The Best Games You've Never Played

[lanux128]

quite an interesting article from bit-tech.net that features the not so glamorous games.

This isn’t a list of the best games of the year or the best games I’ve ever played. This is something wholly different and deeply personal to me – a list of the games you’ve (probably) never played.

Some of them you may have dabbled with or looked at, others you’ll have disregarded entirely as you scanned the shelves at your local GameStation or international variant. Either way, here it is; my list of underappreciated classics and bargain bin treasures. If you’ve got any cash left over after your Christmas shopping spree or if you just refuse to buy into all that BioShock hype then you could do a lot worse than to pick some of these up. Most of them are entirely free now anyway thanks to the abandonware movement, but we're going to list them chronologically rather than by status.

among the games that made the list include:
Nethack – 1985
Loom – 1989
The Dark Eye – 1995
The Neverhood – 1996
Realms of the Haunting – 1997
Outcast – 1999
Planescape: Torment – 1999
Beyond Good and Evil – 2003

Nethack with the Falcon’s Eye mod which improves the graphics
[attach=#]

• http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2007/12/28/the_best_games_you_ve_never_played/1

[Ampa]

I own both Outcast and Beyond Good and Evil, and although I've completed neither, they are both outstandingly good games.

[CWuestefeld]

+1 for Falcon's Eye. 

For me, Nethack is an incredibly complete game, but essentially unusable without a huge investment in learning all the hotkeys. Falcon's Eye gives it a friendly UI -- the graphics are just icing on the cake.

[Lashiec]

Heh, incidentally I was reading this article yesterday, only that New Year celebrations prevented me for finishing it

I own both Outcast and Beyond Good and Evil, and although I've completed neither, they are both outstandingly good games.

Outcast... *drools*. It's a pity it's so darn hard to get these days, and Infogrames is not helping at all (no reissues, etc.). Beyond Good & Evil is pretty easy to find brand new in shops, specially in Spain, and for little money.

[Crush]

I own nearly all of these games - only the dark eye and Nethack is missing. I played the others and must say:

Loom: is a quite short game (you can manage all in about 2 hours), but I played it at least 4-5 times now - the story is really great!
The Neverhood: A funny but hard game - but it´s not so big fun as the others - I like the claymen-idea.
Realms of the Haunting: One of my favourite  . The mood is one of the scariest I know - the story extremely complex and over 2 hours of films with good actors makes it one of my biggest pearls. Undying is from the same coder/designer and has very much similarity with newer technology - but it cannot reach the scary mood of ROTH.
Outcast:  The best of them all  - the best (voxel) grafic, best story, best ideas (own language you have to learn to understand all that´s been said) best artificial intelligence, cut-scenes, game-music, dialogs and voice-acting of them all. I especially like the outcast outtakes: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=outcast+outtakes&search=Search that have been the first in a game as I know (the next one was Summoner). It´s a pity that Outcast 2 has been canceled.
Planescape Torment: Also a very good game with a very unique & epic story. One of the best RPGs I own. You cannot die ... because you are dead  ! Noting else to say: Play it!
Beyond Good and Evil: Makes very much fun, has great gfx and it´s rather good for a jump & run/shooter/Boat-Simulation game, but some designs are disturbing me (a talking pig?). Quite cool to play, but I still prefer MDK 1 & 2 that are Muuuuch more fun)
Vampire - Bloodlines is also mentioned. I haven´t played it to extensive to say it´s really very big or not - I could change my mind when playing it a few hours longer the next time, but till now I would say the first part is much better in gameplay and story.

[Lashiec]

Actually, Appeal, the developing group behind Outcast filed for bankruptcy during Outcast 2 development... BUT most of the guys working there founded another group which is now working in a game that looks quite interesting, though it does not have much of a relation with Outcast.

You have Realms of the Haunting? , that game used to be one of the most wanted in collectors' lists, and it was not selling cheap in eBay.

MDK games are great, but Beyond Good & Evil at least has a logical plot

[Josh]

Not on the list, but I dont suppose anyone remembers Solstice or METROID for the original Nintendo Entertainment System do they. Best games ever!

[Crush]

I´m collecting games for over 20 years now without thinking about the rising prices after several years for old games. Some things here are now traded for several hundret $ but there are also some very seldom high priced jewels I´d like to add like Panzer Dragoon Saga for Sega Saturn or Shadow Hearts 1 for PS2!
If I would need a new car I could efford perhaps several mid-class ones by selling my games collection 

[f0dder]

Loom is a wonderful little game, very sweet story. Played it back on my Amiga.

Never played Nethack, but I played Larn on the VAX terminal at my dad's job yeeeeears ago.

Outcast is interesting, never played it very far, graphics are somewhat buggy but it does have very nice use of voxel graphics; and damn it was CPU intensive back in the days. Always wanted to play it, but only had a demo and now that I can afford to buy it, well... meh.

Didn't play planescape:torment, but I played Baldurs Gate (or #2, can't remember). Never finished it though, I got massively stressed out at the non-linear gameplay, wanting to explore it all and... argh!

Oh, Clive Barker's Undying ROCKED. Lots of scary moments, nice story, very nice gameplay. I'm tempted to give it a go again sometime, I never finished the last boss

As for classics... Zak McKracken, Maniac Mansion, Day Of The Tentacle. I still think I have my almost-complete walkthrough for Zak lying around somewhere, it ended in the middle of a sentence, as I was writing the walkthrough while playing the game... I forgot that it wasn't 100% done, and then wrapped each and every A4 page in transparent tape. It's back when I.added.dots.between.each.word, because otherwise I couldn't seem to get the spacing just right and stuff was unreadable...

