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My dad had a deal with the owner of our local video rental store, he painted the store when it was open, and did regular touch-ups for free, and got free rentals for life, both tapes and video games. We had a SNES, and every once in a while he would come home with a stack of games that weren't being rented, so we wound up with a fair collection of games that nobody wanted. The one that stands out in my memory is Populous. You had a plot of land with various features, and a small population of guys wandering around. The main function was to raise and lower land, so that these people could build and upgrade huts, houses, castles, I think they would plant crops, too, but I don't really remember. There were also enemies on the map, and if they wandered near each other, they would fight, and one of the guys would disappear off of the map. The goal was to genocide the opposing people. There were a bunch of natural disasters you could cause, too, floods, earthquakes, that sort of thing. There was also something with religion, you had a "Papal Monument" or something like that, it would cause your guys to use it as the center of their civilization, and I think it made them stronger. There were a bunch of different types of societies that would build different dwellings, European of some sort, Asian, even one where it was pigs instead of people, they'd build straw, wood, and then brick houses. I think you could make the guys upgrade to different specialties, like make them knights (or samurai) I don't really remember exactly all of the specifics that well to be honest, the description is kind of a general vague memory that gets the idea across. I'd have to be really sick of the good games I had to throw it in. It was kind of a neat concept, but gameplay was really boring, so it was most often me thinking "This Populous game is really neat, why don't I ever play it?" And then remembering why I never play it 15 minutes into a gaming session.
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Aug 19, 2017 23:00
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When I was a kid I rented Spider for the PS1 so many times I probably could have bought multiple copies, but I wasn't patient enough to save up for it when I could just spend $5 a week instead. There's a lot of neat stuff in this game, mainly the ability to walk on all sides of platforming surfaces and the weapon layout customization.
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Aug 20, 2017 00:41
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I loved locus when I was young. As a sport/car driving game I don't think it would hold up now. Three teams compete to shoot balls into opposing team's goals. Three goals against and you're out. I'm sure if it could run on modern equipment I would hate it, but i only ever played it on something that required me to run it at about 600x400, so it stays in my good memories.
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Aug 20, 2017 00:47
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om nom nom posted:My dad had a deal with the owner of our local video rental store, he painted the store when it was open, and did regular touch-ups for free, and got free rentals for life, both tapes and video games. We had a SNES, and every once in a while he would come home with a stack of games that weren't being rented, so we wound up with a fair collection of games that nobody wanted. The one that stands out in my memory is Populous. PC ports on consoles, back when there was enough of a difference between the two for that to really mean something, are always fascinating to me. Sometimes you got proper consolized remakes like the SNES version of SimCity but other times they would just dump the whole game as-is, controller functionality be damned. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9Km6vazzCw
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Aug 20, 2017 02:07
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There's a SNES game I'm extremely interested in that I cannot find a translation for; Diable de Laplace. It's kind of a weird RPG thing, but I cannot figure out how to play the game. It looks super cool, which is even more disappointing to me. For actual content, I love the old N64 game Hybrid Heaven, a RPG/fighting game about preventing aliens from taking over the world. You learn new moves by having them used on you in battle, and you could gain levels in individual limbs by using them in combat. You could also grapple and use wrestling moves on your bioengineered opponents.
