Old forgotten games Thread "Old games you love that nobody remembers its existence."
#1 Posted 15 March 2019 - 11:00 PM
For me, it's Need for Speed 2 (from '97, not Underground).
I love this game, it was a great part of my childhood, I used to play it all the time. I even owned a copy of the Special Edition. Those were fun days.
But nowadays nobody remembers this game, most don't even know it. So sad.
This post has been edited by Katrix Kytarix: 15 March 2019 - 11:04 PM
#2 Posted 16 March 2019 - 02:13 AM
Katrix Kytarix, on 15 March 2019 - 11:00 PM, said:
It's hard for me to judge what games are forgotten and which are not. There's plenty of obscure stuff that was apparently never popular in the first place, but played by enough people (sometimes to a small cult following even) to be remembered to any extent. Some games never garnered enough attention either because of intense competition (I mean lots of similar games in the market at the time of release) or because the release was limited to a single country (possibly exacerbated by a language barrier, i.e. the game was in a language that is not widely known).
It's not easy to estimate how many people play a game if it's not multiplayer and there's no community that creates additional content as is the case with Doom or Duke3D. Even with big hits like Warcraft II or Heroes of Might and Magic it's hard to tell, as it seems. I know there are (regional) communities that play Warcraft II matches (with some cut-down version of Battle.net edition and via unofficial servers, or something like that), you can probably even estimate the number of active players and frequency of such matches, but compared to let's say Doom it's very obscure. How many people still (re)play the campaigns or custom maps? I don't know. Does anyone make more maps? No idea.
I have a general interest in PC games from the 90s and digging the sources like mags and online publications I realise how many games came out back then (both commercial and self-published shareware) that are almost completely, let's say, invisible (I'd like to avoid the vague term "forgotten") these days except maybe for listings in game databases like MobyGames. There was lot's of stuff that was at least original to some degree, if not artistically well done (very often both). Some games apparently had concepts that, while being functional in the context of gameplay, were seemingly never expanded upon in later games, and never inspired a trend in the industry. That alone is also worth examining.
#3 Posted 16 March 2019 - 05:52 AM
Blew me away with its graphics, which still hold up pretty well IMO. Not many people have heard of it, though. There was another cool game called POD, which I think more people have played, and I always saw it as like the racing version of Quake with it's abstract and surrealistic design.
This post has been edited by thricecursed: 16 March 2019 - 05:53 AM
#4 Posted 16 March 2019 - 06:25 AM
This post has been edited by Mark: 16 March 2019 - 06:32 AM
#6 Posted 16 March 2019 - 12:49 PM
Hell yeah this was good graphics these days!
#8 Posted 16 March 2019 - 04:06 PM
Daedolon, on 16 March 2019 - 02:10 PM, said:
By the way, I also would like to name Montezuma's Return, a game I enjoyed a lot as a kid:
Hard to play it nowadays; in some computers it runs too fast, in others it doesn't work at all.
#9 Posted 16 March 2019 - 04:39 PM
BloodGuy, on 16 March 2019 - 12:49 PM, said:
not sure if you've heard of Ultima Underworld...
This post has been edited by leilei: 16 March 2019 - 05:02 PM
#10 Posted 16 March 2019 - 05:30 PM
leilei, on 16 March 2019 - 04:39 PM, said:
#12 Posted 16 March 2019 - 06:49 PM
keyboard works better than mouse
This post has been edited by Forge: 16 March 2019 - 06:49 PM
#13 Posted 16 March 2019 - 07:59 PM
#14 Posted 16 March 2019 - 11:29 PM
The video description says only a handful boxed versions were sold in Taiwan.
This post has been edited by BloodGuy: 16 March 2019 - 11:34 PM
#15 Posted 16 March 2019 - 11:52 PM
#16 Posted 17 March 2019 - 12:52 AM
Zaxx, on 16 March 2019 - 11:52 PM, said:
Yes I I have been wanting to play it, but I can't manage to run it properly. Any suggestions ?
#17 Posted 17 March 2019 - 01:13 AM
This post has been edited by NightFright: 17 March 2019 - 01:14 AM
#18 Posted 17 March 2019 - 01:30 AM
Perro Seco, on 16 March 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:
Hard to play it nowadays; in some computers it runs too fast, in others it doesn't work at all.
Dude!!! I've been looking for this game for years. I never knew what the hell it was, only played as a kid. Thanks!
#19 Posted 17 March 2019 - 03:45 AM
axl, on 17 March 2019 - 12:52 AM, said:
I only have one: if you pick it up on Steam don't touch the default stuff. If you want to run the game properly you have to stick with the 3dfx mode so nowadays you'll need a Glide wrapper (there is a DriectX mode that's actually better than 3dfx because it supports more resolutions but it's full of gamebreaking stuff on modern systems). The Steam version has nGlide but I've heard that dgVoodoo2 works too.
The Steam version's fine if you ask me, you can change the resolution in the nGlide config file so you can do stuff like having the game being rendered at a 16:9 resolution but with keeping the 4:3 aspect ratio. In-game you can change the FoV in the console so you can set the game up pretty nicely. One thing to keep in mind if you change the FoV: the sniper rifle's zoom will reset it to the default value every time you use it but it's a totally useless weapon anyway so that's not a big issue.
