Games you love, which until you'd played them you had no idea existed?

This is a bit of an odd idea for a thread, but I've been playing through the Sega 3D Classics archives on 3DS and one of the games that popped up was this gem right here:

Now, I'd never even heard of Galaxy Force before, but I thought what the hey, I'm playing everything, so let's give this one a go. All I can say is I'm a massive fan and really looking forward to playing Galaxy Force II which is on the third archives (which I've not started yet). It's got a very similar graphical styling to the more modern takes on space harrier, but it also has the same missile lock system (almost) as After Burner. The music is great and the levels are really tough. Thankfully I could "cheat" slightly on the 3DS version and up my starting energy a bit, that meant I could play through all the levels. The levels all have distinct themes and it all culminates to you flying through the blue blue skies attacking a giant flying spaceship.

Yeah it's short, like many arcade games, but I think I'm in love.

You're playing the wrong version of the game!!!

EDIT - Wait a minute is the original version actually included in that package? My understanding is that the sequel is just the original game with added stages and some extra bits thrown in.

Anyway you may be interested in the following if you haven't already read it...

http://blogs.sega.com/2013/12/12/sega-3 ... eloper-m2/

Song of the Deep

And

Binary Domain.

Stumbled across both having never heard of them. Love them both.

Back in the 8-bit computer days, I often used to buy a game with knowing anything about it; particularly the budget titles. My favourite example os probably Kikstart on the C64 - for younger folk, think of Trials HD but with local split-screen two-player mode. Man, I played that for hours and hours with my best mate!

In these days of the internet, wall-to-wall game coverage and games costing £55 plus season passes, I rarely pick up a game without knowing a lot about it. However, I have deliberately avoided reading too much about a few games before buying them... and I have then *hugely* enjoyed them. I'd put Mad Max, No Man's Sky and The Last Guardian (yep, I avoided reading very much about it for nine years!) into that category.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I'd heard about the earlier UFO/XCOM games but wasn't really bothered about them as they sounded a bit complicated and boring (I wasn't into PC gaming at the time) and I had no idea that a new one had been made.

Around a year after it had been released I spotted a review for it championing its accessibility for disabled gamers and having become a fan of turn based tactical RPGs over recent years decided to give it a go.

Despite initial misgivings about the overall game difficulty I soon became extremely fond of it and spent days utterly engrossed by gunning down aliens and base management activities.

It is now a de facto part of my "all time favourite games" list.

Ironhide wrote:XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I'd heard about the earlier UFO/XCOM games but wasn't really bothered about them as they sounded a bit complicated and boring (I wasn't into PC gaming at the time) and I had no idea that a new one had been made.

Around a year after it had been released I spotted a review for it championing its accessibility for disabled gamers and having become a fan of turn based tactical RPGs over recent years decided to give it a go.

Despite initial misgivings about the overall game difficulty I soon became extremely fond of it and spent days utterly engrossed by gunning down aliens and base management activities.

It is now a de facto part of my "all time favourite games" list.

As a disabled gamer, have you tried things like voice commands and stuff? I have no idea how it all works, but was playing H1Z1 with a paraplegic the other week and he uses his chin and voice commands to play.

As Jawa said, it's a little harder these days to pick up a game without knowing anything about it so it's been a while since that happened but back when I first started gaming I rarely knew anything about the game until I turned it on for the first time.

The stand out one for me is Little Big Adventure 2, bought for about £10 in an old PC Big Box from PC World many years ago. The box looked colourful and quirky and that was what made it really stand out, had no idea what to expect from it but ended up absolutely loving it and it is undoubtedly one of my favourite ever video games.

Coconut Bob wrote:As Jawa said, it's a little harder these days to pick up a game without knowing anything about it so it's been a while since that happened but back when I first started gaming I rarely knew anything about the game until I turned it on for the first time.

The stand out one for me is Little Big Adventure 2, bought for about £10 in an old PC Big Box from PC World many years ago. The box looked colourful and quirky and that was what made it really stand out, had no idea what to expect from it but ended up absolutely loving it and it is undoubtedly one of my favourite ever video games.

I remember playing the demo of Little Big Adventure when I was younger and absolutely loved it, but I never picked up the full game. I've just found out it's on the Play Store, so I might pick it up and finally play through it.

Fire Emblem: Awakening.

I don't know how I didn't really realise this series was a thing as I was a massive fan of Advance Wars in the GBA days. I think maybe I heard it a few times but got it muddled up with Breath of Fire. I really only noticed it shortly before Awakening's UK release and it ended up becoming one of my favourite gaming series.

sawyerpip wrote:
Coconut Bob wrote:As Jawa said, it's a little harder these days to pick up a game without knowing anything about it so it's been a while since that happened but back when I first started gaming I rarely knew anything about the game until I turned it on for the first time.

