Alternate title: what’s your favorite obscure jank?
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Easy answer is E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy.
It’s a janky mess built on the source engine. The plot is downright incomprehensible. Gameplay mechanics aren’t properly taught to the player, leaving you to work out how everything works (my legs are ok). The maps vary massively in terms of quality (the tutorial area for example has an optional side path that is just an incredibly long empty corridor that takes, like, twice as long to cross than the path you’re railroaded towards to reach the same destination). It’s basically an unlicensed WH40K game so it’s got my dislike of Warhammer to work against to win me over.
Despite this, I have a huge soft spot for the game. It’s one of the comfort games I boot up and play when I’m sick and sad.
best 99 cents I ever spent
God it’s such a terrible game I love it and will play it again soon.
Many of my favorite games are like this lmao
I still have a spare copy of that game if anyone wants it.
There was a short steam sale back in the day where a four-pack was about two dollars, so I bought enough for every steam friend I had in the hope that somebody would enjoy it enough to give co-op a go (alas :<)
I love that game! I accidentally killed myself so many times learning how to play it.
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
gameplay is excellent, probably still the best fps/rpg hybrid, especially if you love kicking enemies off of/into things, but the story is extremely generic
god i loved that game. did you do the pvp servers when it first came out? so much fun
hell yeah, it was amazing, but so short lived
Dwarf Fortress, I’d recommend it but only to someone I know had some interest, especially if they want to play the ascii version. Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead would be another. They’re pretty hardcore, Aurora 4x and Dominions would also be hard to get people into unless they had some interest
dominions is great. I’ve been tempted to write a MA Asphodel AAR about a carrion dragon making the world into its grave, and what a lively grave!
I think Dwarf Fortress’s Steam release, for all its issues, has made it a lot more accessible to a casual audience, especially in the wake of the great success of games like Rimworld. That said, it’s still quite an undertaking to pick up and learn. Cataclysm has definitely always been a hard sell to others, though. Usually, their interest wanes as soon as they look up a screenshot. On the rare occasions that I’ve convinced someone to boot it up, they’ve just walked into the sight range of a mi-go or something and immediately died and lost interest. There’s so much to talk about when it comes to both of them, but no one to talk about them with :(
Are archery militias fully-working again in DF? I think that was going to be part of the adventure mode patch changes, but don’t remember the specifics.
If you mean the thing about them refusing to pick up ammo, yeah, it was fixed a bit ago. They can still be a little fiddly, but it isn’t a nightmare getting an archery squad working like it was before.
Probably Everquest. It set the tone for what mmoprgs were to become but now it’s nothing more than an antiquated time sink.
To that end, Ultima Online for me. Absolutely blew me away as a child, but it’s impossible to recommend now.
Bank guards vendor buy
Kal Vas Flam
The Movies (2004) is an incredible concept, with a lot of jank
I remember making movies using this game lol
The concept is very cool, of making movies over the years from 1900 to 2010, but it can get old quick
The changes in clothing, music, scenery, sets, advancing tech, etc. make up for it, I think
The issue is a lack of balance, really. It’s too easy to level up every research project and get CGI by 1985 for example. The lot your studio is placed on has a maximum size and can’t ever get bigger, while many of the sets are huge - requiring you to constantly demolish them and build new ones. The pre-made movies for lazy players (via the scriptwriting offices) are fairly repetitive, and for example in the early years will keep pushing movies made on the most basic stage on you (while keeping the freshness rating abysmal). It’s glacially slow to level up relationships between actors, and since you have only a few of them, you are either hitting a cliff by 1970 once the initial ones retire, or have a bunch of lower quality actors that never reach the top of the charts the game makes you compete with other studios at. The press mechanic requires you to randomly drag paparazzi from the entrance of the studio to the actors/directors, making leveling it up a hassle, etc.
Mods are fairly poor at fixing those issues. But maybe the issue is one of my skill.
Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. The combat is absolutely fantastic, I’ve tried Mordhau but its just not the same. Unfortunately its almost entirely dead, there’s only one server left in the US and it’s only populated in the evenings (not even every night). It’s also full of chuds, the chat is literally toxic waste.
