Unreal Tournament, the one that was abandoned in favor of Fortnite (eugh). Like sure it would never be a big hit like Fortnite, Arena Shooters are out of fashion after all, but Epic didn't even give it a chance for starters, they basically just rushed it out the door with a skeleton crew, no budget whatsoever and were begging for community members to do free work on the game for them. In retrospect the game was doomed to fail from day one.
I had forgotten about this game. It was a fun time. I think there was a Jungle Strike also
The last memory I have of Desert Strike going to a local video game and card game place (Heebeegeebees in Ogden, Utah before they expanded) with some of my siblings and buying this for some portable system (GBA?) and starting to play.
I then heard the owner (who was still in the shop back then) say “We can do this the easy way or the hard way”. It had transpired that one of my siblings had tried to steal something. Cops got called, fun times.
For those curious, the rumor was that the easy way was police and the hard way was him chasing you with a bat
Battleborne - I found it enjoyable but because it was superficially similar to Overwatch it absolutely bombed.
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.
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.
Oh I agree, what I mean is that the similarities were barely even superficial. They were both hero shooters, but so are Apex Legends and Rainbow Six Seige, and you'd never compare them to Overwatch.
It's not really forgotten, but Wing Commander has been abandoned, and a proper modern rebuild of it would be fantastic.
Also, I want a new Deer Avenger.
If you like Privateer, check out Double Damage Games "Rebel Galaxy: Outlaw". Excellent game with a lot of sadly lost potential due to the dev being run out of game development by hostile and entitled "gamers".
If there is one game out there that I think deserves a second chance, it is definitely Alpha Protocol. This game came out in 2010 and was created by Obsidian Entertainment, the makers behind Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. This was the first-of-its-kind 'espionage RPG' with a truly, wholly unique dialogue system that has truly never been replicated since. Unlike mainstream RPGs of the time, you pick from several different 'tones' to speak in, in which gives the game hundreds of outcomes and dozens of endings. For example, according to Raycevick in a recent video, love interest can snipe you after a boss fight, poorly-treated damzels can attack you in the dead of night, contracts you're hired to kill can be baited into their demise through dialogue, and a whole host of other things.
The problem is that Alpha Protocol was lambasted by critics due to its incredibly buggy launch state and unpolished graphics. It never met the sales requirements that SEGA was expecting from it, and so, a few years ago, the game was pulled from all storefronts, never to be played again - until now. That's right. Thanks to the legends over at GOG for their incredible work, Alpha Protocol is back on sale, complete with achievements, localization, modern compatibility, and cloud saves. All without any form of DRM. But, the bugs in the game are still present to this day even in the GOG version, and so you might end up finding some humorous bugs and glitches.
Source: Making a Game Last Forever
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
An awesome RPG by Sierra (Fallout1+2). It was a bit unfinished, but you had such a great roleplay-experience. A second part was planned using Source-Engine.
Also:
FCK GNMFor isometric RPGs Arcanum truly was unique. The dialogue and story was polished to a brilliant shine in a fantasy world going through the industrial revolution. The soundtrack composed entirely of a somber string ensemble added so much to the narrative and feel of the world, as if its magic was slowly dying out to make way for industrial expansion and exploitation. It stands up there along with the original Fallouts and Planescape: Torment. It's a tragedy a sequel was never made. The only modern game that comes close to the aesthetics is the Pillars of Eternity franchise.
Ogre Battle. I'd love to play a game like that again. I think Unicorn Overlord took some inspiration from it so I'm excited to check that out.
The original Way of the Samurai. It was really cool and unique little game. The sequels never really followed through on the best parts of the first one though unfortunately.
@mechwarrior2@hexbear.net @LaGG_3@hexbear.net get in here
wasn't super impressed with UO but I haven't gotten that far in it yet.
I'd love for there to just be more short games with branching narratives like WotS. Short games that are built to be replayed really spark something off in my brain lol.
I'm surprised with auto battler games having a moment that we haven't gotten any Ogre Battle inspired indies - just Unicorn Overlord. Still haven't played it, but it's on my to-do list.
Absolver. It was the precursor to Sifu, but with slightly slower and more methodical combat (more like a Soulslike, almost).
The coolest part of it is, as you play and fight players and NPCs, your character will slowly learn and unlock the moves that are used against them, which you can then put into your moveset and chain together with other moves to create your own style. If you don't want to do that, you can join a player-run school, and be given the fighting style of that school's master, which your character will learn as they use it.
The story mode is pretty short. It's mainly about PvP (although, before development stopped, it DID get a free DLC with a co-op dungeon run that's worth killing a couple of hours on). Of course, a PvP-focused game with nobody playing it isn't exactly the most entertaining thing to spend your time on, so- outside of a small collection of diehards- it pretty much stays a ghost town.
It had heart, it had ambition, and it had creativity. My friends and I were really hoping the success of Sifu would mean people might start going back and maybe breathing a little life into it, but that didn't happen. We hoped maybe they'd announce a second one, but that hasn't happened yet, either. It'll probably just be another Sifu. That one was a proven success, so it makes more sense.
The servers are still up for now. No idea how much longer it'll be supported. But, if you've got friends you can play it with, it might be worth looking into and seeing for yourself what the game offered, and what could've been.
Operation Wolf.
Defender of the crown.
Gauntlet (and sequels).
The Settlers.
Syndicate.
Fury of the Furies.
Cooking Mama.
Tongue of the Fatman.
Turrican 1 and 2.
Zool.
Snow Bros. Nick and Tom.
Double Dragon.
Golden Axe.
Rick Dangerous.
Blake Stone.
Antix.
Screamer.
Soldat.
Speedball 2. Brutale Delux.
Lemmings.
Sid Myers Pirates!
Battle chess.
Shadow of the Beast.
Altered Beast.
Agony.
Strider (arcade)
Death Rally.
Stunt Car Racer (msdos)
Can add more soon
I feel like many of these got at least a spiritual successor if not an actual successor. That counts as a second chance right and means they aren't forgotten?
Like Gauntlet has like 9 sequels and the last one released just 10 years ago. There's also many games that are heavily inspired by Gauntlet. Same for The Settlers, which had a new game just last year.
An old PS1 fighting game called Unholy War. It had a lot of really unique mechanics I haven't seen since.
Psi-ops. That game where you play a psychic special forces guy, fighting against other psychic special forces people, who were apparently your former coworkers or some shit. The ending was a setup for the sequel, but sequel never happened, now I will never know what the story was!
Streets of Rage, even if it's just for the music
The original GTA, it somehow has the atmosphere of 80s/90s that only Více City could kind of replicate (and multiplayer was fun)
