Ask Lemmy

Outlaws. An early Spaghetti Western themed FPS from LucasArts. After Dark Forces (Retconned by Rogue One) and before DF2:Jedi Knight (the one with the amazibad FMV cut scenes and the best expansion pack ever), it leveraged the 2.5d engine for all it was worth and did a hand-animated slightly Don-Bluth-esque aesthetic that worked perfectly.

Level design was good. Multiplayer was fun, even though if you tried to LAN with an unswitched hub (it was 1998!) player 3 would lag like motherfucker and be relegated to throwing dynamite and praying. Story was straight out of a Tropes-R-Us, but well executed and with good voice acting (including John de Lancie IIRC). The coup de grace was the soundtrack, Clint Bajakian seemed to inhabit Ennio Morricone’s soul, but with leitmotifs to make John Williams proud. It absolutely elevated the game.

Dark messiah of might and magic

Enderal.

~~I'll edit this later when I can post from my comp (mobile now) with the full pitch~~ as promised:

Enderal

Basically an indie dev crew broke skyrim down to its most basic assets, then rebuilt a completely new game using them. AND IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD. Completely new lore / game universe (has nothing at all to do with elder scrolls, tamriel, etc), new voice acting, terrain, music, you name it.

Steers away from common story tropes to the point that there isn't really an antagonist in the traditional sense - but it uses concepts, emotions, philosophies, etc as the driving force for the main story line and some of the larger quest chains.

This game is an absolute passion project by the devs, which is something we don't see often now-a-days.

Note: link above is to the version that uses Skyrim SE's assets (the 2016 re-release). If you have the original version of skyrim, use this link instead. If you own a different version of Skyrim, there might be a compatible version of Enderal here: https://sureai.net/games/enderal/

Fair warning: the children NPC voice acting is even worse than the kids in Skyrim. The TAI (toggle AI) command can shut them up without breaking them.

Fair warning 2: they redid combat. The OP shit in Skyrim, like the sneaky archer build, will get your ass beat to a pulp in Enderal. Make a save when you get to the point where you can spend some talent points, experiment with a few styles, and go from there.

Fair warning 3: It's built on Skyrim's assets, which means it has all of Skyrim's problems. Step on a basket full of cabbage just right; get launched into low orbit. Quest items clipping through the floor. Bounty that refuses to go away. Shit like that. Save frequently, and don't be afraid to use the command console to do things like magic in a lost item or force a broken quest to progress to the next stage.

Freedom Fighters. Some mechanics were clunky but most were great and I really can't think of any other games with such a good mix of strategy and quick-thinking/reaction gameplay. I've played it through at least 3 times!

Earthworm Jim

Atomic Robokid (Genesis)

Tempest (Atari 2600 version)

Ghosts and Goblins (NES)

The game where it's a rich guy that sends a trained assassin out onto a island with nothing and hunts him for 24 hours, and if the assassin kills the rich guy he gets his freedom and like $20K.

Rock n Roll Racing (SNES)

Beyond All Reason/Planetary Annihilation

Blast Corps

The original mass effect trilogy. I know they're very mainstream but no one talks about them anymore and I must have like 5k hours between the 3 games.

Perfect winter break games for just diving in and doing 20 hour long play sessions

Bugsnax. It's like Pokemon Snap/Legends Arceus, but the Pokemon are food items, like a sub-sandwich centipede or a lollipop dragonfly. You can feed them to people, and when you do, their body parts turn into the food they just ate. It's great!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/674140/Bugsnax/

• Brave Fencer Musashi
• Limbo
• ReCore
• The Way
• Inside
• Unravel
• Cat Quest
• Death Squared

Endless Sky According to wikipedia it is a space trading and combat simulation game. Its free and open source, has a lot of content (even more with plugins). You do missions to get the storyline forward and to get money, you can also mine asteroid, trade with other planets, attack other ships and plunder them. You discover new species and Outfits to make your space ship better, etc.

Ziggurat.

it's a first person shooter dungeon crawler, the levels and enemies are procedurally generated, sometimes you can get a room with enemies that are one hit kills, then walk into a connecting room with 3 different over powers enemy types coming at you from all directions.

its face paced and fun as fuck to run around killing shit with magic wands and magical guns.

no playthrough is the same.

Nine parchments! Take Diablo, strip out the loot system and plot, add friendly fire and some colors, and you have 9p. It’s not a perfect game but it’s super fun to play with a few friends

Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds.

Basically AoE2 with a Star Wars skin and a few new unit/building types. I must have put thousands of hours into this game in my lifetime and I still play it occasionally.

The Longest Journey. It’s one of the best adventure games ever made, and has one of the best stories in interactive storytelling.

Sacrifice. An old Interplay title where you are a sorcerer in service to a god. You summon armies of creatures and cast world-altering spells using the souls of creatures you’ve sacrificed to your god.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura. Even just the soundtrack is worth the price of admission.

“Whiplash!” Was an old racing sim that had crazy tracks. It had collision damage and in single player mode you could give your teammate commands.

It supported 8 players on a lan in multiplayer. All of this while running from DOS. Looking back it seemed a little ahead of its time. I’ve never encountered anyone in person that knew of this game.

Back in the day I really enjoyed ONI.

_edit: _ some gameplay footage.

Hi-Fi Rush deserves way more recognition! Both story and gameplay are perfect. DMC meets DDR!

Just a great time all around once you get into the flow of things.

Space Station Silicone Valley

Syndicate Wars.

I used to play the shit out of The Specialist, a HL1 mp mod.

Also while most were hooked on Twisted Metal my brother and I loved Vigilante 8.

Honestly, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective.

The remaster got some attention, but it still feels pretty niche for a game made by the Ace Attorney guy. I never felt like it got its "moment" in the same way as, say, Blue Prince.

And yet, from the moment the 15-year-old announcement trailer dropped, I knew it was going to be in "top 5 of all time" territory for me. 😍

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(1981_video_game)

Balloon Fight. Amazing game with great controls.

An old game that never really took off, Orbz.

I was one of the best players in the world while it lasted.

Simple little game, you're a ball and you throw yourself at stars. The more you hit in a row without missing, the better your combo and score.

Essentially pong, but you play the ball, and it's on a landscape rather than somewhere you fall off and die.

I made a few levels for it.

Another was Triptych, which my friends and I called jelly tetris. Imagine tetris but the bits are springy and bounce a bit. It was a blast. Both were commercial games available on Linux at the time, early 2000s.

I have good memories of LAN parties playing a game called DEFCON which is basically the Thermonuclear War game from the 80s movie Wargames. The game itself is fairly basic but was a blast to play with a group and I am a sucker for the retro vector atheistics.

Beyond Good and Evil