Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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Wooduck51
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Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Wooduck51 »

Ahh life; tis' a journey of ups and downs, triumph and defeat, brilliance and unfathomable stupidity. The triumph of building a solid piece of furniture, attaining a degree, working a job, traveling abroad or racing your opponent to the victory line, these things are juxtaposed by such humbling moments as running face first into sliding glass doors, accidentally dropping your tools out of a third story building, making an ass out of yourself on the internet by losing your head and using the logic of a three year old in a serious forum topic, wearing white socks with your black dress pants, and never to be forgotten at this time of year, setting yourself on fire attempting to deep fry a turkey.

But really none of that is terribly relevant to this topic (however if you like guessing games I've done four of the things mentioned in the prior "victories and defeats" paragraph) other than to set the stage for the statement that in life we come across all manner of things, and video games are no exception. While plenty a mainstream title is fondly (or not) remembered, there are always those games that for one reason or another faded in to obscurity, are hardly mentioned to your knowledge (or in your sphere of social interaction), that you played through or own and think quite highly of. Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe the game was really good but was poorly marketed, maybe it was for a platform that barely had a chance to make its way in the world, maybe everyone else thinks it was horrible and best forgotten but you; whatever the reason though, they stay hidden in the mists of memory. I have primarily two, though by merit of the continued existence of the main character, only one may properly fit the bill, and I am curious about any you all may have. I will admit I am not as well versed in games as many here, and the game only has to be beloved by you to qualify; but onward to ruin.

The first game, and the one that inspired this topic is Tiny Tank; a third person platforming adventure game may be the best way to describe it, with your main character being a, well, tiny tank, released for the PS1 in 1999. The general premise is that a giant arms company Sentrax is attempting to sell war machines to the american public, and to do so they decide they need a mascot, or something in that vein, to help. After attempting to be a little more cool, and launching a satellite shaped like a female torso into space (which produces mainly a creep factor among consumers) they switch to developing a "cute" mascot, in the form of Tiny Tank who shapes just as sentrax hoped , except for Tiny's aspiration to be a feared war machine and his snarky attitude. However then the rest of the sentrax army takes over earth and Tiny has to save mankind.
Getting into the game itself, I must first touch on the manual; I love old game manuals (whether 1999 counts as "old" may vary) , many were a great part of the game I loved the fact that there were not only clear instructions for control and gameplay, but as well for the art work and expansion of the lore as well. The manual for Tiny has a chunk of humorous reading in it that helps set the stage for game, and makes for a good addition the overall package.
Upon actually starting the game, you are exposed to the story and general atmosphere of the game, and the writing of which is decidedly humorous. There are three ways in which the story is presented top you, one is pre-mission cut scenes that explore the events leading up to the current time frame of the game, another are pre mission briefings, and the other are the Sentrax radio broadcasts that you can listen to during missions, featuring thing such as bizarre commercials for robot personal care products and a call in talk show hosted by the leader of the robot army. The combination of the three do a great job of giving you a good feel of a fleshed out world, and helps keeps missions from getting dull. Another thing you get on Tiny's "radio" is music, which shines as well; the soundtrack is primarily a collection rock driven instrumentals, with an occasional odd ball (there is a disco funk... thing in there, another one with a saxophone) that are quite well composed, and while we are not looking at anything that will blow your mind, they manage to be catchy, relatively well layered, and very enjoyable. In game it seems that not all the tracks get shuffled through (but it also has been awhile since my last play-through) so I would suggest listening about in the soundest a bit (which also lets you listen to several rather odd and entertaining odd fact lists if you wait until the end of certain tracks)
The gameplay is usually pretty solid, missions are pretty straight forward, find this, blow this up, etc. with an occasional twist or two, and most are relatively short so you don't get bored. Level design isn't overly stunning, most environments are wasteland/industrial, but it fits the game just fine. Controls are pretty basic, but in a good way, a couple that stand mention would be 1 triggers control the direction of Tiny's main turret, and 2 triggers allow for side step and roll dodge. Weapons are implemented quite decently, aside from Tiny's main turret which has infinite ammo, you can collect up to four other weapons that mount on his frame, two forward and two rear,and you can customize what you want where, and assign intelligence to each weapon as well. There is a decent selection of weapons as well, missile launchers, flame thrower, energy weapons, etc. My biggest gripe is that if you assign the maximum intelligence to certain weapons (including the main turret) they try to shoot everything but what you want it seems.
Faults would probably be the occasional glitch, the occasional difficulty spike, and possibly, dependent on your taste and tolerance, you may be put into blinding rage by some of the repetitious in game quips by Tiny, but all in all, it is an entertaining bit of work.

