Hi, everyone!

Well, it's my 1337th post (imagine that), so I thought that, once again, I'd do something special with it.

As the title suggests, post the names of games that if you asked someone else about, chances are all they'd say is, "...What?"

These are games that you've played and thought they were simply awesome, but chances are, no one else even knows about them. Post a link to an article (be it Wikipedia, Gamespy, or whatever) about the game in question. Give a little background on the game, too.

To kick things off, here are a few of my top "underrated" picks:

Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon: This was a fun little game for the N64 that takes place in (what appears to be) Medieval Japan. A group of aliens known as the Peach Mountain Shoguns have come from outer space in an attempt to take over the world in order to "turn it into their glorious stage" (they're a bunch of crazy-@$$ dancers, for your information). You'll eventually be able to control 4 characters, including Goemon himself, Ebisumaru, his pudgy sidekick, Yae, a smokin' hot secret ninja agent, and Sasuke, a Robot who kicks some serious @$$.

As the game progresses, each character is able to learn a secret ability unique to him or her: Goemon learns Deep Impact, which allows him to deal double damage when activated (but takes double damage to himself as a side effect), Ebisumaru learns to shrink, Yae can become a mermaid (and the only one who can dive), and Sasuke can fly using a jetpack. They also each have a specific weapon: Goemon uses a pipe, Ebisumaru uses something called a Saw-Hammer (which is just a hammer), Yae uses a Katana, and Sasuke uses a pair of Kunai. They also get a bunch of crazy gizmos to use, too, but I'm not going to go into it, as it would take a while to explain it all.

Rocket: Robot On Wheels: A game with robots, an amusment park gone wrong, and a homicidal raccoon bent on killing the park's mascot? It sounds like a crazy acid trip, but it isn't. Rocket, the star of this game, is minding his own buisness, when his creator, Dr. Gavin, makes an important announcement. Whoopie World, a futuristic theme park created by the good doctor himself, is set to open tomorrow morning, and Whoopie the Seal and Jojo, his raccoon sidekick, are at the ready. But Jojo, jealous of Whoopie's popularity, gets fed up and the moment Gavin leaves, all hell breaks loose. Jojo knocks out Rocket, then kindaps Whoopie, and throws Whoopie World itself into chaos. No prizes for guessing who's got to set things right before opening day commences.

As the game progresses, you get to control some slick rides, interact with the park itself, and set everything right again. This game was created by Sucker Punch, the same guys who made the Sly Cooper games. I'd suggest you also give this one a try.

Lost Kingdoms I and Lost Kingdoms II: Ever wondered what a cross between Yu-Gi-Oh!™ and Diablo II would look like? Lost Kingdoms I and II should give you a pretty good idea. The first game revolves around Princess Katia of Alanjeh, who sets off to search for her father shortly after the game begins. Lost Kingdoms II takes place 200 years later, and, unlike most other sequals, I actually think is better than the original. In LK II, you take control of Tara Grimface, the newest recruit to a group of thieves known as the Band of the Scorpion.

Anyway, in both games, you fight enemies by using cards, which are split into 3 types (in the first game): Weapon, Independent, and Summons. Lost Kingdoms II adds 2 more types with Helpers and Transform Cards.

As Lost Kingdoms II starts out, Tara and the band are finishing up with a recent clean-out of a noble's home. And as time goes on, Tara eventually finds out about her true identity, and unlike the first, is more in line with an actual RPG (in which the more monsters you kill, the stronger you get).

Got others you think are worth mentioning? Put 'em here!

Umihara Kawase is the best example I know of of the "wire platformer" genre. You play as a Japanese schoolgirl who navigates through a bunch of levels (infested with gigantic sealife, for whatever reason), with the aid of an elastic fishing line and hook. You can use the line to grapple, rappel, and pretty much anything else that you can think of; the physics are very well done. Combine that with good graphics, excellent music, and well-designed levels and you have an excellent game. Shame it never got exported to the USA, though I suppose most people would've taken one look at it and decided it wasn't worth their time.

Skyblazer is a very straightforward platformer game, but it's very well polished and has tight controls and level design. Well done overall, if a tad easy.

Angband is one of the classic Roguelike games, wherein your character descends through 100 randomly-generated dungeon levels to kill Morgoth, the Lord of Darkness. Excellent replay value, not to mention the dozens of variants which change the game rules in various small and large ways. The original Diablo basically took Angband, cut out 95% of the content, and added commercial-level polish.