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Aug 20, 2017 03:05
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peter gabriel posted:Galapagos: Mendel's Escape I remember playing this a lot as a little kid, it was probably the best looking, weirdest 3D game I had seen. I remember that there was a slider in the launcher that adjusted Mendel's 'age' and sort of dictated how intelligent he was. If you set it at the lowest end, he would basically not move at all and never avoid hazards. I like how all of the movements and noises he makes are in reaction to the environment, so the little chirps and quizzical beeps are his emotional responses. I would say Total Annihilation: Kingdoms was pretty obscure, especially compared to the original Total Annihilation. There are pretty significant changes to the way the game works - one resource type instead of two, four unique races instead of two (In TA they were mostly identical except for a few key units). It was cool at the time to see all of these new ideas being tried, but in hindsight the game seems kind of ugly and weird today, while I still find TA to be pretty playable. I get the feeling TA:K was partially inspired by Diablo or Warcraft, being that you had a hero unit who could cast powerful spells and also build/support. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vx0pb0BdfNU
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Aug 20, 2017 03:59
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I've just been reminded of Smart Ball, known as "Jerry Boy" in Japan. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who ever rented it at the one local shop that stocked it. It was a weird game - you played a (prince turned into a) ball of goo that could stretch, cling to walls, and collect seeds that you could shoot at enemies. The US release removed all the RPG elements and made it a standard platformer, but it was still hecka weird to play. Likewise, I feel like I'm the only person who's ever heard of Xardion, a platformer where you could switch between three robot protagonists, one of whom had to die in order to add the titular Xardion to your party near the end of the game. Clumsy controls and artificial difficulty, but I was a Transformers fan as a kid so I liked playing robot heroes.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:07
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Guy Mann posted:PC ports on consoles, back when there was enough of a difference between the two for that to really mean something, are always fascinating to me. Sometimes you got proper consolized remakes like the SNES version of SimCity but other times they would just dump the whole game as-is, controller functionality be damned. Is that what Populous was? And that's why it was so awkward and boring?
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Aug 20, 2017 04:32
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Available on Sega Genesis (and Amiga) was PowerMonger. Think "Populous" but with the ability lead your platoon (or several if you recruit another general) to take over towns, craft weapons, boats and fishing poles, chop down trees, mine, KILL SHEEP and SLAUGHTER (or recruit) other towns/soldiers. It was ugly as hell but man was it a blast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EketrkTYoU
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Aug 20, 2017 04:56
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om nom nom posted:Is that what Populous was? And that's why it was so awkward and boring? Yeah, Populous was actually a fairly big deal in late-80s/early-90s PC gaming in that it invented the "God game" and launched Bullfrog Productions and Peter Molyneux into stardom.
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Aug 20, 2017 04:57
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Besesoth posted:The US release removed all the RPG elements and made it a standard platformer, but it was still hecka weird to play. I don't miss the era when game makers dumbed down games for the US market.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:09
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Onto the final boss of Knight Rider. I really dig the boss fights in this game as they each are fought differently. The first "boss" is a car that has been treated with the same super-alloy that Kitt uses in his own armour. It's the standard driving game "Bash him until he dies" damage race. The second boss is Karr in a race around the FLAG testing track for Kitt and Karr's creator's life, which is fairly appropriate - Karr apparently has an obsession with being Kitt-but-better so of course he'd challenge him to that kind of game. Gabriel Knight's Rig is third, largely hard to hurt and the first stage of it is avoid it's attacks until Kitt scans it for weaknesses (all the enemy vehicles are as heavily armoured as Kitt in this game due to Gabriel's plan being to mass-produce the tech for weapons dev contracts), then the best way to damage it is to scrape your undercarriage against it using Ski Mode - Don't know why but it's fairly dynamic and fun to do. Finally, rematch against Karr but it's a total slugfest. However he is even with you armour-wise so bashing him won't work - you'll die too quickly. The trick to the fight is to try to fool Karr into driving through hazards, thereby doing more damage to himself than you ever could inflict. They're all pretty fun fights and there isn't a level besides the tutorial that I haven't enjoyed on some level.  If you can find the game cheap it's definitely worth checking out.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:11
