Video Games that, apparently, you're the only person to ever play

Cafe Society
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That’s right, it’s that time again.

Covert Action, a pretty nifty spy-game by none other than Sid Meier of Civilization fame. Interesting Metal Gear-like stealth sequences, wire-tapping, ciphering, hacking, and jet-setting. All that on a single floppy.

Superhero League of Hoboken: Well, actually that’s a damn lie-- I know that at least ONE other Doper’s played it. Some of the puzzles were a tad too obvious (There’s a big pile of Jalapenos. One of your team has the power to eat any spicy food. What do YOU think?) but there were some great gags in it. And who wouldn’t like a superhero with the name Mademoiselle Pepperoni, who can vanquish baked goods?

Kagero: Deception II: An interesting game by Tecmo. I’ve played the original, too; but it looked like ass, played like ass, and took up an entire memory card. Defend yourself using traps and traps alone. Oh, and you can kill a lot of innocent villagers. Think an evil version of Home Alone, only with a sexy female protagonist.

Any game by Russian Under Ware: DOS games with a bizarre sense of humor. Also: Election is damn near IMPOSSIBLE to beat.

The Guilty Gear series entire: The best 2D fighting games, period. It’s just about spoiled me for anything that Capcom’s ever made (although I do enjoy the odd round of Darkstalkers). What other fighting game includes moves that a)instantly win you the round and b) aren’t completely broken? It’s also got some of the nicest-looking 2D graphics you’ll ever see, fighting game or not. Not to mention the outstanding music, the excellent game engine, and the unique character design (no clone syndrome here!) Disclaimer: The original Guilty Gear did have broken Instant Kills. You could try them as often as you wanted, and you won BOTH rounds! They fixed that in GGX, though.

Waku Waku 7: Another 2D fighter close to my heart. Completely freakin’ insane. Interesting character design here, too; what other game has an animated punching bag as a mid-boss?

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Okay, just one more 2D fighter. Based on the manga. The Dreamcast version is more true to the arcade, but the Playstation version has a lot more features. Both are, well, bizarre.

Ken’s Labyrinth: An old, old FPS coded by (I think) a fifth-grader. Was actually quite fun, despite the crude graphics (even for the time).

I think that’s enough for now; I’m sure there are some I’m forgetting.

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Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption. Bad scripting and bad voice-acting. But the game itself was fun, it was original, and some of the underlying ideas themes were interesting. Hearing a punk sum up the last 700 years of history in five sentences or so was worth the price of the game.

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I’ve played (and loved) Waku Waku 7.

Also played (and hated) Ken’s Labyrinth.

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I’ve played boy Ken’s Labyrinth, and VtM:Redemption.

Vampire is actually a good solid RPG, and the online play was very innovative (or at least I thought so). I’m wishing I hadn’t scratched my copy to hell so i could play it through again.

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Morraff’s Revenge, and Ally Cat.

Both can be found on at least one Abandonware site, but I won’t link, as I’m not sure that’s kosher.

M’s R is an RPG-ish game. I hesitate to call it an RPG as there is no role-playing, or even story. You’re in a town that’s above a dungeon…you can go into the dungeon, kill things and get treasure, then come back up, heal, and do it all again. It’s a lot of fun.

Ally Cat is…cute. You play an ally cat trying to get to his housecat sweetheart in her apartment while dodging thrown tincans and dogs, and trying not to fall off the clotheslines. Then there’s minigames involving chasing mice or fish if you jump in an open apartment window. It’s one of my favourite games ever.

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Crush, Crumble, and Chomp! by Epyx. A semi-real-time turn-based “movie monster simulation,” where you create a cinematic critter, then go nuts on one of four cities, wreaking havoc and trying to stay alive for as long as possible. You’re destined to die, of course, but staying alive for a long time is possible if you play your cards correctly. Also noted for one of the funniest dry-humor user manuals I’ve ever read.

Fortunately, I can play it in emulation… :slight_smile:

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Played it? I own it.

:smiley:

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Gitaroo-Man is everything Parappa the Rapper 2 should’ve been. Great music, neat mechanic, and just plain goofy stuff going on all over the place. The level with the skeletons was just too cool. And of course, mo-mo-mo-jo King Bee! (Now I’ve gotta dig up that soundtrack again…)

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Flying Warriors on NES. Odd little game, side-scroller where you can fight against enemies using Street Fighter-like moves.

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Bolo 3. A decade ago it came free with some corporate software (answer questions about your network; send them to us; get a free game!). I was temping and was the only computer literate cough person there so I stole it. It was kinda nifty, in a logic-Sokoban-DOS-type way - kick soccer balls to get places. I lost it. :frowning: I want it back. :frowning:

Ecco the Dolphin. One of the first CD games ever, I believe - the ex got it free. A friend helped me steal stuff to play it on my computer, but I’ve since reformatted…I’d really like it again.

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Hunter , on the Amiga 500.

Predicted the present attraction of free-form-play and mission based shooters by what, 15 years? Fly helicopters, drive gunboats, cycle, windsurf or just walk and swim. Be nasty or nice to the locals and the enemies. Just don’t blow your cover!

I have the damned disk still. 1 floppy :slight_smile: Would play it again in a heartbeat but it’s corrupted to hell and back, and I can’t find emu anywhere for it.

