Lost and forgotten (except by us)

[DwarvenFood]

This is the Batman game as seen on C64, remember playing it a lot - I think it's the above mentioned "caped crusader". Swinging was just super awesome.

 

[Excidium II]

page 11 has this weird injection-type attack going on for Firefox where it forces the loading of this image: http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/xq90/401/uia4.png

Looks like just a broken screenshot he picked up from google

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

This is the Batman game as seen on C64, remember playing it a lot - I think it's the above mentioned "caped crusader". Swinging was just super awesome.

Nope. That is Batman the Movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(1989_Ocean_video_game)

 

[Dreaad]

Holy sheeeeeit I found it! My parents still have the box and everything

One of the first games I ever played.

An 'educational' math game. Back in the day the game part was actually pretty good a lot of the time, unlike the shit released now (or maybe it just seems that way to me). I believe it was set in an alien ocean after a crash landing or something and you had to collect pieces of wreckage to find out the scientists story and see what went wrong.
Basically you were a submarine and had to traverse a maze type environment with enemies, you had limited ink pellets for each mission, they stunned enemies for a short period so you could get past them. Oxygen supply was your healthbar/life system. You lost oxygen for hitting natural hazards or being attacked, some of the levels had volcano propelled rocks and mutated super fish that kill you in one hit and were immune to ink pellets.

You had a dolphin helper who gave you oxygen if you caught him.

At certain points in the game you would run up against locked door type system or had to recover pieces of the wreckage which required you to solve progressively harder math puzzles.

If you got them wrong you lost oxygen. The only hard save points were at the start of each sector so it could be very frustrating to encounter one of these doors at the end of a level .

Fuck I must've replayed this at least 7 times

 

[Infinitron]

The Last Dynasty, released by Sierra in 1995 and made by Coktel Vision. I never finished this one and I wish I could. Still have the original box lying somewhere at my parent's place from my childhood. I could never get it to run or even install on a modern system because it's a Windows-only game but has a 16-bit installer and unlike Grim Fandango, I couldn't find a replacement installer or emulator.

Graphics were amazing at the time, one of the first games I remember coming out on 2 CD's due to lots of voice acting and video etc. Of course it looks crap today.

It combined space shootan (Wing Commander style) games with pre-rendered 3D adventures, similar to Myst or Return to Zork, the latter being most of the game. Couldn't find a screenshot of the adventure part though. I think re-playing it now would be difficult due to the space combat part, in the same way I can't play the old Wing Commanders any more.

Basically the (weird) story starts off with 2 random guys in their garage trying out some new VR system or something and flying a spaceship (which is the training part for the space combat part). Then all of a sudden a real spaceship comes to collect the guys out of nowhere. It takes them to some unknown planet where they meet an emperor guy who tells one dude he's actually his son or something. There's also some big war going on and ships blasting each other in orbit. Then for some reason you fly to an abandoned space station after shooting some pursuers and the adventure part starts. I have gone quite far there but never knew what happens after the station. I'd love to finish the thing some day If I can get it running, but unfortunately it seems I'm the only one on the planet that has ever heard of this game so it doesn't exist on GOG. Even the Mobygames article is very light.

I had a friend who owned this game when I was a kid (he was a big Sierra fanboy). I loaned it from him once and finished it. The adventure part was not most of the game, the space sim stuff continues after you've finished it.

As for the game's plot, all I can say is French gonna French. I recall there being this amusing part where the protagonist's friend has an evil clone and he has to figure out which one is real, but I bet it would be cringeworthy if I saw it today.

 

[zool]

It already got its own thread on the Codex but Achtung Spitfire (1997) by Big Time Software was a great WW2 turn-based flight sim that let you play full campaigns (including the Battle of Britain) with the RAF or the Luftwaffe (and a shorter Early War one with the French Air Force too).

There were several level of difficulties and, at the higher level, it became quite realistic with G-Force, stalling and a lot of other things taken into account. Admittedly, I always play on the easiest difficulty setting because I'm just used to playing this as a quick and simple game (while for some reason, I alway play its modern day-based counterpartt, Flight Commander 2, with all the realistic options on).

The most entertaining mechanism in the game was keeping the pilots in your squadron alive as they would become more and more experienced the longer they survived, transforming into aces and expert flyers, which in turn gave them bonuses. Managing the fatigue level of your pilots (especially in the Battle of Britain campaign) was also crucial.

A very fun and addictive game.

 

[agris]

zool that looks great, thanks!

 

[Ovplain]

God of Thunder

I played this too way back when, remember enjoying it a lot.


Recently rediscovered a game I used to love way back when. Sadly forgot what it was called and could never find it again, until now!