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Guy Mann posted:PC ports on consoles, back when there was enough of a difference between the two for that to really mean something, are always fascinating to me. Sometimes you got proper consolized remakes like the SNES version of SimCity but other times they would just dump the whole game as-is, controller functionality be damned. One of my favorite games was one of those: Brandish. The original was released in Japan for PC-98 computers, but in english the most well-known version is the SNES port. For about 20 years the SNES version was the only one in english, until the PSP remake got a North American release in 2015. It is a dungeon crawler ARPG, about a warrior named Varik (or Ares in japanese) who fell into the underground ruins of an ancient kingdom and is trying to escape to see the surface once more. Along the way he is chased by a woman named Alexis (aka Dela Delon), who is seeking revenge for a crime that Varik may or may not have actually committed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxAp0SmbuO8 I love the game and I've beaten it three times, but I still struggle with the controls any time I pick it back up. I find myself accidentally throwing items away from inventory instead of equipping them, or examining enemies instead of attacking because "strafe" and "examine" are both done by holding a shoulder button, that kind of thing. Compounding its interface issues is the camera system, where instead of you turning the whole dungeon turns around you. Until you get used to it, it looks less like you're turning and more like you're teleporting. And that gets really confusing when you find some actual teleporter mazes later in the game! Despite its flaws (and more than what I said above), Brandish is a simply fascinating game to me. Playing it gives me a sense of adventure that few other games match. Perhaps it's the sparse population of NPCs to focus on the dungeon crawling, or perhaps it's the true nature of Varik/Ares's backstory being left somewhat vague, or perhaps even it's the obtuse interface itself. It felt like I, myself, was the one lost in an underground maze. The game isn't easy, sometimes the dungeon design has outright dick moves, but the game is also generous with healing, you can turn down the game speed if you need, and it autosaves at every floor transition. How many SNES-era games autosave? Not many. Also, the music is fantastic. The sequel, Brandish 2: The Planet Buster, has one of my favorite soundtracks on the whole SNES. If you're interested in checking out the game yourself, the best version is the PSP remake, Brandish: The Dark Revenant. It's in full 3D and adds a minimap, so the dungeon is easier to comprehend, and there's some extra content in a shorter alternate story where you can play as Dela Delon. The gameplay is faithful to the original, and the redone music is amazing. Seriously, check out this optional boss music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De3EES85Qak maou shoujo has a new favorite as of 06:49 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 06:46
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Startopia is a space station development sim in the vein of Dungeon Keeper, with the humor of HGTTG. It's incredibly fun, incredibly complex in its nitty-gritty, and I keep coming back to it as a sandbox game on the regular. There's three levels running concurrently on your station (the bottom-most layer being the industrial level, the middle level being a recreation zone, and the top level being a dynamic environment you can and should customize for your patrons and creating raw materials. Speaking of patrons, there's nine different species that will come to your station, all with easy-to-understand archetypes that don't need a lot of tutorials to figure out what they are good and bad at. The extremely blue-collar Salt Hogs love the cheap poo poo, but the Gem Slugs are so lazy (think Hutts, but float around on hoverchairs) that the only reason you'll put down super-expensive buildings just to cater to them is because their poo poo is a valuable recyclable material, and they only poop when happy. I could talk about the game for hours, but I'm tired. Startopia is awesome.
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Aug 20, 2017 06:56
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I have a copy of a somewhat obscure PC game called Dogs of War but it sort of has a small claim to fame that the actor who played Lister on Red Dwarf did some voice work for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHhUQHyz8Ig It looks interesting even nearly 20 years from its release, but I'm not even sure if it would run on a modern OS without issue. I seem to recall grabbing it from a discount store bin about 15 years ago for a few bucks but I had so much stuff going on at the time I never had a chance to install it.
