I waited to see if anyone mentioned it, but, POD. A old 1997 racing game from Microsoft built by Ubisoft. You can get the gold edition on GoG for rather cheap but I would absolutely love to see a remaster or remake. Unfortunately I would rather it not be made by Ubisoft as I don’t want to be forced into a separate account login setup from Ubisoft.
Battleborne - I found it enjoyable but because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
Sort of, the real issue was it had no advertising of its own, just Randy Pitchford synergising buzzwordsalad on twitter and trying to create a rivalry with Overwatch. Nobody really knew what it was supposed to be from advertising, because nobody thought to just say “FPS MOBA”.
I remember seeing plenty of advertising for it and always saw it as a fundamentally different game with much more of a PvE focus. I didn’t buy it until quite a while later but I remember being annoyed at the comparisons being made between them as they seemed so fundamentall different to me.
I just clicked into this post to say this. I was an ISIC main.
Good lord yes. Overwatch is just a corporatized TF2 ripoff, but Battleborn was a creative, unique game with a soul.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it should watch the game’s intro cinematic, which gives a great sense of just how much character the game had.
Overwatch
Curiously both titles are dead nowadays, like literally dead.
I enjoyed Rampart tremendously back in the day. It had s lot of ports, but I’m surprised it hasn’t had any remakes or clones in the last 30 years.
I had no idea Woody Harrelson was on Lemmy!
I even remember this as coin slot machine at a local arcade. It had trackballs as controllers. Truly unique.
Sounds s lot more fair than the experience I had at home!
Three kids crammed in front of one computer. One on keyboard, one on mouse and one on joystick. The one on joystick was at the worst disadvantage. A small nudge was a good way to sabotage rebuilding your fortress.
I don’t know if it’s forgotten, but it’s forgotten to me. There was this ant game where you had a colony of ants that would go collect food, or attack other colonies. There was this very pixelated top-down map view where you could see the brightly colored food disappear pixel by pixel as they ate.
I can’t figure out what the game was but I loved it.
Sim Ant ?
Nope, the other commenter got it. It was Microsoft Ants. Sim Ant is what most people guess when I have brought this one up before though. I’ll have to try it sometime.
This is what it sounds like to me, and Sim Ant is the game I had in mind opening this post. It was a good one.
Thank you for reminding me of this game. I think it is Microsoft ants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Ants
Oh my God! Finally! I genuinely couldn’t track down what the game was for years. Thank you!
My whole family loved these games.
Later, I realized Amy Hennig worked on these at Crystal Dynamics before leaving for Naughty Dog where she worked on the Uncharted Series.
Soul Reaver seriously needs a reboot. Soul Reaver kept getting mentioned a while back when Square Enix sold off Cristal Dynamics to pay for NFT scams, but no mutterings of a reboot/remake.
This halogened a while ago: https://www.ign.com/articles/new-legacy-of-kain-looks-likely-as-embracer-receives-strong-fan-response
I remember some years ago receiving an email with a form asking many questions about Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver, seemingly a market research thing.
Embracer
Welp, there goes all my hope
I remember that, and participated as well. IIRC, the response they got was significantly larger than their most optimistic predictions, so they are aware that there is big interest. Hopefully it lands somewhere that will actually complete the project.
Kolibri for the Sega 32x addon for the Genesis/Megadrive. Most of the reviewers that weren’t down with the game either complained about the difficulty or lack of story/making sense, but it was a beautiful game for the time that took the space shooter concept and made it into a game that was somehow chill while also being difficult enough to sometimes momentarily make you want to rage quit. If you enjoy games like the Raiden series, you’ll enjoy this.
Shout to Knuckles Chaotix (the most unique take on Sonic gameplay of the classic 2D era) and also Shadow Squadron (very Star Fox-esque), which are also slept on because 32x.
Exclusive to the Genesis/Megadrive, it’s a crying shame that the Vectorman games never received a third iteration and have seemingly disappeared into the grey goo of IP purgatory. Vectorman and Vectorman 2 were amazing for the time: they were arguably the best 2D platformers of the era, graphically beautiful, oozing with charm, and with an amazing soundtrack to go along with it all. It’s crazy that the developers were able to squeeze the performance they did out of the hardware and playing emulated versions of it now still doesn’t compare to how it feels and looks playing it on the original hardware with a CRT and a nice sound system (but you should still check it out absent that setup).
On PC, also from the 90s, Descent was truly groundbreaking and unique. It’s an FPS that said “what if you were playing as a space ship and had six degrees of freedom to move about?” It was also the first truly 3D FPS game.
Descent did get 2 sequels and also a spinoff, Descent: Freespace and later Freespace 2. F2 has seen a HUGE amount of mods, partly due to the engine going open source back in 2002
Freespace 3 could be awesome, what with Elite seeing a rebirth.
Very cool, I’ll check that out. Thanks!
Burning Rangers from sonic team on the Sega Saturn. Such a unique concept.
Ark the lad twilight of the spirits. One of my favorite classics!
Not forgotten or obscure but… Assassin’s creed 3. Yeah the main character sucks but I love the missions and map. Also has just the right amount of pirate like missions (in 4 is too much). I don’t understand why people loved 4 so much the story of that game sucks lol and the villains are so forgettable.
The main character is pale in comparison to Ezio, but I don’t see how he suck.
He gets bitch talked the whole game and he lost at the end anyways lol… Doesn’t make for a very enjoyable character. I really like how physically blunt and badass is though.
4 had a lot of issues, bad story, trailing missions and a lot of pacing problems. But it’s the best pirate game ever made. And the ship combat was great
Like I said, too much piracy, you’re not even an assassin’s anymore… Also funny how there’s so much praise online for that game yet NOBODY mentioned the villains. They’re so forgettable. In the other games, even the bad ones I can remember a face or names, 3 had some of the best actually. 4 is just a blank space.
Rock Manager. It was very limited in scope and quite short, but it was a really fun game with tons of potential.
I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for games like it that are as good as it could have been or even as good as it was for over 20 years now.
It was one of the first PC games I played as a kid. Incredibly simple mechanics: you are a marble and you roll and try to reach the finish line (sometimes you need collectibles first). But the level design was top notch. Perfect blend of challenging and rewarding.
Blur
I was gonna say I was still waiting for a seaman 2, but apparently it existed in Japan. Still, with AI bullshit being all the rage I could see it make a comeback.
Sacrifice
Retro/Grade is a rhythm/shooter mashup where you travel backwards through time and un-fire a bunch of lasers to un-kill a bunch of ships. It was designed for a guitar hero controller if I recall? I found the visuals nauseating and the music lackluster but that premise is gold and deserves another chance.
Also PLEASE play the music backwards??? It’s a game about going back in time, c’monnnnn.