The second game would the first Spyro the Dragon, I hold this game as a fabulous example of perfect game design, the subsequent entries to the series were fun, but something about this first one is just choice
Now I know that this character, and series, are not obscure, but I rarely hear anyone mention the first game, and when I do it seems to be as though it is the odd one out, which I find ludicrous. From a gameplay standpoint it is just tight; controls are simple and straight forward, without any extra unneeded trimmings, and it makes for a very smooth experience; it feels just as though this exactly how a young dragon should control, charging, fire breathing, it's all there.
Then you have the aesthetic and level design, each level is unique, from snowy mountain tops to alice in wonderland dream worlds, and bogs full of monsters and weird ol' deserts, each one laid out in such a way as to keep it challenging, but not bore or frustrate you. To build on that, most levels has have their own unique enemies, (something I wish was more prevalent in game design) which helps the keep the feeling of discovery and adventure going in full swing.
Then to add replay ability to it all, there is a gem and egg collecting mechanic that encourages thorough exploration of levels, and actually nets you a fun reward for your work.
Insomniac's brand of quirky humor abounds, and I can think of no point throughout my numerous playthroughs that I ever encountered a cheap death or found myself tired of a locale, the only reason I could think of to find fault with this game is if you have a phobia of roasting sheep or hate fun

So I invite you to share your obscure (maybe ish) games you hold with fondness, even better if you have a good story to tie into it, which however I do not, so take that as you will.

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Jingles
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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Jingles »

I have an affinity for obscure Playstation games. Here are a few that I like

You remember Parappa the Rapper, right? Well, the company that developed it, NanaOn-Sha, pretty much only makes music games, and the one I like best is Vib-Ribbon. Basically, it's a simple rhythm game. Your character runs along a straight line and obstacles pop up in time with the music. To cross an obstacle, you must press either one button (a face/shoulder button) or a combination of buttons (no more than two at a time). There are four "main" obstacles, each which correspond to a specific button, and several combinations of those obstacles. For example, there is one obstacle that requires you to press X, and there is another that requires you to press L. The combined obstacle would require you to press X and L at the same time. It's an engaging mechanic and it can get really challenging at times. There are a few levels that come with the game, but the real fun of it is loading your own CD into it and playing custom courses it automatically generates for you. It'll take any song and make a course out of it. The presentation is great, the whole game is black and white and uses only vector graphics. The OST is also pretty good, but there are only 6 tracks. Oh, and your character sings to you the tutorial. To my knowledge, the game has never been ported or remade, which is a shame, because it really is quite fun. It's also where my avatar comes from!

Next up is the entire Patapon series. It's this crazy blend of rhythm/puzzle/RPG games that I've never seen attempted before or after, and it's just flippin' ridiculous. The games all involve you controlling an army of cute cyclops creatures called "Patapon" by inputting commands with the face buttons on the PSP. Each button corresponds to a drum, and by hitting them in certain orders you control the entire army as a single entity. For example, if you hit Square, Square, Square, Circle, your Patapon will move forward and sing out the command. You need to create combos of these commands in time with the Patapon to progress and enter "Fever" mode, which makes your Patapon more powerful. The games consist of many levels, which involve either certain missions (defeating a boss, destroying a tower, rescuing a princess) or collecting materials to make new Patapon (hunting buffalo and ostriches, cutting down trees, breaking rocks). The Patapon all have specific classes, like knights or spear-throwers, and each class can be upgraded and given new weapons. The games' presentation is incredible - the music is excellent, the graphics are in this cute cartoony style, the dialogue is funny - and the gameplay is great if you're a rhythm nut like I am.