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Aug 20, 2017 07:08
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Seek and Destroy is an obscure action RPG for the PS2. You play as a tank- not a tank driver, an actual animate tank; in a world populated exclusively by sentient military equipment, like a bizzaro spin-off of Cars. Apparently it's part of the Choro-Q series, which are Japanese driving games? The plot has you rallying the heroic Proton resistance against the evil Q-Stein Empire, by driving around the land doing missions and blowing up hundreds of enemy tanks. There are also hub towns to explore and pick up sidequests from NPCs- who are, again, all tanks. Tanks who run shops or fighting arenas or just want to chat about their tank wives and tank children. It all looks like it was made on a budget of about 100Y, but it's still charming and fun. Also check out this cover artwork. Left is Japan, right is USA and EU.   MisterBibs posted:Startopia is a space station development sim in the vein of Dungeon Keeper, with the humor of HGTTG. It's incredibly fun, incredibly complex in its nitty-gritty, and I keep coming back to it as a sandbox game on the regular. Inferior has a new favorite as of 13:08 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 13:04
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Leavemywife posted:There's a SNES game I'm extremely interested in that I cannot find a translation for; Diable de Laplace. It's kind of a weird RPG thing, but I cannot figure out how to play the game. It looks super cool, which is even more disappointing to me.. http://agtp.romhack.net/project.php?id=laplace It's not done but that's where you'll be able to find it
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Aug 20, 2017 13:17
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Started playing Stitch: Experiment 626 and it's really fun so far. All the controls move super fast which is dizzying but also fits the character. He climbs quickly, jumps high and shoots fast because he the galaxy's most volatile creature, with only one instinct - trash everything, blow up all the stuff and get Jumba his DNA on the way so he can make more abominations! When I say fast I don't mean uncontrollable, his movements are fast but precise, and climbing climbable surfaces is as effortless and efficient as he makes it look in the movie. The game, of course, is a pseudo prequel, a non-canon lark through colourful worlds before Stitch and Jumba are inevitably captured and Lilo and Stitch's story can begin. The main problem I have is with the enemies, but when you get the camera in the right position Stitch pretty much autoaims and strafes by default so lock on is unnecessary. The secrets are fun too, most of them are in plain sight in squid robots that you chase down in platforming challenges in the levels that need you to move quickly through an area that you are likely to have cleared already, so it's just a matter of navigating fast. The remaining secrets are hidden in little out of the way places, like a cave that can be hard to spot, or a ledge that you can bounce to via a unique object. It's pretty cool. It seems 2002 was a strong year for Licensed Games. BioEnchanted has a new favorite as of 13:53 on Aug 20, 2017 |
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Aug 20, 2017 13:49
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Inferior posted:Seek and Destroy is an obscure action RPG for the PS2. You play as a tank- not a tank driver, an actual animate tank; in a world populated exclusively by sentient military equipment, like a bizzaro spin-off of Cars. Apparently it's part of the Choro-Q series, which are Japanese driving games? Choro Q games are great. I highly recommend the ones on GBA. I think they were called shifting gears in english regions.
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Aug 20, 2017 14:03
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Star Soldier's a pretty well known top-down space shooter, but nobody seems to know about the N64 one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhVoSVCI8bY Different ships had different weapons (the blue one is the best because the laser takes up like half the screen lol), secret levels and routes if you figure it out, etc. Not much to it but it was pretty fun.
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Aug 20, 2017 14:16
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 Future Cop LAPD was one of my favorite games when growing up. Hell, it still is one of my favorite games. It was a PC/PS1 action game where you played as a mech that could transform to a hovercar and back, and basically worked your way through various areas of a cyberpunk Los Angeles taking down ridiculous comicbook-style criminals. For example, the first level of the game you're fighting your way to Griffith Park Observatory because the bad guy of the level turned the observatory into a plasma cannon. The real meat of the game for me wasn't in the story mode though, it was in the multiplayer mode 'Precinct Assault' which was pretty much a 1vs1 precursor to the modern MOBA. If you were playing it by yourself, instead of another mech you went up against an AI-controlled jet called Sky Captain who had some of the best villain voce-acting I've ever heard. The in-game video explains it far better than I ever could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BkLKhIEPpc Shame it's an EA owned property so we'll probably never get a sequel 
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Aug 20, 2017 16:58
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There are a handful of playthroughs for the NES' Crash n the Boys Street Challenge. This is one of the better ones, with the best ending. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NDOU9pc3B4 It's quite smooth for its time with good graphics. Though this person plays it well, you don't have to buy anything to be able to beat the game. If you can get first in the race, swimming and fight, with a mediocre finish in hammer, you're good. I never mastered rooftop jumping, but after playing it for a bit you get figure out the timing for everything else. It's the same company as River City Ransom and Super Dodge Ball (another really fun game).