Have tried Chiv2?
Mordhau is basically a chanboard in chat, not worth the learning curve
Chivalry 2 may be the best sequel I’ve played in a decade. Took nothing good away, added more good.
Fallen London. Some of the best writing in any game, DEEP LORE, with the greatest secret ending I’ve ever played all in a F2P browser game. But it’s a real time investment
This is the game that launched Sunless Seas and Sunless Skies if you’ve played those
I’ve heard about this game because of a certain plotline that ruins the game apparently. Kinda wanna try it to see that plotline
You destroy your character slowly and completely in a process the game repeatedly warns you will not at all be worth it. It’s so great. You have to go NORTH
Have you done it? Don’t want any spoilers, but do you know if it’s actually not worth doing? I’m okay with a bad ending, just not a BAD ending if you know what I mean
I have done it. Whether it’s worth it is kind of hard to say. The lore you get is not worth the sacrifice, although it is cool (this is not a spoiler, since the game repeatedly tells you as much). But as an experience it was very fulfilling in its own way.
I had an endgame character that I had played for like three years before he went NORTH. I think the more attached you are the harder and more fulfilling the storyline is.
Are you able to play almost the whole game without going into it? The way you describe it, it sounds like I can still experience most of the game before going north and ruining everything.
Yep. It’s completely optional thing
World of Tanks.
The premise is 15v15 tank battles, simple enough. You must penetrate the enemies’ armour to inflict damage. Easy.
The core issue is that each tank can carry regular shells and shells that do the same damage and just simply have higher nominal penetration, but cost more in-game currency.
Like how the fuck does that make sense.
Kileak: The DNA Imperative (a PS1 game i’ve played emulated on DuckStation)
its a real-time FPS dungeon crawler where you in a mech (power armor? kinda hard to tell, but i think its a small mech more than a armor suit) explore a tunnel complex full of cybernetic combat drones.
the gameplay is kinda wack, you have to shoot like 30 or 40 shots (in single shot with the base weapon, a lot of rapid button mashing if you want to survive) at basically every enemy to kill them, the other weapons are super hard to find ammo for, and the tank controls in first person are pretty wild (in a fun way. you can move diagonally super fast for some reason. controls remind me of armored core 2), but it has such a sense of atmosphere its like one of those haunted PS1 videogames. Its basically like a slower paced Doom clone with more simplistic level architecture, most levels are linear corridors with some 90 degree turns and 4x4 and 6x6 rooms spread around. theres no jump or crouch or anything, just forward, back, strafe buttons with either L1/2 or R1/2 buttons, and you can’t look up or down except by holding R1 and L1 to look up and R2 and L2 to look down at pre-defined angles. it doesnt matter since the game has aim assist, the crosshair moves to lock onto the enemy nearest the center/closest to you (not sure which).
Dungeons Keeper 2, Heroes of Might and Magic III, medieval 2 Total war and Sid Meiet’s Pirates!
I love them, but they’re too old and I’m sure there’s a modern version somewhere that’s better. Also you won’t get why theyre fantastic unless you were there when they came out. All games that scratch an itch no other game does.
I really enjoyed DK2 and Sid Meier’s Pirates, but I think last time I tried to get either to run on my system they just wouldn’t run. I’d love to give 'em a go again.
Don’t tell anyone, but someone I know loved Dungeon Keeper to such an extent they walked out of the local mall with a copy of Dungeon Keeper 2 under their shirt.
Crazy I know. Keep in mind, this may have occurred during the annual “Crazy Dayz” event where they just put bins of crap out at 75% off. Crazy I tells ya.
Will add Sid Meier’s Railroads! Great game but GameByro as an engine really holds the game back. Assuming Pirates has the same issues
there is no modern version of m2tw, just modern mods!