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Hey, Tentacle Monster, you’re not the only one who plays the Guilty Gear series. Most of my classmates are addicted to it. (About 15 of them, I think.)

This results in many hours of them sitting on my couch, opening doors in my character’s face as my character hits them with fans.

I’m sorry I have nothing else to contribute to this topic. I’m not much of a gamer.

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Team buddies (PS1): I am convinced this is the single most overlooked and underrated game in history. Team Buddies is part RTS, and part tactical action. TB is a game where you build up a squad consisting of four jelly bean looking people by picking up blocks, and placing them on a pad like legos. You control one of the “buddies” while the ai controls the rest of the squad (though you can order your teamates to do stuff such as attack a enemy base, building a tank, protecting someone/something, etc, etc) Different stuff is made depending on how you arrange the blocks.
Want a gun? Place down one box on the pad and bust it open. Want grenades? Place two blocks on the pad right next to each other, bust them open. Want an additional soldier? Place two blocks on the pad, one on top of the other and bust them open. There were also rare blue boxes around that made the weapons/soldiers you were creating more powerfull and effective. The game had more than 30 single player missions, a huge arsenal of weapons and vehicles, and many many different kinds of soldiers. It was a great blend of strategy and action, an awesome multiplayer mode (me and my friend still play it when he comes over), with a good amount of humor blended in…and it was overlooked and underrated, regardless of it being sold for $10 in stores, brand new when it was released. This never ceases to blow my mind when I think about it. Occasionly I find a small gathering of people who have played this game and loved it every bit as much as me and my friend do. It was released 3 years ago and we still play it for cripes sake. If any of you ever see this in stores, buy it, or I’ll never forgive you.

Silent Bomber (PS1) : One of the greatest action games for the PS1, with one of the ugliest box arts in videogame history. This is just classic “blow the hell out of every thing” action, a game I’d reccomend to anyone who loved the old Konami and Capcom action classics for the 8-16 bit erra. All of the bosses and enemies just seem to be reminescent of those games, though this game takes place in a 3D, destructible enviroments. To add depth to the gameplay, you can upgrade your character by collecting E chips, and collecting other items to add enemies and bosses you fight against in sinlgeplayer, to the 2 player fighting game(which alone is a fun fighting game) roster. It’s packed with fun missions, cool enemies that are a joy to fight, and great bosses. This game used to be so rare that when I asked the employees at game stores if they had it they would laugh at me. Apparently so many people who played the OPM demo liked it so much that they bought the very few copies that were released the day it came out. Two years later or so, it was rereleased for $20 :smiley:
I’d kill for a sequal to this game on one of the consoles of this generation.

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All the ones that I think of are 20 to 25 years old and I assume the reason I think I’m alone is no one talks about them anymore. Like Aztec or Tombstone City. Seems like I was more adventurous back when games were so much cheaper or were copies your friends made for you.

I remember that game. When I moved I lost the manual which, for you kids, was needed to answer questions to prove you bought the game. But since it was multiple choice, each answer was a face of a criminal, I was able to crack it with only a minimal amount of work. Real fun game in a nerdy way. Weren’t their also street sections where you trailed people by using multiple cars. I might still have the disk but no floppy drive any more. They should toss that in something like a “Best of Sid Meier” disk. I’d buy it.

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International Cricket Captain 2002 by Empire Interactive…the best cricket-management game I’ve ever seen. I think you can see the limited appeal right there.

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I’ve played the Game Gear version of Ecco the Dolphin; I don’t know how close the two are, but it was a pretty fun game.

My contribution:

Ascendancy: A semi decent space strategy game by Logic Factory, with a good sense of humour. Had a number of interesting features, including custom designing each of your ships and 3D space combat. The different races were silly, but fun and reasonably well balanced. The game would have been very good if the AI hadn’t sucked so badly.

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Oh. Forgot to mention. I’ve also played Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption, although it was on a (ex) friend’s computer and I never got very far with it.

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This is not an obscure game; IIRC, it did pretty well.

It is also semi-infamous as the game PC Gamer gave a very positive review, only to later have it revealed that the reviewer, Bill Trotter, had also been hired to write the strategy guide.

Jayson Blair would fit right into the gaming journalism biz, I’m afraid.

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Man, Alley Cat was one sweet game. I remember playing it on my parents’ IBM laptop 15 years ago. So that makes two of us.

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Hahahaha. You are so right. I am going to reinstall this and play it today. :slight_smile:

One game I really enjoyed that few others did, was Call to Power, which was a Civilization clone. My favorite part was having 30 metere tall War Robots (mechs) going after cities. Hehe.

Another, that I still own on 5 1/4 Floppy is the original Oregon Trail. Usually considered an educational game, it was filled with depth, humor and an interesting ending that actually ENDED! Very rare in this day and age.

I figured two computer games, I must at least throw in a console game. Metal Dungeon on the XBox was single handedly the worst RPG, nay game, ever to exist. A flimsy back story, an ever changing maze, and repetitive creatures, combats and ‘cut scenes’ made it the biggest stinking pile of crap ever to come on a plastic disc. Stay away from Metal Dungeon, or go rent it if you are into BDSM.