This post has been edited by Zaxx: 17 March 2019 - 03:51 AM
#20 Posted 17 March 2019 - 05:54 AM
Perro Seco, on 16 March 2019 - 04:06 PM, said:
Better yet, here's the official site (Wayback Machine copy).
#21 Posted 19 March 2019 - 01:40 AM
Here's a gameplay video for you to get the idea of what it is (I love this level):
https://youtu.be/-uoYc-fmXL4?t=25
A complete video walkthrough is available from the same channel:
https://www.youtube....D6059FC677E0CC1
The game takes place in the future where the world is ruled by megacorporations, and you happen to be a remote-controlled hovertank operator in the service of one such entity, Nataka Corp. You complete different missions, upgrade your tank in-between them, and all the while the story unfolds as another corporation declares war on your bosses.
Gameplay is pretty smooth, the levels have some clever design and boast a rather impressive degree of variety. I only played the demo versions, there are two of them with four missions each, but several levels are different between the demos so you get a total of six or seven levels in total. I also liked the music which I gather was written in-house by the developer, a company called Mad Genius software which AFAIK fell apart soon after Gunmetal failed to be a success. Apparently the game did not fare well in the rather thick competition of the 1998 3D FPS market, and some reviewers gave it a low score because they felt it was not up-to-date enough, not original enough etc. etc.
What I liked is that, apart from the really nice atmosphere, the game is very strongly mission based. You don't just blast through various environments to the exit, there are objectives you need to complete, and the levels are complex enough to be called realistic. There's one urban level where you need to get to a corporate office, get up the tower and rescue an executive. The game also conveys the idea that you're at war (as opposed to simply shooting mooks) pretty well too. Fairy often you feel outgunned and will have to manoeuvre and often run away to stay alive.
Overall I'd say that Gunmetal is fairly solid in its gameplay and design. There's a plot going on too if you bother reading all the screens, it's not Nebula award material but ain't trivial either. Someone made a voting poll to have this added to GOG.com, not sure if it's going to happen anytime, and the fact that a newer, similarly titled but completely unrelated game is more widely known doesn't help to rescue Gunmetal from complete obscurity.
#22 Posted 19 March 2019 - 02:13 AM
Has a really solid soundtrack IMO. Brings to mind Deus Ex and some of the voice acting reminds me of System Shock. Just the whole world in general, really.
This post has been edited by thricecursed: 19 March 2019 - 02:14 AM
#23 Posted 19 March 2019 - 02:50 AM
I probably spent way too many hours making custom tracks for this game; it came with a very intuitive editor and in general was very customizable. That was probably around the time of my very first Duke levels too. I'm not even a fan of cars and racing games at all.
This post has been edited by ck3D: 19 March 2019 - 02:51 AM
#24 Posted 19 March 2019 - 05:21 AM
#25 Posted 19 March 2019 - 06:15 AM
This was a German shooter published by Navigo in 1995, using a custom engine called Acknex written by Conitec. You work for a secret organization dedicated to cleaning the world wide web from dangerous virus infections while you are also searching for your lost brother. You are inside of some kind of tank all the time that needs to be recharged occasionally, therefore the controls are a bit slow/laggy. Level design and texturing kinda sucked IMHO, especially when compared to other competitive games of that time, especially Doom or Dark Forces. The "advantage" of its setting was that due to its non-violent/bloody setting (with viruses as enemies), it was considered harmless and did not risk being placed on "the index" (as liable to corrupt the young), which happened to many other games in Germany, such as Doom, Dark Forces or Quake. Setting reminds a bit of "The Matrix", even though this game predates the movie(s) and was therefore kinda ahead of its time.
This post has been edited by NightFright: 19 March 2019 - 06:23 AM
#26 Posted 19 March 2019 - 09:19 AM
Probably the only way to got this outside Germany, especially in a period when Internet wasn't a big global reality yet, was to found it in one of those generic CD-magazines of the 90's that collected shareware and freeware DOS/WIN 3.1 games independently from where they come. I've had it this way.
The game follows the days of the teenager Karsten in helping to create a youth centre in attempt to do something against crime rate and street wandering among young people. However, this is made difficult due the actions of a Neo-nazi gang who spread violence and anti-semite ideals.
I couldn't even know of what was talking about since not know German language, so I've finished it trying every object and dialogue option combination, I still felt satisfied for having completed.
I wasn't even aware of the existence of 2 sequels, "Im Netzwerk gefangen" (Trapped In The Net) in 1996 and "Tod in der Südkurve" (Death In The South Curve) in 2000, that uses real life digitalized images, existed.
#27 Posted 19 March 2019 - 01:40 PM
This post has been edited by ck3D: 19 March 2019 - 01:40 PM
#28 Posted 20 March 2019 - 03:50 PM
Amsterdoom is a game set and developed in my country.
Maybe you could've guessed it from the title, but its story takes place in Amsterdam and It's a FPS.
I have vague memories about this game and couldn't remember if I liked it or not, but it was memorable enough for me to keep the original box.
Also, this is developed by the same guy that made A2 racer (also set in the Netherlands).
This post has been edited by themaniacboy: 20 March 2019 - 03:57 PM
#29 Posted 22 March 2019 - 05:11 AM
But anyway, this gem: