Fun games to try (those considered hidden gems)

[Freaklore1]

If there's a thread about bad games to avoid,then we need an oposite,so here's a thread where we can suggest underrated games that are fun and also considered 'hidden gems'...

I would like to start with this piece of awesomeness called 'Metal Storm' on the NES, made by IREM the same peoples who made 'R-TYPE'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hPdwk67DG0

This game certainly deserve more recognitions,but since it was released late during the NES life,it got cast to the side.

Any hidden gems you guys would like to suggest ?

[Rachael]

Centurion: Defender of Rome.

I used to play that a lot when I was a kid.

[dpJudas]

Good old Centurion, I played that a lot as well.

I'd recommend Alley Cat - a must play for any cat owner.

[Graf Zahl]

Heh. Memories from a time long gone where a simple C64 with its measly 64kb ran circles around a 'professional' computer...

[Reactor]

S.C.Out - A French puzzle game, where you control a small tank on a distant planet, trying to kill a Terminator-head like creature at the end of the level. Features 101 levels, 999 empty level slots, where you can make your own campaign. A masterpiece.

Non Human - This game was meant as a remake for the project "Action 52 OWNZ", and is a simple, but very tasty side scroller. Currently it is under development, and not yet available for download, but it shall be released sooner or later.

City of Doom - Another game remake for "Action 52 OWNZ". This is the game where you play as a hero, who needs to climb a gigantic skyscraper that goes into outer space. In the original, there were bowling-balls, hot-dogs and hummingbirds as enemies, and you died if you touched a window. Thankfully the remake is completely free of these garbage. The story is about a horrible alien insect plague takin' over the city, and you got to find the source of the infection. Enemies are various types of evil alien insects. The concept is awesome, you can actually climb all four sides of the building, bossfights are amazing, and the graphics clearly have that "retro" feeling on them. It's not a hard game...unless you go for completing the entire game without dying once!!!

Dawn Raider - An old Chinese top down vertical shooter, where you control a war plane, and trying to kill everyone else. You can collect supplies and new weapons (and even upgrade your fighter) by shooting down blimps. I don't really know what the story is, but you must go from county ot county in China, and on every level, fight hundreds of enemies and a boss. Interestingly, there are enemy plane models from ALL over the world - you'll find F-22s here, Soviet Iljusins and Polikarpovs, Polish and French WWII planes, Finnish Fokkers, British Lancasters and Spitfires, German Messerschmitts and semmingly, pretty much every nation in the world turned against China. The game features ground targets as well, such as turret-guns, tanks, even battle cruiser ships. A very intense, but excellent game, a definitive keeper!

Battle Europe - I don't know if this is the official title for the game, it's once again, Chinese. An isometric tank game, where you can either choose the Allies or the Nazis, and conquer europe, going from country to country. The objective is to kill all the enemy vehicles on each level. You can upgrade your tank by collecting medals, and for each kill you make, you shall be given a powerup on the level. MUCH better tank game than Heavy Weapon Deluxe! It does have its share of glitches - for instance, your number of lives won't decrease if you die, and the SPE and SHL powerups won't do a damn thing, and it gets repetative after 5 or so levels, but still, a very tasty little game to play.

[dpJudas]

Heh. Memories from a time long gone where a simple C64 with its measly 64kb ran circles around a 'professional' computer...

You got no street-cred from the other kids by playing on your daddy's work PC, that's for sure.

I'll admit that Alley Cat might not be much magic to adults, CGA and way too easy, but when I was in just the right age I loved this game for some reason. It is kind of like when I replayed Castle Wolfenstein (the original, not 3D) as an adult. Ten minutes later I had finished the game because I just walked past all the guards wearing a nazi uniform until I found my way out. As a kid somehow that never occurred to me, I never could complete it because eventually some SS guy would show up and take me out. Some things are more fun when you have no skills.

[Aerosplinter]

I've always wanted to try out the King's Field trilogy and Shadow Tower on the PS1, and the gameplay looks slow but fun at the same time. People with just enough patience with slower gameplay and silent ambience should try these games out.

[Rachael]

I also played ZZT, Moraff's World, and Jill of the Jungle when I was younger, too.

... I should probably just turn in my youth card now, shouldn't I? >_>

[wildweasel]

I also played ZZT, Moraff's World, and Jill of the Jungle when I was younger, too.