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Aug 20, 2017 18:07
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RC and Moon Pie posted:There are a handful of playthroughs for the NES' Crash n the Boys Street Challenge. This is one of the better ones, with the best ending. I remember playing the poo poo out of this game. I would play a remake of this game in a heartbeat. Hell, I'd play this game in a heartbeat. Also, don't forget, chewing gum makes you hold your breath longer apparently!
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Aug 20, 2017 18:31
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Icedude posted:
I loved playing this, I can never find videos where people take advantage of all the cool stuff - when you get 50 points you can unlock a flying fortress or battle tank, whch are larger jet/tank equivalents, but they roll around kicking all kinds of rear end. I also remember one of the weapons was a mine layer, and you were more likely to kill yourself with it than anything else.
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Aug 21, 2017 03:32
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Anyone with a C64 have the text adventure game Adventure? There was a version that actually seemed to be a precursor to what was captured in the Get Lamp documentary. You started in a forest. You had to get some mud to deal with chigger bites, go up a tree to get something and then chop the tree down and go underground. You had to get a lamp and a rug and there was a genie and a lava maze and all kinds of crazy stuff. My mom made a big map on graph paper and I don't k ow if we ever really finished it. You got points for getting treasures back up to the surface. Please tell me some other goon remembers this. I've never found the same version of the game I remember.
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Aug 21, 2017 03:59
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Dross posted:I don't miss the era when game makers dumbed down games for the US market. I don't either  but I've just been reminded of my favorite counter-example, the famously-difficult Castlevania, which was substantially easier in Japan as Akumajou Dracula - in Famicom format it came with an Easy Mode, and in Famicom Disk Format you could save your game so you didn't have to beat the castle in one go. (The NES version of Castlevania II was also more difficult than its Japanese counterpart, but largely because of what's possibly the worst translation in all of gaming.)
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Aug 21, 2017 04:03
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maou shoujo posted:Seriously, check out this optional boss music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De3EES85Qak This owns. 
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Aug 21, 2017 04:10
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Ultimate Mango posted:Anyone with a C64 have the text adventure game Adventure? There was a version that actually seemed to be a precursor to what was captured in the Get Lamp documentary. My best guess is that you're thinking of Adventureland. It's one of the very earliest text adventures, released in 1978. Some screenshots, which seem to reference what you're talking about (a felled tree, chiggers, etc.). e: vv oops, you're right! I followed a bad link on Wikipedia. My bad! SneezeOfTheDecade has a new favorite as of 04:45 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 04:31
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Scott Adams the game designer is not the same person as Scott Adams the lovely Dilbert-writing rear end in a top hat. Thankfully. (Assuming that's what you mean by "that Scott Adams", anyway!)
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Aug 21, 2017 04:41
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Besesoth posted:My best guess is that you're thinking of Adventureland. This might be it, had no idea is was called anything other than 'Adventure'
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Aug 21, 2017 05:11
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om nom nom posted:My dad had a deal with the owner of our local video rental store, he painted the store when it was open, and did regular touch-ups for free, and got free rentals for life, both tapes and video games. We had a SNES, and every once in a while he would come home with a stack of games that weren't being rented, so we wound up with a fair collection of games that nobody wanted. The one that stands out in my memory is Populous. Populous was one of those totally loving rad-looking games I'd always see in Blockbuster; even if the game was garbage, that cover alone would have made it worth the price of a rental. Same goes for this mamma-jamma:  Best cover of all time.