The stand out one for me is Little Big Adventure 2, bought for about £10 in an old PC Big Box from PC World many years ago. The box looked colourful and quirky and that was what made it really stand out, had no idea what to expect from it but ended up absolutely loving it and it is undoubtedly one of my favourite ever video games.

I remember playing the demo of Little Big Adventure when I was younger and absolutely loved it, but I never picked up the full game. I've just found out it's on the Play Store, so I might pick it up and finally play through it.

The Play Store port is quite a good one, unfortunately the controls are fairly awkward. It's on Steam and GOG as well though.

The first was really good but the second was even better, I can't recommend it enough! I need to play it again really, it's been a few years.

The recent Hatsune Miku games (Project Diva and Future Tone - both on PS4) were a pleasant surprise I didn't know I was missing until I tried the free demo of Project Diva and was instantly hooked. It's charming, daft and very well-made beat action in a much-loved J-Pop universe. For ten years the entire series had passed me by. Seriously, they have annual live international concerts and everything, but I'd never heard of it at all.

As Jawa said, it is a bit much to take a gamble on a game that costs £40-£50 that you have never heard of. So the only ones that fit for me are some of the freebies on PS+. Rogue Legacy, Broforce and Letter Quest Remastered have both taken up huge amounts of my time, without me ever having heard of them before.

Last edited by Cumberdanes on Mon Jan 30, 2017 2:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Fortified Zone on Game Boy. I hadn't heard of this until playing a little of it on a friend's Game Boy when I was a kid. I didn't get very far in it back then but I downloaded it on 3DS and finished it a couple of years ago. It's a fun top down shooter, plays a bit like Metal Gear minus the stealth. In fact I played a bit of it again yesterday and I still love it. I wouldn't mind trying the sequel that only came out in Japan as I understand there is a translation patch for it now.

Moggy wrote:As Jawa said, it is a bit much to take a gamble on a game that costs £40-£50 that you have never heard of. So the only ones that fit for me are some of the freebies on PS+. Rogue Legacy, Broforce and Letter Quest Remastered have both taken up huge amounts of my time, without me ever having heard of them before.

Pretty much this. Although the overall content on PS+ hasn't been that great since the PS4 was included, there has been quite a number of really great indie titles that I'd not heard of being included. Rogue Legacy is tremendous, Letter Quest had me hooked for quite a while and the cream of the crop was Don't Starve which I absolutely love. All of them are perfect Vita games.

OpenTTD is probably the one for me, I was mostly a console gamer as a kid, I had a PC but it was never that capable of a machine so I didnt play much on it, mostly RTS and point and click. One thing I was looking forward to however was Rollercoaster Tycoon, I loved it, so when I went back to GAME (I lived about an hour from the nearest games shop so trips to buy games were always planned when I was a kid) I saw Transport Tycoon Deluxe on the shelf and recognised the Chris Sawyer name on it so I took a punt. Its one of my favourite games of all time, especially in its OpenTTD guise its everything I love in a video game and I will happily fire it up and start a new company any time.

Edit: Also want to mention Kick and Fennick, it was a PS+ freebie, I never heard of it but I had a great time with it. Moments like that make me really appreciate the value of schemes like PS+.

Toki Tori (PC)

Very reminiscent of the absolute classic Chuckle Egg with added puzzle elements, don't let its child friendly look fool you though as it's a very difficult game which will induce rage.

Atom Zombie Smasher (PC)

Looks terrible graphically (top down city view with dots representing zombies) but the game's atmosphere is brilliant as you go from city to city rescuing people and smashing zombies.

Gurumin. Found it preowned on PSP when browsing, thought it looked kind of cool, now one of my favourite games of all time. It's on 3DS and Steam now so everyone should check it out!

Tokobot. Another PSP game, this one I stumbled across a lot later - it's a wonderful little puzzle platformer. I still need to play through the PS2 version (which I picked up from the trading post here).

Rocket League. Like many, I played it because it was free on PS+ on release - and it is one of the best local multiplayer games out there!

Tokyo Jungle. First time I heard of it was when I played it at a friends. It's one of the best and most unique games on the PS3.

Ocarina of Time. I mean, this was early primary school, I hadn't heard of most games back then and could probably include most of the N64 games I had bought for me. But I distinctly remember my introduction to Zelda being going round a friend's house and him being at the fishing pond. It sold me on the game and I later got it for my birthday. One of the best presents ever!

Jak II. I was introduced to this at another friend's house where we played it like gta, just messing around in the city. Now the series is probably my favourite gaming series of all time.

Same vein as the post in the OP. I thought it was Galaxy Force 3 on the Sega Collection, but it was actually Thunder Force III and by god was it good. Wasn't the hardest on normal once I got the hang of it, but well worth a playthrough!

Games you love, which until you'd played them you had no idea existed?

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