[Josh]

OK, here is one for all you oldies out there, Scorched Earth.

How many of you remember playing this during your high school computer programming or keyboarding classes

[f0dder]

OK, here is one for all you oldies out there, Scorched Earth.

How many of you remember playing this during your high school computer programming or keyboarding classes

That's a wonderful classic too! I also played one that was simply called "bomb", only ran 320x200 but had it's own appeal... haven't been able to find it since then

[Deozaan]

Of the original list, I played or saw The Neverhood. Can't remember which. It was at someone else's computer but it looked like a bunch of fun. Never got to see more than perhaps 30 minutes of it. 

I got Beyond Good and Evil for PS2 because I could never find it for GameCube when I was interested in it. But when I went into the volcano the guy in armor kept falling into the depths. He wouldn't die, but he couldn't get back on the path. The glitch kept me from getting any farther than that. I finally found it for GameCube on eBay a few months ago and bought it, but haven't gotten around to playing it. Meanwhile I gave the PS2 version to my brother.

Metroid was an amazing game back in the day, but it was too difficult for me. Heck, it's still too difficult for me! But I've played and beat every other (proper) Metroid game out there.

Scorched Earth was very fun too. But that was during elementary and middle school years. My brother made a similar game called Nuke 'Em. Then when Duke Nuke 'Em came out, I thought it was a similar game until I played it.

There was also a game called Moraff's World, an RPG. I wanted to buy it but couldn't find it, so my brother talked me into buying Moraff's Blast (Arkanoid Clone). We didn't know what it was at the time because it was just on a floppy disk with no game description. We figured it would be similar because they were both Moraff's. Big mistake! Strangely, looking at the Wikipedia entry on Moraff's World, I don't recognize anything from those screenshots.

Similarly, I loved an RPG game called Castle of the Winds that I got off a shareware CD. The full game has been released to the public.

[f0dder]

Similarly, I loved an RPG game called Castle of the Winds that I got off a shareware CD. The full game has been released to the public.

Oooh, I remember playing that on my stepfathers computer, the few times he would let me use it. Was pretty nifty for a windows game back then.

Eye Of The Beholder on Amiga, anyone?

[arunpawar]

I'm huge fan of Serious Sam Series Since First encounter.This game runs on low-end machines as well and graphics is eye-candy. I'm looking for Third version just released by crowteam in decemer.

[Lashiec]

Eye Of The Beholder on Amiga, anyone?

On the Super Nintendo, and I want to get my hands on the Sega CD version, which looks gorgeous and sounds amazing

[Crush]

The hypnotic title music from Serious Sam 1 is still pumping in my ears - one of the greatest I know. The playing style was better copied later by the really perfect game Painkiller.

[mahesh2k]

Serious Sam 1,2 and looking for 3.Hope it will run on Pentum 4 2.0 ghz with 256 DDR ram.

I might try creating some mod for it after Waterworld ddesign is over. Who knows

[TomD101]

Lots of well-known names. Even tried my luck on "Beyond Good and Evil" on PS2. Spent a summer getting through five levels. Lately my 10-year-old son got hold of it and has been to places I've never seen within days.

Alas, the game I remember most fondly was written for Commodore 64 and was called "The Castles of Dr. Creep". Run and climb, no jumping, but fun for nights upon nights, together and with friends. I used up three joysticks on this one.

I never had time to spend on games in the following years, so my favorite game on PC has been and still is "Bubble Shooter". Doesn't take too long and can be won even by me.

And yes, I am very old, almost a pc zombie. I am 46 years old.

Spider Solitaire rules

Thomas D. from Berlin, Germany

[ThalSwe]

Really enjoyed Outcast which is one of the first games I bought and till now its still one of the best games I have played. Great graphics (even if it was...different) for its time, superb music, great and hooking story. Should re-play it one of these days.

Have started playing PS:T two-three times but always stopped for unexplained reasons but will give it a honest try one day as it really seems to be a game perfectly suited for me.

[darklight_tr]

OK, here is one for all you oldies out there, Scorched Earth.

How many of you remember playing this during your high school computer programming or keyboarding classes

That's a wonderful classic too! I also played one that was simply called "bomb", only ran 320x200 but had it's own appeal... haven't been able to find it since then

I can do one better - Scorched 3D

[iphigenie]

I have currently had an "old school" phase and went to indie games which focused more on gameplay or storycrafting then snazzy graphics.

One happy thought: if you ever go for an eee or one of the subnotebooks, all these old gems will run on them and the low res will not feel too bad on a small screen!

[Cloq]

Planescape: Torment 

Gave up a couple summer weekends playing Planescape.

[f0dder]

darklight_tr: I'm not sure Scorch3D is actually "one better" - it's a pretty different thing than the 2D version I spent so many hours with

[wuwei23]

I've actually played 'The Dark Eye'... I might even still have a copy lying in a box somewhere.

It was less game than interactive media piece; a framing story drops you into various re-tellings of Edgar Allen Poe stories, including 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Cask of Amontillado', all tales of murders & victims, with the player forced to act out all the roles in time.

It could be genuinely chilling at times, especially playing late night, kind of a hybrid of 'Myst' & 'Silent Hill'.  The highlights, though, were both totally static pieces: William Burrough's reading 'Masque of The Red Death' and 'Annabel Lee'. I'd pay hard cash for playable copies of those recordings...

[Mark0]

Not on the list but: System Shock! An experience!

Quoting from Wikipedia:

GameSpy compared the game's commercial performance to that of Vincent van Gogh's paintings, declaring that "the best computer game of 1994 ... came and went whilst everyone was busy killing each other in Doom II."

Bye!