Shifting gears from Playstation music games, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is an excellent dungeon-crawling roguelike on PC. It's top-down, using either tiles or ASCII. There is a ridiculous amount of content in this game. There's 24 playable races, with your standard fare like humans and elves, but there are also cats, vampires, octopi, gargoyles, crazy stuff like that. Your objective is to get an orb I guess and bring it back to where you started. The game is really hard but fun, and there's a huge amount of replayability. No music or any stuff like that, sadly. It's a free download, so try it out!

Here are some quick recommendations:

~Ace of Spades is a fun online FPS that uses voxel blocks to create maps. You can build and shoot people!
~Sam and Max Season 1 and 2 are funny adventure games. There are 11 episodes between both seasons, but they're all pretty short.
~Mario's Picross on Gameboy is my favourite puzzle game ever.
~Vocaloid: Project Diva F is a cute rhythm game if you like Hatsune Miku and the like.
~Worms Ultimate Mayhem is great fun with friends.
~I can't think of any more at the moment

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Wooduck51
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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Wooduck51 »

Jingles wrote:.... but the real fun of it is loading your own CD into it and playing custom courses it automatically generates for you.
Having just watched some videos of this in action, the thought comes to me; let alone remake or port it, how is it that no one has expanded or at least taken a cue from this idea? Levels generated from your favorite songs, either in a very simplistic way such as that; or with tech as it is nowadays, something a little more robust, seems like a really fun idea.

Unless of course someone has and I missed it.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Brazillian Cara »

I'm not sure if it qualifies as "obscure" - it's a Atlus RPG series with consistently good reviews - but the fact is that I've never seen anyone talk about Etrian Odyssey. Heck, I myself had never heard of it (aside from one memetic fan video which is still more associated with Touhou) until my folks decided to give me the 4th one as a present (partly due to considering I'd be interested in the map charting system, partly due to the free music CD). Being a stickler to continuity, I held off from playing the 3DS game until I had looked up and played the three previous ones in the DS, if only to see if they were fun to play in the first place. Six months later, I've finally started playing IV - something I've been looking forward to since halfway in the first game.

The general plots of these games are much like the retro-era dungeon crawlers they aspire to emulate; there is a labyrinth full of mystery/treasure/danger, and the adventurers who want to explore it. Of course things don't stay that simple for too long, and even in the first one there is your usual moral dilemma and a huge bombshell of a plot twist near the end. The games are also generally as well-written as they can be with undefined protagonists, and more than a few of the NPCs will grow on you as you talk to them after each discovered dungeon floor and each accepted sidequest.

The EO games are first-person RPGs of the tile-based, dungeon crawler style, with a leveling and ability-earning system that's somewhat close to most tabletop RPGs; for each level, you get a point to be used in unlocking or improving a class skill, limited enough to require decent planning - specially in later games, where you're able to have a character learn skills from a second class (allowing for stuff like mage knights, monk farmers, ninja pirates, etc.).
One huge staple of the series is how you have to chart your own map for each dungeon you go to, which aside from using pen and paper, I have a hard time imagining it work in anything without two screens. This system has a couple of flaws in the first game (like lacking arrows for directions), but they are all addressed starting from the second one. It's easy to get invested into it, since checking every nook and cranny in a map is usually rewarding. Usually.

And being Atlus games, of course they're really fucking hard - specially when you're just starting. You can't go through more than three encounters in a row before you need to return to town to recover, which you can only do if you have the money (paying extra to revive dead teammates). And you get no money from defeating enemies, aside from the drops you have to sell - you WILL need to make more than a few trips to get enough to buy decent equipment, level up, and get strong enough to defeat the monsters in the first floor effortlessly. And then you go to the second floor, and a deer murders you.
The OTHER staple of the series are the wandering mini-bosses known as FOEs (Field-On Enemies, Formido Oppugnatura Exsequens, Fucking Overpowered Enemies). Visible on the map and following a set movement pattern (or being stationary, or chasing you on sight), these things are ten times stronger than every enemy on the floor, and are there to be avoided at all costs. Their main purposes are to make you think strategically when traversing dungeons, stay in the way of prizes you're still not strong enough to have, and to generally make your life miserable. The good news is that it doesn't take THAT long to be able to defeat one with the right strategy and set-up. The bad news is that you eventually HAVE to be able to defeat them, since the actual bosses are much, much worse. Basicaly, every victory is genuine and should be savored, as short-lived as they may be.