Einhänder, the most recent 2D shoot-em-up by Squaresoft (and you have to go a long ways back to find the one that came before). Has Square's classic polish, though thankfully they decided to skimp a bit on the FMVs this time around. Einhänder is the best example of what a 2D space shoot-em-up can be that I've ever played.

Recca is an excellent example of the absurd things that people can do with NES hardware. The game may suffer a bit from graphics flickering, but I'd never seen such fast-paced gameplay before on an NES, and the game's actually a lot of fun too, once you figure out what the different powerups do.

I actually own Gomen and it really was fun. My firend has number 2.

Space station silicon valley: Puzzles....FROM HELL...with killer robot animals.
Metal warriors: GREATEST MECH COMBAT GAME EVAR!@!!!@@!!!@! If anyone remade this for something other than the original snes which it came on I would be their slave for eternity.
Ogre battle 64: One of my all time favorite RPGS. if they could've had multiplayer or just more replay value the game would be perfect. I had to track down and buy a new one a couple of months ago because my old one refused to save.
Bomberman64: Sooo many hours spent playing this game. Soooo awesome
Fighter's Destiny 1/2: A really neat concept for a fighting game that I haven't seen since. Basically a sorta point based system which makes it very interesting. Another one i'd love to see picked up.
Battle Tanx GLobal Assault: Tanks, with guns, and more guns, and more tanks. Its win in a green cartridge.
Vigilante 8 1/2: I need to track down 2 but really a very fun game somewhat like twisted metal, but with some major differences. Definatly not a cheap knockoff and seriously fun.
Basewars: Ollld nes game. It's baseball, but you're robots. Ball gets to first before you do? It's not a force out. You fight the first baseman over the base. Weapons and upgrades made this amazingly cool. To this day i'm absolutly astounded that this game hasn't been replicated in any way shape or form.

This is all the stuff I can currently find at the house i'm at. I'll have a whole bunch more later.

Cubivore: Survival of the Fittest
----Awesome game, but a lot of people haven't heard of it. It's a very rare game for the Game Cube, though originally was intended for the N64. Basically, you're a little cube animal, and your world is made out of cubes, squares, rectangles or rectangular prisms. You go and eat other cubivores, eat colors and mutate form. Collect mutations, follow the story and grow to fight the Killer Cubivore! He's a big bad cubivore who is actually colorless, like the other newcomers who are taking the wilderness away.
The game is no longer in production, and few copies can be found in any store anywhere, from what I've found. For a while, there were actually toys sold here in the U.S., but they were only sold for a short time, and are now even more rare than the game, and are basically impossible to find (unless somebody here is REALLY good at searching??? ehh???)
MY RAW MEAT!!!!

EVN.

Also, I rented Lost Kingdoms once. It was pretty cool.

I have to say that one of my favorite games was actually "Mystical Ninja" the original on Super Nintendo. I still think that this game while not as 3d or cool looking was way better than the one for N64. I just remember the different boss guys and different levels were absolutley amazing.


Other than that there was another Super Nintendo game called "Lost Vikings" that was really cool where each viking had one ability and you had to use them all together to progress each level. One could block enemies with a shield, one could jump, and one could fight with a sword or something. I found it really really fun, and very challenging in some places.

I'm a definite SCUMM addict. Monkey Island 3 is fantastic (A model for adventure games anywhere), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has crummy graphics compared to today but is still a lot of fun, and despite the length and complexity of the game Loom is fantastic. I love the premise and have had thoughts about making a game with similar gameplay.

Tropico was pretty good, even though it never achieved Sim City's popularity. I remember playing the demo for hours on my old iMac.

Angband and Bomberman ftw.

Does anyone remember PegLeg? Oddly enough, a Google search for "pegleg mac game" gives this classic thread within a few hits.

But yeah, pretty much everything in this package are full of win. Everyone knows Warcraft and Marathon, but only a few people I've talked to know about the rest.

/is a sucker for classic games
//played Angband for God knows how long before realizing a social life was in order

<edit>Apparently I can't spell today.</edit>

Well there's Xenos which is...
Just kidding, just kidding.
Anyway, let's see...there was this old SNES RPG called Earthbound, which was an incredible amazing game.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto wasn't really very popular, was it? But it was hilarious, and a lot of fun (well, for the first half of the game anyway).

This man speaks the truth indeed.


Again, he speaks nothing but the truth.


Well, okay, yes, this is true of the general populace. Here, though, such is not the case, obviously.


As I noted previously, give Number II a try; I think you'll find it is indeed better than number 1.

Another good game that's slipped under the radar:

Chibi Robo!: Plug Into Adventure!: Meet Chibi-Robo, or just Chibi. He's a robot created by the software giant, CitrusSoft. And he's about 3 inches tall. But this robot embarks on a gigantic adventure when he meets his owners, the Sandersons. As the game begins, the Sandersons are celebrating their Daughter Jenny's eighth Birthday. Mr. Sanderson, while he presented Chibi-Robo to be a gift for Jenny, really bought it for himself. Joining Chibi is his manager, Telly Vision, who as his name suggests, resembles a flying TV set. Chibi was created to help around the house; namely, cleaning up and fixing things.

Anyway, it isn't long before things start taking a very weird turn. It turns out that when the Sandersons are either asleep or not present, the Toys at the house come to life and go about their buisness. Among the characters you'll meet are the Sandersons, of course; their dog, Tao, Jake Redcrest, an action figure and defender of justice, and several other crazy characters.

Despite all the wackiness, there are several dark points in the game, even death. There's also the nefarious Spydorz (yes, that IS what they're called) who seek Chibi's destruction. Who made them and where they come from are a complete mystery.

At first, I thought the game didn't look all that attractive, but then one day when I was in Wal-Mart, I found that there was a demo of the game at their Gamecube station. Barely five minutes in, and I was already hooked. Give this a try; you may be surprised how fun it is.

Looney Labyrinth is on there? I forgot about that one; pinball & minotaurs FTW!


Not all that underrated; it's possibly the biggest stoner game ever (except for Katamari).


Good, but a bit too short for my taste.

Team Buddies: An RTS for PlayStation. You created weapons and items by making structures out of crates and going using them to blow up the other team. Very zany and fun.

Flashback: A sci-fi, Prince of Persia style game with beautiful graphics (and good gameplay, too).

CoolBoarders 2: The first snowboarding game to have all the elements of a good snowboarding game. A bit like a forerunner to SSX.

Virtual Pinball: Pinball Construction Set for Genesis. You can make some crazy tables on it.

Avara is a unique game in the first person.

The Last Express

Has some of the best atmosphere ever. Some parts are just magic.
It's also very different from every other adventure game I have played.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/42/20

I actually compiled a version of PernAngband for 68k Macs. I didn't do a very good job, but given my very limited experience with C, it was better than I had hoped. Took forever to compile on my LCIII, too.


I actually have this one. I never got very far into it, though.

Back on the Apple II, there was a game called Subnodule. You cruise along the sea floor collecting little boxes ("nodules") while avoiding/shooting various sea creatures (who actually shoot back!), another speeding sub, and a boat that drops bombs on you. It could be played with the keyboard or joystick, and was really tough. Although, somehow, I managed to get to level 13 once, with a score over 100,000. I still can't seem to get much past level 6...

I actually have the 9 big ones CD sitting no more than 3 feet from me. God i loved those games.

Cubivore ranks up there in weirdness with Katamari. Atlus does some weird things.

See: MY MEAT!!!!

Atlus? Really. They actually made ogre battle 64. Niffty. It just jumped pretty high on my stuff to find list.

Ares

Sim Tower!
I loved that game.

Dark Cloud
An RPG for the PS2. I loved it also.

You should play it again. In some parts, the game made me really emotional. Especially towards the end.
It's also a very interesting world, with all the pre WWI factions.

I have to agree with bmac, Ares is a bit underrated.
It's an awesome game, and I remember playing it an entire summer. I just wish it's controls were easier sometimes. Still an awesome game.

Every game ever released by Ambrosia software with the exception of the Escape Velocity series (not because they were bad, but because they WERE noticed).

The Myth series, made by Bungie (1&2 were nothing but awesomeness, 3 was bleh because it was licensed to another company)

Also Oni, which was Bungie too. Almost no one I talk to knows about Myth, and they always confuse it with "Myst". Grrrr.

Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis is terribly underrated, in my opinion. Brilliant turn-based epic RPG. Only game I've ever played that made me really think about the decisions I made and how it would affect other people in the game. Also, only game I've ever played that you can't necessarily "win."

Oni is a fantastic game, it just desperately needed to have multiplayer.

Ah, yeah, I was going to mention that. You can download a port of it here. If you scroll down to the bottom there is a Mac OS X native version for Tiger.

Tremulous: A FPS/RTS hybrid based on the Quake 3 engine. Good times.

Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha: I mean duh.

