, a Vietnam one that I never played (one of the very few commercial Vietnam war games made).
The system had several great features – it was ‘accelerated real-time’; about 30 sec : 15 min. (variable) and you gave your orders. It worked on an ‘intelligence map’ that was not always up to date (so occasionally you’d see units jump around suddenly). You’d issue orders to your units, which they would generally follow and report on (though if they were more aware of the real situation, they might not move exactly where you told them, or they’d send back a report saying they couldn’t do it). It also had a decently complex level of unit strength, numbers, and experience. Unfortunately the AI was very weak, so only short scenarios were any fun.
I’m not sure how well or poorly this game will do, but one that’s out now is Robin Hood : Legend of Sherwood. It gets the feel of Robin Hood perfectly. There’s a proper mix of sneaking around (you try do as much as possible) with outright combat (which occurs more often in ambush missions). Highly recommended.
I remember captain skyhawk.
Oh, what a great game. Story made no sense, but nice variation in the missions.
Terranigma was pretty good, as well as Illusion of Gaia, even though both were kind wierd and seemed like they needed a little bit more background plot.
There was only one thing i didn’t liked about. Level design was pretty bad, and for some reason, I’d get motion sickness if I played more then 2 levels in a sitting. Only one other game has done that to me, and it was “Dark Forces”(another game I liked with horrible level design).
Cut scenes and music were beatiful(I am so glad you can use the game disks as the soundtrack, though I do swear that at least one piece was very heavily influenced by “The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly”, the scene where Tuco first arrives at the Cemetary). I also liked that the villians didn’t take a million shots to kill off, and often had interesting death scenes.
The level designs often made me cringe though. Everything else I loved.
That would be interesting, but how? That would be kinda like a sequel to LOOM, another kickass game that probably wasn’t that popular.
OOH! I’d forgotten about that one. Best time I’ve ever had climbing a tree.
Syndicate for the PC and SNES. PC version was much better on single player but on the SNES you could have four players each controlling an agent. Was incredibly fun to go nuts in some of the crowded levels, taking out civilians and police droids with miniguns.
I second Secret of Mana 2, Shadow Runner and Freedom force.
I vote for Secret of Evermore.
I will triple Stunt Race FX, that arizona/desert type course was a joy.
Populous on ps1 can’t get enough of the music
I got a free game for the ps1 once, it was one of them yaroze games called Rocks and Gems, similar to boulderdash it was pure addiction.
Prince of Persia on the master system.
Warzone 20(10?) or something on the ps1, it was like C&C but more playable.
There were a few great games for the Commodore 64.
Arc of Yesod was the first platformer I was ever addicted to, and it had some great background music too. I’m probably the only person who ever played it.
Kung Fu: Way of the Exploding Fist was an awesome fighting game that was way ahead of its time.
Warzone 2100 was fantastic. the first full 3-d rts, and no-one noticed.
European Club Soccer for the Megadrive–way before its time.
The original Toejam & Earl, for the same console.