... I should probably just turn in my youth card now, shouldn't I? >_>

I'm with you on all of the above, actually. Hell, people think I'm weird because my childhood wasn't full of stuff like Contra or Adventure Island, but rather stuff like KiloBlaster, Oil Cap, Dungeon Hack, and Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe.

(Not that I never played console games as a young'un - just my choices were a bit...weirder. Like Zoop, Sub-Terrania, and of all things, The Incredible Crash Dummies for Genesis.)

[Matt]

Pretty much only know Jill of the Jungle from that list... my time was spent on the original Duke Nukem, Captain Comic and the old Maxis Sim games before they sold out with that Sims crap ::anatomically impossible superimposition of greasy metalhead and hipster::

[Scripten]

Oh man, this all brings me back. (Maybe not as far back as some of you, but pretty far regardless!) I had all kinds of demo disks way back when. I guess the new indie bundles are the natural progression of those days, but it really felt like a new frontier back then. All of the weird stuff from Moraff was great. I personally liked his Escapade, which was just Lode Runner in retrospect. Then there were the early Lemmings and, of course, classics like Captain Comic, Jill of the Jungle, Commander Keen, and the like.

As for contributing to the hidden gems list, I'm going to add in Chip's Challenge. Not really quite as "lost" as a lot of the others, but it's a really solid puzzle game.

[Reactor]

Captain Comic was a pretty fun game, and to this day, I gladly take it for a spin. Too bad the trilogy never got finished!

Another awesome game was Lost Dutchman Mine (it was also marketed in Hungary with a mis-translation of the title: "The Last Goldminer"). An extremely well done western game, where you play as an old prospector, who is looking for the world-famous Lost Dutchman Mine. It offers several game modes: overhead mapview, side-scrolling, shooting, playing poker, fishing and so on. You begin your quest with a wee bit of money, and you need to buy your mining equipment, foodstuffs, tools and everything else I can think of. Then you must leave the town and go to the mountains, looking for gold mines. Once you mine some gold and exchange it to more money, you can buy additional equipment, horses, and look around in the stalagmite caves for pieces of map to find the Lost Dutchman Mine. Its location changes from game to game, so it's always a challenge to locate it. The setting was realistic, there was a day and night transition, and you had to watch your food and water level VERY carefully. You must NOT enable yourself to run out of provisions!
In my younger years, I had a copy-protected version, and halfway thru the game, a black screen appeared, demanding a password, which I didn't have, so the game just bombed me out to DOS. Thankfully I could obtain a protection-free version in the past few years and finish the game. It was well worth it, to say the least, and Lost Dutchman Mine is definitively a keeper. Unfortunately, amongst the many great features this game can offer, there are also a number of glitches and flaws, and one must take these into account when playing the game:

- If you're unlucky, you'll get a copy-protected version, and unless you have the manual, you'll never be able to finish it.
- After a few hours of playing, fish become invisible in the river. You can still catch fish, even though ostensibly, there are none in the water, but it requires a ton of luck, and it totally happens by chance. I have no idea what triggers this bug, but it seem to return periodically during gameplay.
- Small fish don't give any "food", so there's no reason to catch them.
- Many sold items don't have any practical purpose. If you buy the shovel instead of the pick, you're fucked, and you have to start over, because the ONLY thing to dig gold with is the pick. The knife, gloves, pyjamas or blanket also don't serve any practical purpose.
- You must figure out the location of the Lost Dutchman Mine from 6 pieces of the map. If you collect the 7th, the entire screen glitches up to a disgusting mess once you view it. This is particularly annoying, because if none of the 6 pieces shows the Lost Dutchman Mine's location, you're stuck forever, and have to restart the game.
- Your moving speed does not increase if your buy a mule.
- There's a bug with your mules if you get attacked by evil indians. Even if you kill all indians, you WILL lose the mule, no matter what. It does not happen every time, but when it does, you'll lose all items the mules carried.
- The ending is somewhat disappointing. Once you found the Lost Dutchman Mine, all you need to do is go through, and claim in the assay office that you've found it. That's it!

[zrrion the insect]

Netstorm: Islands at War is fantastic, play it if you can.

[DoomRater]

If you don't mind strange relics from Flash days long since gone by, Ultimate Robotnik Duels is well worth the fun.
I'm also working my way through the Angry Video Game, but slowly. Protip: You can throw rollin rocks in both an arc and straight forward.

[Matt]

Capture the Flag by Carr Software

the world needs more casual top-down strategy combat games like this... and SimAnt...