The Battle for Wesnoth: An open source turn-based fantasy strategy game.

Marathon: Best plot ever. Actually I don't know how underrated this game is.

Geneforge series - Turn-based RPG with a good story, strategic combat, and the ability to make monsters through magical genetic engineering.

1: Heh.

2: YES. Amazing game. It's open-source, so it's FREE, and it's actively updated and has a bustling community surrounding it. Has a scenario editor, so incredibly expansive. Amazing gameplay, can be challenging at times (until you discover the secret debug mode... >:) ).
Good™ overall.

3: Underrated by some, a bit overrated by vidbois. Don't know if it's the best plot ever, but it's very deep and extensive.

World of Warcraft.

How is that under-rated? Over-rated, maybe, but not under-rated.

I personally consider it the best game ever made. Until it is universally regarded as such it is, to me, underrated.

Oberin.
Seriously, I play it now. I'm addicted to it. It's a free, Mac only MMORPG. The community is great, a wide range of people from different places. This game is an isometric 2D game that might not have the best graphics, but hey, it's free.

It looks quite a bit like Diablo 2 with the graphics of Diablo 1. I think I might check this out.

The entire Ace combat series. Which is sad really since it seems to be the ONLY jet fighter game that i can find anymore. Not total sim, kinda arcadey, but massivly fun. Especially the most recent one Ace combat Zero.

Jets'n'Guns: A side-scrolling retro-style shooter with some pretty sweet graphics. Worth the money, especially now that Jets'n'Guns Gold is out.

Need For Madness

Awesome little game.

Dominions 3: Awesome turn based strategy game. You play as a demi-god attempting to take over the world. Tons of spells and over 1000 units. Hours of fun.

WARNING: Highly addictive

I agree. it looks interesting - although it looks as though the documentation needs a little overhauling. For example: Clerics get some sort of penality if they use weapons, but it's not specified, nor is there an explanation as to how they defend themselves. Rangers combat is lesser than fighters, but they excel in other areas, but that's not specified either.

But it may be worth checking out.

Candy Crisis, used to be called Skittles. Awesome fun addictive game, sort of the same strand as tetris, but much better.

Also N. Though I don't know how well known that is.

That looks interesting, I think I'll check it out.



Same for this.


As for an underrated game, how about Brainlord?

This game exists in many different names on many different consoles, oddly enough with identical graphics and gameplay (see e.g. Candy Crisis, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, Puyo Puyo/Puyo Pop, Kirby's Avalanche). I wish I knew what was up with that.

The Battle for Wesnoth is actually a really fun game. Thanks for turning me onto that.

Freespace 2. I really don't think any other game has captured the visceral, raw power of the space-borne capital ship nearly as well.

It is indeed very good.
Thanks from me too.

Are people actually playing Battle For Wesnoth?

Because I am kicking ass at some multiplayer, and would love to play with someone from ASW.

Hmm... Wesnoth looks good, but turn-based is not really my thing. I recently got back to RTSs with Company of Heroes, an insanely good game, but it's hardly underrated or unknown.

For all of you who haven't played System Shock 2, you need to, now. It came out in 1999, so the graphics are not too hot, and there are some wierd bugs on modern OSs, but it's still worth it, especially as Bioshock, the spiritual successor, is coming out soon.

right, i have found one to add (shameless plug really, but it fits the topic description well enough):

Horizons: Empire of Istaria

Bloody brilliant game, MMORPG that lets you play as a dragon if you should choose it. seamless world (no standing around waiting for that next chunk to load). player-driven economy. and a really, really nice community. currently not a very well-known game as it has been owned by a succession of crooked companies who just don't give a shit as long as they continue to make money off it. Current owner is EI Interactive, though we really wish someone more responsible (IE: any company with real MMO experience who at least -pretends- to give a shit about their player-base) would come along and pick it up. don't let Google's warnings about the web-pages scare you off though, EI just forgot to renew their SSL Certificates....

And less frustrating level design. It was insane - there was only a checkpoint like every two hours, and one little mistake always screwed you over a minute before you reached it.

My pick would be Myth as well, pisses me off how people confuse it with Myst all the time. Of course, it wouldn't have slipped into obscurity if whoever picked up the rights after Bungie hadn't driven the series into the ground. It should be noted that Myth 2 with the 1.6 patch is still the best LAN game I know of. Easy to make copies, runs on anything, gameplay is easy to pick up and explosively unpredictable and hilarious, while fantastically tactical if spend a little time thinking about it.