Played it with a couple of pals back in the day, had a blast.


Ah, I see now that somebody's obviously already brought this game up in this thread. Fuck it, it was awesome!

 

[Trash]

If you enjoyed Achtung Spitfire then do try out Over The Reich, zool . It's made by the same people. Lovely little game and easy to find online.



http://www.mobygames.com/game/over-the-reich

 

[zool]

If you enjoyed Achtung Spitfire then do try out Over The Reich, zool . It's made by the same people. Lovely little game and easy to find online.

I've played it too and enjoyed it, though having discovered it years after Achtung Spitfire, I have fonder memories of Achtung Spitfire. I'll always remember that BoB campaign I played with a squadron of Hurricanes (Spitfires are just too powerful) : on one occasion, my 12 Hurricanes met head on with 16 BF-109. Amazingly enough, the final tally was 14 BF-109 down with only 2 Hurricanes lost.

Talking about Achtung Spitfire and Over the Reich, I recently discovered that as mentioned here, you should be able to transfer pilots from Achtung Spitfire to Over the Reich to continue your tour of duty after installing the 1.13 patch for Over the Reich. However, the only version of Over the Reich I could find online was a cracked v1.0 and I can't seem to be able to install any of the patches for the game available here as the patches format prevents it from installing on Windows 7. Trash or anyone, were you ever able to make it work?

Edit : I'll post that last question on the old Achtung Sptifire thread as well to avoid polluting this thread.

 

[Coyote]

Holy sheeeeeit I found it! My parents still have the box and everything

One of the first games I ever played.

An 'educational' math game. Back in the day the game part was actually pretty good a lot of the time, unlike the shit released now (or maybe it just seems that way to me). I believe it was set in an alien ocean after a crash landing or something and you had to collect pieces of wreckage to find out the scientists story and see what went wrong.

Yeah, The Learning Company (which also did the Oregon/Amazon/Yukon/Africa Trail games) had a whole slew of games like this in what eventually came to be known as their "Super Solvers" and "Super Seekers" series. I think I read somewhere that they did the bulk of their sales to primary schools and in book catalogs that were distributed to students.

Midnight Rescue: solve math puzzles and take pictures of robots to match up with clues so that you can figure out which robot the antagonist has disguised himself as before midnight, at which point he'll execute his dastardly plan to paint the school invisible.

OutNumbered: a Midnight Rescue clone that takes place in TV station.

Treasure Mountain: catch elves and solve puzzles to advance further up a mountain, winning toys that were added to a trophy room, each with its own unique animation, every time you finished the game.

Treasure Mathstorm: pretty much Treasure Mountain with snow.

Treasure Cove: underwater Treasure Mountain.

All of these games follow the same pattern: solve basic math puzzles and match textual hints up with pictures, with a small element of item management that mostly only becomes a factor if you fail puzzles too often.

Ancient Empires, in which you explore ruins and reassemble artifacts in ancient Greece/Rome, India/China, Egypt, and the Near East, was a bit different. Unlike the others, the puzzles weren't math-based and were more about figuring out how to manipulate things in your environment in order to advance (with new puzzle mechanics in each environment), and the edutainment factor came mainly from tidbits about the history of each region and fostering logic/problem-solving skills. It wouldn't feel too out of place if the game was classified as a puzzle platformer, now that I think about it.

Operation Neptune and Ancient Empires were probably the best of the series, with both more exotic settings and more enjoyable moment-to-moment gameplay. IIRC, they both required more skill from the player in order to dodge or neutralize obstacles, and they were also more interesting in that whereas the others were short and relied on randomization to encourage multiple playthroughs, they had longer, hand-crafted levels that allowed for more creative level design.

 

[Dreaad]

There was another game I played back then, but I can't remember the name and could never find anything that reminded me of it .

It was an FPS stealth type of thing in a castle or dungeon or something, and you had to go around mostly avoiding enemies (wizards, witches a minotaur etc).... although near the end you got a wand that could kill stuff. Anyway certain doors were locked and to unlock them you had to read a paragraph or two and correct all the grammatical mistakes. Learning English was never that much fun again.

 

[Infinitron]

Dawn Patrol, fun WW1 flying sim, with high edutainment value.



The most important thing is learning which fighters don't fall to pieces if you dive at too steep an angle!

 

[Naraya]

Awesome thread. Thanks for reminding me of Challenge of the Ancient Empires - I loved this game. After downloading it I just had a nostalgia overload :D

My contribution is Zool. I don't think it's as obscure, but it sure is a gem. Back when I was in elementary school there was a TV program on Polish TV called Telekomputer and I remember seeing Zool on Amiga there. It seemed great, especially back when I had a 286 PC AT and such games were really scarce (another example: Chaos Engine). Well - we had Magic Pockets!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I haven't played Zool much, but I do remember the main title theme. Sounds like something that would belong in Star Control 2.

