https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorched_Earth_%28video_game%29

Edit: The forum doesn't like parenthesis in URLS; to fix it, use %28 and %29 to escape them.

Kudos for that :)

Hello!
First, thank you Kai2 for opening this thread, and thank you all contributors who share their beloved gems!
I really appreciate those type of threads, for they already directed my attention to some games I never heard of before.
And I thought it would be just fair to share mine this time, as well. Maybe someone get to know something completely new to them or simply get reminded of a game from their past.

Now, my beloved titles (at least on PC), which I still play regularly since their release, are

- Search and Rescue 4 (2002), also known as Coastal Heroes in North America, and its stand-alone addon
- Search and Rescue Vietnam Med+Evac (2002).

I simply love aeronautic simulators, and the SAR series is an example of the rare exception of civil helicopter simulators (although VME has a mounted gun and you obviously operate in the Vietnam conflict, but gameplay-wise it is practically identical to SAR4 - and you can pilot the famous Bell Helicopter!)
This series still has acceptable graphics, at least in my humble opinion, and a good physics backbone in its simulation. Newer attempts either went with fullblown military first person shooter sections in the game or the awfully looking/implemented arcade game style despite newer graphics. :(

and...

- Cabela's 4x4 Off Road Adventure 1 (2001)
- Cabela's 4x4 Off Road Adventure 3 (2003)

After piloting helicopters and aeroplanes I love to take a ride off the road (also in real life). :p
And thanks to "deja65", who has drawn my attention to the incredible Screamer 4x4 (which is also known as Bleifuss Offroad) only a few years ago, I discovered other amazing off road driving simulators long after their original release, such as the aforementioned Off Road Adventures from the Cabela series of games.
I woulld also like to give MudRunners / SpinTires a ride - I enjoyed the original alpha demo - but I do not buy from the other distributors due to their DRM policy. :(

(In the same vein as these off road titles on the PC I did found recently a surprising game for Android, which is not the usaual cash-grab or filled with annoyances, but a serious tecnical driving simulation: OffRoad Drive Desert)

Enjoy, your game gems!
foxgog

Mine would be Gothic 2 and Project Snowblind. One is a great RPG and the other is a decent FPS in the style of Deus Ex since it was originally supposed to be a sequel. It still has the Deus Ex vibe even if the gameplay is nowhere near as good.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Be aware that even if you get it to work, it might crash on you. CTD though, so just start it up again.
Remember to save often. ,)

My pick would be Blaster Master for the NES. I bought mine from my best friend after many borrowings and rejected buys. I never did find another physical copy anywhere from flea markets and thrift stores pre-Internet.

Nice thread!

Mmm, let's see... Well, in the Age of Ancients (over 30 years ago) were Snake Rattle & Roll and Low G Man.
Many years later, same situation with Planescape - Torment, Arcanum and XIII.

And I cannot forget the 2010, Demon's Souls year: in Italy, at the beginning, almost no one knew it!
Two years later, Sleeping Dogs: maybe the most underrated title in this last decade!

Nowadays... I say War Tech Fighters: one of the best titles about mechs and battles in space!

Maybe the Cultures series, Mob Rule/Street Wars, and, to a much lesser extent, Lords of Magic. It's not so much that others haven't heard of these games, but rather they never talk about them unless I bring them up.

As far as I'm aware, the Cultures games never rose to the heights of popularity that the earlier Settlers games enjoyed throughout the 90s. This is understandable, as Cultures' emphasis on heavier micromanagement means it likely had more niche appeal. Well, at least that's how it seems on my side of the Atlantic.

Much like Cultures 2 and its sequels, Mob Rule has been a huge guilty pleasure of mine for many years. Unfortunately, many people who've played it either think it's too hard or are put off by it being a watered-down Constructor sequel. In my online travels, I haven't really encountered anyone who digs the game as much as I do. I'm sure a few like-minded fans do exist somewhere, though.

Lords of Magic tends to have a more visible fanbase, but it's still not mentioned very often. Not only are there more popular strategy games on people's minds, but I also like to think that the game's steep learning curve may have discouraged newer players before they could get hooked.

Very cool game. The first game I played where you could get in and out of your vehicle and explore the area.


As for my pick... I always remember the game Heart of Darkness was pretty good but didn't get much love. It's by Eric Chahi the designer of Out of this World/Another World. Or maybe it was a mega hit and I'm just misremembering. It was a long time ago. I'm old.

Battle Bugs
https://www.mobygames.com/game/battle-bugs

I love seeing those little pests kicking the s*** out of each other. :)

Cyber Empire (aka "Steel Empire" in some regions), a 1992 DOS game by Silicon Knights (developer) / Strategic Simulations (publisher). It was the first PC strategy game I owned that I think came as a part of a game bundle with my first PC (Amstrad 286 with a whole 1MB RAM). The gameplay consists of overall turn based strategy map mixed with real-time tactical battles (where you can win with inferior numbers / weaker cyborgs by being a little creative, eg, "hit and run" on forest / city maps) just "clicked" with me immediately and I still replay it even today:-
https://www.mobygames.com/game/cyber-empires

Here are some other games:

Ultima 4 NES: Actually a good console port of Ultima 4, albeit quite different from the original.
Ultima 4 SMS: Actually a good console port of Ultima 4, similar to the original and very different from the other console ports.

Wizardry: New Age of Llylgamyn (PSX): The best console port of Wizardry 4, and probably the best way to play it. (If you don't know Japanese, play the Classic Version, and change the first 4 options to the right-most setting, which will put the game in English.) I don't recommend Wizardry 5 from here, as the BACORTU spell is non-functional in this version, making mid-late game combat less interesting (remember that enemies use this spell as well).

The Magic of Scheherezade: This game is what happens if you take a game like Zelda 1, divide it into chapters that have to be played in order, and add RPG elements, including random turn-based battles when you change screens (in addition to the action combat you'd expect from Zelda). I wish someone would translate the Japanese version, which is actually quite different (different growth system, different maps, different music, even a lost woods type area that didn't make it into the US version).

Z.A.R.

For some reason the game is on Steam. I liked it a lot. The freedom of movement and destructible terrain really sucked me in.

There was also a mission pack but it was only ever released in Russia and since ISOzone went down, it seems to be lost to time, so I will never get to play it... :(

Stunts: 4D Sports Driving

Hardwar was one of those games for a long while.

Do people still talk about hardwar now? It had a resurgence for a while.

It was an open world game set on Titan. You start going a rinky-dink ship called a MOTH that is basically a hover ship.

Corporations left everyone stranded in Titan for ages and you're trying to get off the moon. Every person had an AI script that runs and everyone has different factions and objectives. You'll think you had a great stroke of luck by finding some very valuable toot only to find yourself pursued by a dozen ships.

It had a story to follow or you could do your own thing. And folks set up persistent online worlds with it.

It failed. Hard. I bought it for a penny at EB Games. I just loved it.

Then maybe 4 more years later, suddenly a bunch of people somehow heard about the game and it had a resurgence.