The 4th game does introduce a Casual mode for beginners and people who have better things to do than grind for hours and hours, which is the one I've been playing; frankly, it's a lot less stressful, while not being too easy either - FOEs stay dangerous, and being able to defeat the first boss is still an accomplishment.

So, bottom line - this is one series of digital adventures that I really like and is also obscure, even if it's probably a lot less so in Japan.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Frieza2000 »

Wooduck51 wrote:Unless of course someone has and I missed it.
Audio Surf and Beat Hazard are two that I know of.

Also, WOODUCK!

Welcome back.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Brazillian Cara »

Oh yeah, you have been away for a while. Like many other folks here.

Anyway, one thing I forgot to mention is that Etrian Odyssey has a most excellent soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro. In the first three games, the music was composed entirely on a PC 88 (when I said they aspired to emulate those old RPGs, I meant it), and it still manages to sound fantastic. A few samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYcvGfEu9oE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vqd1xwaXZ-4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rm32sDerE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCZjnuS6ESc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRsI5kRZPDc

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Wombatwarlord777 »

The games that I tend to like are almost entirely mainstream, and if they're not that, they sure do straddle the line between that and obscurity pretty damn hard. Nevertheless, here are three examples that I really like.

First, we have Exile III: Ruined World, available back in the day for Windows and Macs. It came out in 1997 and as far as I can tell, was made by one guy along with all the rest of the games in the Exile series. The music is nonexistent aside from a little ominous ditty that briefly plays before the title screen, the sounds are sporadic, and the graphics, even for that era, are (charmingly) primitive. The placement and movement of everything is snapped strictly to a flat grid system, each sprite has, at most, two unique frames of animation, and all the art looks as if it could've been made in MS Paint, probably because that's the program you used to modify it if you so wished. Aside from Pokemon, I have never had so much fun playing an RPG.

Part of that has to do with the story and the setting, which is conveyed perfectly in spite of a lack of aesthetic bells and whistles. The scope of the game is simply breath-taking; There's dozens of individual towns and dungeons, some of which are little burgs and others of which are complex, puzzle-ridden, multifloor affairs. The towns are filled with dozens of characters, the vast majority of which have their own little dialogue trees. The neatest thing about the game in my opinion is that sometimes monsters attack towns, which usually do not cause much damage to either structures or the citizens before the guards dispatch it. However, over time (hundreds of game days), the damage adds up, and nonessential but otherwise rewarding people and buildings are killed and destroyed. It's a great system that makes you think twice before going off on any of the games dozens and dozens of sidequests, which can range from simple deliveries to taking out a vampire and his horde of undead legions on an obscure peninsula. So you've got to purchase faster transportation (boats, horses, or ferries) and a solid plan of where to investigate. It conveys perfectly the message that the game world is vast, is filled with many interesting and beautiful things, and is under a huge existential crisis that will take all that away unless you do something to help. The combat system is fairly nondescript, turn-based stuff. Leveling up is difficult and surviving is even harder (characters die in this game, and it's only possible to resurrect them at certain cities, which can be incredibly annoying), but it's so rewarding to transform from a helpless group of scouts into an actual fighting unit that stands a chance at surviving what the game throws at you.