 

[Zarniwoop]

There is no Dana, only Zool.

 

[lightbane]

I think it's time to show you all a game so obscure, so lost and forgotten, that even I forgot about its existence in spite of having a physical copy I'm talking about Ubik:



Loosely based on the book with the same name, it is a cyberpunk tactical squad strategy game in real time, with psychic powers and computers to hack. Unfortunately, it is a flawed game, the AI is idiotic, you can't tell what's going on most of the time (especially during the cyberspace segments) and the plot is mindfucky to the max (which is fitting considering its author). I remember playing a version translated to Spanish dozens of years ago. Said translation was more or less well-done, except for the times in which characters randomly begin to talk in English in the middle of a dialogue, or when the game forgets the main character's name and he's addressed by another name which is not mentioned anywhere else While the plot and setting were interesting enough to keep me playing, I was unable to finish the game, there was one mission I could never finish, because the last enemy I had to neutralize was in a remote area with no obvious way to get inside, forcing me to walk around aimlessly until I got tired of the game

In any case, I believe it belongs to this thread.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Street Rod (1989)

Now here's a game series no one seems to talk about these days, even though they were all the rage back in 1991 (at least here in Iceland), only Prince of Persia was a bigger deal back then.

Large box photo inside

As the box cover suggests, the Street Rod games are racing games that take place in the US in the 1960s, where you have a small amount of money, a garage, tons of free time and a desire to beat The King of Racing before summer's over. As far as racing games goes, Streed Rod is quite simple, but the meat of the game lies under the hood - literally. You buy a car (from a list of real-life American muscle cars from the 1930s to the 1960s) and then prep it for racing by giving it a paintjob, applying stickers and decals, switching out the engine and transmission and then fine-tuning everything to turn a lemon into a drag racer.

There are two things about this game that I only discovered recently: The game is historically accurate (especially the manual) and it seems to have been coded by Potatos (at least if you go by the names credited in the manual).

A sequel, Street Rod 2, was released in 1991 which extends the range of cars, adds a new racing option but is otherwise pretty much the same as the prequel.

But here's where things get interesting.

A mysterious sticker on the first print of Street Rod, plus a handful of mentions in gaming mags in 1990 speak of a Data Disk for Street Rod 1, but no one seemed to know more about it...until in 2013 when an eBay seller from Portugal listed them for sale. A Street Rod fan (and current owner of the Street Rod trademark) bought them and made the contents available online for download in 2014, known as Street Rod Special Edition. This site is the definitive resource on all things Street Rod, and I take my hat off to this man for keeping the games alive and preserved for curious gamers.

These games are more of a historical reference than games nowadays, and cast their light on an era that very few other games do...if any, come to think of it.

 

[Love]

I think it's time to show you all a game so obscure, so lost and forgotten, that even I forgot about its existence in spite of having a physical copy I'm talking about Ubik:

Fuck. I didn't even know, that there was a PC version for that game. It's one of Dick's best books with some of his most whacked ideas, where a team of agents gets killed on a mission and put into a machine enabling to still communicate with the outer world in the afterlife so to say. Their struggle is to find out, if they're really dead or are just being duped by their competitors. It certainly would have mad for a better movie, if Nolan would have just filmed that story instead of his Inception.

 

[Astral Rag]

Awesome Unkillable Cat. I always preferred Test Drive and Stunts but I do enjoy me some Street Rod from time to time (edit: ok this sounds much gayer than I intended ) , I didn't know there was a special edition.


*downloads SRSE*

 

[DwarvenFood]

Special nostalgic brofist to the newspaper headlines in Street Rod, with reporting on the Vietnam war for example:

 

[Dreaad]

Heh randomly remembered this gem

Better than most FPS released these days. Had some fun weapons, a story with no fucks given and last enemies were fembots with machine gun tits.

 

[Excidium II]

I only played the original RR but it's p. good, bit underrated among build engine games

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Same here, I only ever played the original, which sadly only has around 5-6 different enemies and no vehicles. Most of the game's charm back then was the redneck factor and the cussing.

Anyone remember all the hubbub about the first level, that if you could jump up on the truck that runs over all the chickens then you unlock various cheat modes and stuff?

 

[Outlander]

This site is the definitive resource on all things Street Rod, and I take my hat off to this man for keeping the games alive and preserved for curious gamers.

Great motherfucking find!

I remember it was beyond awesome the first time I beat The King, all that work had finally paid up.