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Aug 21, 2017 06:35
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Besesoth posted:My best guess is that you're thinking of Adventureland. e: Oh I guess it all happened really fast and also my memory is going. 3D Megadoodoo has a new favorite as of 06:50 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 06:48
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Baba Yaga Fanboy posted:Populous was one of those totally loving rad-looking games I'd always see in Blockbuster; even if the game was garbage, that cover alone would have made it worth the price of a rental. Same goes for this mamma-jamma: That's awesome, I got Phalanx in the same stack of games that Populous was in. E: Never understood what random banjo hillbilly had to do with a spaceship shooter game. I really enjoyed phalanx and played it quite a but. I got Super R-Type and Zombies Ate my Neighbors in that pile as well, both of which were winners as well. Never beat Zombies Ate my Neighbors, that game seemed to go on forever. om nom nom has a new favorite as of 06:52 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 06:50
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It didn't have anything to do with it, beyond that you remembered and are still talking about the game. You have to differentiate your game from all the other space shoot em ups somehow.
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Aug 21, 2017 07:34
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Fun fact, Populous was created by Peter Molyneux and his studio, and they made it because they made a sprite set that would create an isometric landscape and then tried to work out what to do with it. Then they were going to make a golf game out of it, but they couldn't render big enough sprites for the golfers, so they made the world's first god game instead.
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Aug 21, 2017 07:45
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OK, so, I'm really fond of early 80s maze games. The Pac-Man family of games, of course, but more specifically, the ones in which you draw boxes and/or manipulate the environment to defend yourself and/or beat the baddies. LadyBug, Mouse Trap, Pepper II, etc. But there's one in particular that I like not because it's very good but because it is just so god damned weird, and that is Drelbs. The correct response to this image is "what in god's name" and I really don't have an answer for you. The C64 wiki might, though. And here's a longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSdhqAWdOas I never played this when it was new or anything, but I discovered it while screwing around with C64 emulation and man, it's just something else. Everything about it feels like something that would have been made up a couple of years ago as a convincing entry in the "haunted games" genre of fiction.  
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Aug 21, 2017 12:37
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Pastry of the Year posted:OK, so, I'm really fond of early 80s maze games. The Pac-Man family of games, of course, but more specifically, the ones in which you draw boxes and/or manipulate the environment to defend yourself and/or beat the baddies. LadyBug, Mouse Trap, Pepper II, etc. But there's one in particular that I like not because it's very good but because it is just so god damned weird, and that is Drelbs.
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Aug 21, 2017 13:07
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I remember trying hard to remember what the hell Future Classics was called. Kinda disappointed when I re-discovered it. Fire Force was the first game I can remember that had magazines as the ammo counter instead of bullets. A lot of things that I'd never seen before in it - custom loadouts, remote explosives, medals, and a throat-slitting animation. A nice 90's attempt at tactical realism for a run n gun. Longplay Art/Reviews/etc.  Escape from Colditz was an isometric prison escape/stealth game that did an ok job of recreating the infamous POW camp. I would have paid for a walkthrough back in the 90s. Longplay Art/Reviews/etc.
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Aug 21, 2017 14:01
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NEW RELEASE INSTANT HIT
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Aug 21, 2017 14:14
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Besesoth posted:I don't either Interestingly, while the hint about the whole cliff tornado thing is more clear in the Japanese version, the equally infamous "graveyard duck" is in the original version just the same. Also as seen in the full article at the first link, having Castlevania 2 on disc was a double-edged sword: You could save your game instead of fumbling around with passwords, but exiting towns required flipping the disc over and waiting for the area to load. Including in areas where it was entirely possible to be knocked back into town, and thus another disc load, by enemies.  Along similar lines, a lot of the hints in the original Legend of Zelda were mucked with in the translation. Even outside of the clunky grammar on display, some were shuffled around and some were completely made up for the English version (or perhaps drawn from older versions of the game). The completely arcane "10th enemy has the bomb" being a standout. John Murdoch has a new favorite as of 14:26 on Aug 21, 2017 |
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Aug 21, 2017 14:23
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