Second we have Yume Nikki, which I'm sure most people here have heard about but that I'm pretty sure is largely unknown outside of the moderate-to-hardcore gamer crowd and perhaps Japan. Yume Nikki, for those of you that don't know, is a PC game in which a girl wanders about in what appears to be her dream world. There's no instructions on what to do aside from how to wake up and return to the character's dreams, so mostly you're walking around aimlessly throughout different locations, some of which can be huge. The game strikes a fine line between being a tedious and absurd chore to navigate to drawing you further and further into it. For starters, most locations are visually unique and range from being awash in bright and happy neon to strictly consisting of sombre white lattice-like designs on the floor. There are often-bizarre NCPs, most of which cannot be interacted with in any way aside from the occasional goofy side effect. There are things that are pretty and more things that are outright disturbing, but most things are just frickin' weird. Any particular location is liable to change in unexpected ways: There are a ton of random and not-so-random special events that happen in various locations. There's no outright stated objective to keep players going, but rather the motivation becomes "I wonder what strange thing is going to happen next...". It's the feeling I get whenever I have lucid dreams, and I image it's what the creator of the game was going for.

Then there are a limited amount of items that the player can collect, called "Effects". These are interesting in that they change the way the player appears and modifies the world in some way, making previously inaccessible areas open to exploration or making it easier/possible to collect other Effects. These include a cat transformation that draws in NCPs that otherwise try to avoid you, or a bike that is faster to use than walking.

I think the other thing that draws me into this game, aside from its bizarre visuals, is how much is left up to the player's interpretation. Like I said, there's almost no story or supporting details into what goes on in the game, and those that do occur tend to create more questions than answers. There's an online community of people who post their favorite theories on what's happening and what so-and-so is supposed to represent and whatnot. This generates a lot of fantastic fan-fiction and fan-art, which I consider to be a good thing, mostly.

Lastly, I like the GBA game Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure. It's a really solid 2D platformer and borrow a lot of its mechanics, environments, and visuals from the PS1 Crash games, so it's a nice way to ease newcomers to the franchise, which I was at the time. The primary objective in each level is fairly standard: Get the big purple crystal and then to the end. But like the rest of the older Crash games,the fun comes in the extra objectives: Getting each and every crate in the level sometimes involving small deviations from the main path, accessing secret extra-hard areas that are only accessible if you don't die in a level, and the time-trial modes, the hardest of which are insanely difficult and require the perfect execution of your move-set, but feel so good once you achieve them. The game wasn't that visually amazing, but it did employ a rather impressive psuedo-3D chase away from an angry polar bear, which I can always appreciate. While I'm on the subject of Crash, the Gamecube version of Wraith of Cortex was essentially an improved version of Crash 3 without the bad loading times that the other versions had, so I've always like that game too.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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Wombatwarlord777 wrote:Exile III: Ruined World
Spiderweb Software had pretty good writers. I never ventured far into Exile III, but I spent years playing with Blades of Exile. It was the first game after Ultima 4 that I'd played where you were free to rob and kill whoever you wanted as long as you were strong enough to deal with the guards. As far as I know I'm actually the maker of the biggest BoE scenario ever submitted. It's not great, but I did find a way around the bug that causes the game to crash if you have more than 99 towns/dungeons.

If we're bringing up old Windows games I'd throw in Castle of the Winds, Mission Critical, Dungeon Master 2, Microman, and Kye.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by (No Imagination) »

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup
That stuff is such a dungeon master's power trip it's not even funny. It's been nasty before, but I hear they've since nerfed the player races even further. Don't be afraid to savescum to survive those elven halls or the abyss or those endgame cities of pain and randomly generated demon lords; this game deserves no honor.

As for obscure adventure games I'd suggest ...uh... Superhero League of Hoboken (DOS), Beyond Zork: the Coconut of Quendor (Z-machine / text adventure), Castle of the Winds 1/2 (Win 3.1, simple roguelike), Little Master (SFC - cute fire emblem clone where most of your team are monsters and the final string of battles very difficult) and ... can't think of any obscure Playstation titles right now. :\ I mean, everyone played Megaman Legends, right?

Edit: I see someone else suggested CotW. It's not really that good, it's just simple and memorable. Play it if you're bored behind a Windows machine or something.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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I don't think you'd call CotW a rougelike. It's randomly generated, but there's no permadeath and it's only hard at the very beginning if you grind appropriately. I mean, I used a wand of clone monster on the final boss and killed all 20 of him without healing. I think the very feasibility of that excludes Rouge levels of difficulty.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Crisis »

Starship Titanic was an adventure game by Douglas Adams that I rarely hear people talk about. It was a relatively mainstream game in the UK at the time. The company that made it folded shortly after release, so it's officially abandonware.