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Yeah the modding community has made some fantastic things for that game. It’s huge. I need to play it again soon
I have a huge soft spot for Capcom’s Strider (Arcade, 1989) to the point that I have an actual PCB. Wildly ambitious in terms of design and worldbuilding…and incredibly janky. Also, it has a co-opted soviet council turn into a giant mecha-centipede wielding a hammer and sickle. Notably influential within Capcom’s own devteams, having characters who influenced Street Fighter II’s Chun-Li and Mega Man X’s Vile.
Also fitting the bill more directly, we have Wolfteam’s Earnest Evans (Sega Mega Drive/Mega CD, 1991). A lot of 16 bit games successfully played with segmented characters for an early form of skeletal animation - like a lot of well respected classics like Alien Soldier and Contra: Hard Corps - but Wolfteam tried to take things a step further with a entire platformer where the main character has sophisticated ragdoll physics. The end result isn’t very playable, but it’s pretty impressive for a platform that can’t do hardware rotation effects. Also one of the all-time funniest speedruns imo.
Ernest movin’ like a treasure boss
That’s ridiculous that they tried to get rag doll physics working on 16 but lots of respect for the attempt.
I’m definitely going to emulate strider at some point for the mecha council
Piranha Bytes Gothic and Gothic 2 are some of the best RPGs ever produced in my view. The atmosphere, the sense of progression and danger, the way every single item and enemy is curated and placed in the world with care and thought, the way the game doesn’t hold your hand and characters actually behave like human beings - including the player. All wonderful.
Unfortunately, the graphics were ugly as shit for 2001-02 and the combat is unbelievably janky. A large part of the game’s difficulty curve comes from how fiddly and frustrating the combat is. So, it is really hard to recommend.
Gothic won me over when I went into someone’s house looking for loot and they beat the shit out of me and took all my stuff. Also, the terrible voice acting is so charming.
The gothic remaster should be coming out eventually, I think it’s in dev hell currently.
Gothic 1 and 2 as a remaster with all the QoL stuff added would honestly be amazing. Didn’t know they were planning on even do a remaster.
The demo is still on steam last I checked. It’s a short vertical slice of the intro.
I just checked and I don’t see it on their page. But holy shit does it look good! Gonna wishlist it and hope for the best. I have a few games on my list that I’m hopeful for them getting out of dev hell anyway. Looking at you, Memory of a Broken Dimension.
Came here to post this. I agree that they are some of the best RPGs of all time.
I think the graphics still hold up because they fit the atmosphere so well. The only reason why it’s hard to recommend is the combat system.
Have you played Risen 1 from the same devs? It’s probably my favourite game of all time. Also, I’ve heard that “The Chronicles Of Myrtana: Archolos” mod is great.
Archolos is very good - it adds a lot while sticking close to the OG Gothic experience. My biggest objection to it is that as of right now it is only available with Polish voices, and I miss the crappy EN voice acting of the originals :( but that’s hardly fair given the amount of work that went into it. If you have the time, and love Gothic 1-2, you should definitely give it a shot.
I played Risen 1 and 2 a long time ago and recall them scratching some of the same itch, albeit not quite as good. Just saw there was a third entry which I never played
Cuphead
It is infuriating and I wouldn’t wish the frustration on anyone
i’m not afraid to recommend jank.
that said, i struggle to convince people to play The Longing, a game where you’re creature that shuffles slowly through a system of caves while you wait for 400 real world days for your dad to wake up.
honkai impact, which i’ve been playing for a year now bc my wife is a big mihoyo fan and i liked it best out of their three offerings. a lot of the older stuff is very jank/rough, it’s a gacha game so it comes off with that usual baggage, and the general art direction is even more male-gazey than genshin. but the visuals/flow of the combat with modern characters is great, and there’s clearly a lot of effort put into the choreography and animations that make actually playing the game with the 3-woman teams just really fun.
is even more male-gazey than genshin
genshin is the best mihoyo can do when it comes to reigning in their objectifiying horniness. can’t expect much from a company founded by a bunch of awkward chinese nerds.
a lot of people in the fanbase are way too willing to turn a blind eye to it since half of it is composed of the old 
booba honkers otakus old guard and the other half are the genshin fandom gays.
