Unique games

[Cogwork]

What is your favourite odd ball game. A game that doesn't strictly fit in to the usual genres of racing, FPS, RPG etc.

Also, if you have any ideas for an original type of game post it here.

For me I'd have to say Elite III: First Encounters.
It's a very none-linear exploration game, theres a plot to it but it's very loose and not important at all.
You start off with a cheap space ship and a small amount of money. You explore the galaxy following various careers:
Trading goods
Taxiing people and packages
Smuggling and piracy
Bounty hunting/Assasination
Conductiing military missions
Mining for various ores.

All these give you extra money so you can buy new ships or upgrade your current one.
The purpose of the original elite was to become the most dangerous pilot in the galaxy by pushing through the ranks from destroying other ships, from Harmless to Elite.

The game uses newtonian physics, combined with the standard scifi warp malarky and options to speed up your perception of time - because otherwise you would spend days travelling from planet to planet. What I like doing in the game is slingshoting around gas giant planets - gaining speed from their gravity alone.

The original version of First Encounters was for DOS and was very buggy, but now theres a patch allowing it to run under windows and eliminates most of the bugs. The game is now freeware too (I think).

 

[beedubaya]

God of Thunder, which was a rare adventure style game for DOS. A great game if you ever get a chance to play it. It is now abandonware.

 

[bla!!]

My fav would be black and white. You assume the role of god of a land and get a creature. Then based on your decisions and one ultimate choice you get to become a good or evil god.

You conquer other lands and aquire worshippers. Kinda fun, especiall when you just do dumb junk and let your creature eat entire villages.

 

[Elbatrop1]

God of Thunder, which was a rare adventure style game for DOS. A great game if you ever get a chance to play it. It is now abandonware.

That was a great game! I remember I got it for my 486, I thought the graphics and sound was great

I also liked Rags to Riches for the Commodore 64. You start out with like 5 bucks and a bag over your shoulder and walk along the street to pick up bottles and coins. Great game, but no real genre, I guess RPG/adventure

 

[2Crunk]

Darkened Skye for PC was pretty wierd. The story was ok and the graphics are good (kind of reminds me of Onimusha), but anyways you go thru this fantasy world filled with gargoyles and strange looking monsters trying to find SKITTLES! Yes, the little taste the rainbow skittles, but i liked it.

 

[Cogwork]

More oddball games.

Unirally/Uniracers for the SNES. Basically it is a racing game, but it differs because it's side scrolling - actually, sorta like racing mode in Sonic 3. To win you have to perform stunts - the more spectacular the stunt the bigger the burst of speed you get.

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Rock Star Ate My Hamster for the Amiga, C64, Spectrum. This review is from gamestyle.net by a guy called Jason Julier:

The game put you in the position of being able to create superstar or stadium rock band or whatever the hell you wanted. Then as the manager you had to guide them through the minefield of tours, recording, charts, bust ups and the tabloid press. Initially you were only given a set amount to spend on recruiting your star-studded line-up. I always preferred a three-piece outfit, laying it down and ripping up the charts with such memorable ditties as the Olivelawn song “you’re a **** and I’m gonna kill you” or “VGJ sux” all in good taste of course!

You had total control over the bandsÂ’ affairs, naming the band, songs, and albums, arranging tours (stadium or college?) and recording contracts while keeping an eye on your budget. Of course the aim was to start small, build up a following before hitting the big time and imploding in style!

Making the game even more unusual was the cartoon style (with bubble speech) that the coders included. There was a huge range of wannabe rock stars available for you to choose from, each with their own price and cartoon appearance based on a real life star of the time. For instance I played recently and created a 3 piece punk band called the Bum Fluff Merchants. The fun came from putting Lummie (Motorhead) in with Wacky Jacko (Michael Jackson) and Stiff Pitchard (Cliff Richard) and seeing what happened next. Wacko certainly lived up to his name and didnÂ’t last long in the band.

There were over fifty stars to choose from in the game (with their names altered of course) and these included Meathead, Hazzy Hazbeen, Michael Gorge, Tina Turnoff, Dross, Bill Collins, String, Dorrissey and Anne Smallpox. Of course naming dumb songs/albums and hearing your Spectrum play some wonderful tunes was half the enjoyment of it all. The other half was the situations that your band members would find themselves in or as per the norm make excessive demands on their manager. The tabloid press once in a while would appear with your band/member on the front page under a ridiculous headline. Still as they all say, bad publicity is great publicity!

The aim of the game was to achieve success and hit the top slot within a certain time limit and it wasnÂ’t easy. More often than not band members would die/leave/vanish one by one, leaving you with no one to manage or you would run out of money. At times it did feel as if it was on the rails as such, situations that you became familiar with over time and headlines giving it very much a random feel.

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Plok! on the SNES.

Nothing groundbreakingly new but it's quite strange. A platform game where you throw your legs and arms to kill enemies and solve puzzles. What I really like about this game is a couple of the tracks when you get past the first island of the game.

 

[2Crunk]

Unirally/Uniracers for the SNES. Basically it is a racing game, but it differs because it's side scrolling - actually, sorta like racing mode in Sonic 3. To win you have to perform stunts - the more spectacular the stunt the bigger the burst of speed you get.

Thats a fun game, i still play it on ZSNES!

 

[Cogwork]

Yeah it's great isn't it 2Crunk. I put a gameshark code in to freeze time so I could play on the stunt levels for ages.