The game has Adams' signature writing style all over it, from the manual - an elaborately crafted in-flight magazine - to the 14 hours of dialogue, with two Monty Python members among the voice cast. The website is still up and running, with secrets here and there for the more dedicated fans, although there are noticeable holes in the 15 years since it launched (I was disappointed to see that the Windows 95 theme was no longer available). One easter egg in particular might hit GHZ members a little hard.

You'd think this would be mandatory material for Hitchhiker fans, but it's often overlooked; no doubt its obscurity plays a role (the game was not a financial success at the time and it's hard to get running on modern hardware). It also has a reputation for being bafflingly complicated and very buggy, neither accusations unfair. It's almost impossible to complete today without some kind of walkthrough - not only do the puzzles suffer from esoteric-adventure-game-syndrome, there are clues only available in the manual and one of the puzzles requires 3D glasses.

Still, it's a gloriously crafted art-deco environment with some genuinely hilarious dialogue. The game rewards players who dig below the surface to a staggering degree - the rabbit hole goes deep, with secrets and conspiracy bubbling away at every turn.

For a better version of this post click here!

--

On the subject of roguelikes, it's not a genre I know a lot about but I'm surprised nobody brought up Tales of Maj'eyal. It's a bit rough around the edges, but generally I've found it a great time waster.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Jingles »

We should have more topics like this. It'd keep the forum alive!

ANYWAYS HERE ARE SOME MORE GAMES

One of my favourite games this year has been Papers, Please. It's repetitive by design - 99% of the game involves looking at a passport, and stamping ACCEPT or DENY. However, more and more boundaries are added throughout the game, and spotting small inconsistencies in the passports and the people handing them to you is a real challenge. The presentation is also excellent, in that you get the entire story through the people that you meet and the documents you read - all without leaving your post. The game is $10 on Steam, which is just a bit too much for it, I'd say, but it goes on sale often. The main game is short, but there is an endless mode and 20 endings to keep you occupied.

I'm always surprised Chibi-Robo is never mentioned on lists of the greatest Gamecube games. It's a cute 3D platformer about a robot doing chores for a family - at least at first. There are also a lot of adventure, shooting and puzzle mechanics in the game too, and the setting (small guy, big world) is pulled off really well. Later on, the game's story becomes a drama of sorts, and it changes from a quest-based platformer to a third-person shooter, but each play fine. The character design is also great, and the game has this adorable faux-American vibe to it.

I mentioned Sam and Max in my last post, but I also found a great adventure game in the Hector: Badge of Carnage trilogy. It's made up of three short point and click adventure games, and it's packed with delightful British comedy. The music is also quite nice. That's about all I can say for this one

Finally, you like Gurren Lagann, right? Of course you do! Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for DS is a simple arena brawler set in the first part of the story. The gameplay involves fighting enemy Gunmen in a third-person freeroaming environment, usually by touching something on the DS' bottom screen. It's not that good, but the 3D graphics have a great low-poly look to them, and hey it's playable Gurren Lagann!! Sadly, the game is only in Japanese, and there is no english patch, but there may be some script translations floating around online.

That's all FOR NOW

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Wooduck51
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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Wooduck51 »

Frieza2000 wrote: Audio Surf and Beat Hazard are two that I know of.

Also, WOODUCK!

Welcome back.
Beat Hazard looks crazy.

And Salutations to thee!
crisis wrote:Starship Titanic (Paraphrasing follows..) is pretty great!
That's swell; I picked it up from somewhere some time ago not knowing what it was and have yet to get around to playing it, guess i'll have to actually get round to doing so.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote:Crash Bandicoot
I thoroughly enjoyed Cortex Strikes Back and Warped, so I'm glad to hear that there were some decent Crash games after that; one defining memory of those games was always wondering if the way I was going about getting all the crates in any given level was the way the designers intended, or if I accomplished it through pure stubbornness in the most convoluted ways imaginable.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

Post by Dr. BUGMAN »

Goddamn, when'd y'all get so loquacious?

Stunts (aka, 4-D Racing) is racing game that I don't even like for the racing, but for its track editor, so-bad-it's-good physics, quaint flat-shaded polygonal graphics, and hammy fictional drivers. The editor was remarkably versatile for the time, and making damn-near-impossible tracks for others to inevitably crash & burn in was more fun than whatever straight-laced racer could do at the time. It's aged all the better, too, because of it. I think everyone owes it to themselves to launch an f-1 car into the stratosphere at least once.

Fury of the Furries--no! wait! it's not what you think!--it's a French platformer, the closest analogue I can think of is Blizzard's Lost Vikings franchise. Y'see you control these little tribble-like critters (with '90s 'tude, of course) and each has a unique ability, e.g., tunneling through soil, diving in water (whilst spitting destructive bubbles), and shooting energy blasts. The stand-out being a grapple rope that has physics nearly on par with Umihara Kawasi's. The game often forces you to (re)activate each Furry through designated gates, which gives the whole thing a puzzle-platform feel. The game was licensed to Namco to be repurposed as Pac-in-Time which you may be more familiar with, but the SNES version fumbles the grapple rope physics and does away with any sort of clever level design (also, you have to hunt down pellets to proceed).

Soul Bubbles for NDS is a game I really have a hard time doing justice. It's tonally, artistically, and mechanically a professional piece of work, and it was a fucking Toys R Us exclusive in North America. I can't think of any game that's as tailor-made for the DS as this one. No-one ever talks about it.
Wombatwarlord777 wrote: Lastly, I like the GBA game Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure
Oh, man, this one. I'm not sure what makes this one work, but it's a cut-above what you'd expect from a handheld cash-in, and magnitudes better than you'd expect from a company that made this dross. I skipped out on the sequel since it followed too closes on the heels of the first for my liking, and I later played via emulation; it relies more heavily on gimmicks, e.g., Marble Madness-style levels, and is the weaker of the two. I guess it's analogous to Cortex Strikes Back and Warped.
Crisis wrote:Starship Titanic was an adventure game by Douglas Adams that I rarely hear people talk about.
I read the novelization, not knowing it was a novelization. It was written by a naked Terry Jones, though, so not part of the Adams experience.

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Dr. BUGMAN
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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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So in my quest to squander my precious time edifying myself in minutia helpful to no-one. I came across this:

Image

Which caught my eye for being fun & artsy.

Why else bring this to your attention? Well, it's a bigger rip-off of Space Harrier than The 3D Battles of World Runner!

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(No Imagination)
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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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Speaking of Adams, anyone else here played Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? It makes a pretty hilarious digital novel, extremely difficult though ( ... got as far as the second "it is dark" scenario before giving up. Remember to feed the dog.). Online version is available at http://www.douglasadams.com/creations/infocomjava.html. I hear his Bureaucracy is much more forgiving, but I've yet to play that. As for Starship Titanic, the book was so terrible I'm not sure I want to play a game based on it anytime soon.

For a genuinely fun z-machine text adventure I'd recommend Beyond Zork: the Coconut of Quendor. It's a game that involves, among other things, a giant onion, a hurdy-gurdy, dust bunnies and chocolate truffles. If you're ever going to play just one infocom game, this thing is as awesome as they get.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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(No Imagination) wrote: As for Starship Titanic, the book was so terrible I'm not sure I want to play a game based on it anytime soon.
The book ("Douglas Adam's Starship Titanic") was not written by Douglas Adams, and was based on the game rather than vice-versa. It was instead written by Terry Jones, of Monty Python fame. I haven't read it, so I can't tell you how it compares. The consensus seems to be that the game is better (although it's very much flawed as well).

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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Yeah, you're right, there's like "Terry Jones, Douglas Adams" underneath the title. Funnily enough, in my personal edition the cover only features DOUGLAS ADAMS in giant typeset, no mention of Terry there - so I always assumed he was just there to insert those embarrassing passages about teenage sex. It never occurred to me he actually wrote the whole book, but it does make sense.

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Re: Of obscure(ish) digital adventure.

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