The Best Games You've Never Played

well I thought i would through my two sense in.... Angband anyone? it is based off the dungeon Lord of the Rings, it uses the random genrated approach as well, and it has developed many spin offs, give it a shot. Another that should be mentioned is homeword, probably one of the best rts, at least one of the hardest.

I've already stated on here that I bought BG&E and Torment based on their reputation, but I didn't get into either.

BG&E definitely had a childish, console feel to it. Couldn't take it seriously...

Torment *did* have the depth and the characterisation (and wit) it was famed for, but I couldn't get over the interface or the graphics. Probably a sad indictment of me/the state of modern gaming, but nevertheless it's the truth.

But some of the other games look worth investigating.

Point of Order - I paid £15 for a weathered copy of Torment on Ebay - the more polished copies generally traded for £25 - hardly common and available.

Dear Joe,

U really should play knight lore, Batman and gunfright. All of them from MSX and amiga. I know knight lore have a remake for PC. You are a lycantrophe (werewolf) seekin a cure for ur "disease". Each time the night draw, u become a werewolf.. Very interesting iso game. Quite old too 1984

i'll be honest joe, there's something about your writing style i just don't like. not quite sure what it is....(i think your words read a little like you just came out of uni and are learning professional writing/still have a hint of college humour...maybe i just thought bit-tech was a more intellectual read, this is all beside the point and you're writing for bit-tech so yeh carry on, you can only get better i'm sure, and this is of course my opinion and can be largely ignored....)....ANYWAYS, this is a great article. Definately will be checking out all these games. I've played vampire and thought it was great fun, play it thru once as any clan, then again as malkavian for shits n giggles! but yes, good article. i applaud you.

though i would just mention that i decided to replay the neverhood, and it was bliss, on vista 64bit it ran flawlessly, and being only 5mb installed only took a couple of seconds to install and had virtually no load times,

dont flame against me, but i love the halo series, i love the story and the gameplay.
to me they are #1

The Neverhood; I played that a few years ago in middle school, one of the teachers had it on a computer. Loved it.

Originally Posted by sotu1
i'll be honest joe, there's something about your writing style i just don't like. not quite sure what it is....(i think your words read a little like you just came out of uni and are learning professional writing/still have a hint of college humour...maybe i just thought bit-tech was a more intellectual read, this is all beside the point and you're writing for bit-tech so yeh carry on, you can only get better i'm sure, and this is of course my opinion and can be largely ignored....)....ANYWAYS, this is a great article. Definately will be checking out all these games. I've played vampire and thought it was great fun, play it thru once as any clan, then again as malkavian for shits n giggles! but yes, good article. i applaud you.

Sorry to hear that and, although I have written professionally and freelance for a number of years previously, it may just be my writing style as a whole. Either way, you won't be ignored and I've written very seriously about games in the past, doing linguistic analysis', artistic breakdowns etc, but this is the style I naturally return to and am most comfortable in. Either way, I'm always open to advice and feedback, so feel free to send me an email and we can discuss it all in more depth if you like.

Originally Posted by Kipman725
beneth a steel sky is the best point and click game for me :D
I still think morowind is unapriciated it came out at the same time as NVWN but NVWN got most of the critical aclaim... to me morrowind is far more involving and much less repetative.

Beneath A Steel Sky YES! And somone else mentioned MDK! Totally.

However. I have Neverhood. The game isn't that great, even for a "no one ever played". I don't think that makes it any better. You do realize that most of these games were reviewed by readers/critics and at the time it was cool looking but the game is pretty "meh" when compared to other interactive adventuring games. Don't believe me. Go download the demo I am sure the website is still up lol.

Arx Fatalis, Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines, and condemned criminal origns are like neverhood. They are really mediocre. They get boring, repetitive. I wish you could rent PC games lol.

...I believe the best games on that list that truly are great but plus no one ever played were Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil, Planescape Torment. Tons of people played Loom and still do the following for lucas arts games is HUGE. So I wouldn't really put it on the list. More people want to hack their DS's or PSP's or whatever to play the whole lucas arts line up. But hey if looms on there why not The Dig?

A few other games I think a lot of people missed out on is the whole Broken Sword series, Syberia Series, and The Longest Journey . Poor adventure games.....with their well thought out dialog, characters, and stories like novels or good spy thrillers. Anyone who has played these games really can understand why some folks say that Mass Effect shouldn't be so easily freaking heralded for it's great "dialog".

Oh, oh and lastly. I guess maybe like Loom it shouldn't really count; for there is a huge following. The fallout games don't get much love either.

But most definitely one of the gems that got left behind like Wing Commander when Tie Fighter came out (srsly). Is Beneath A Steel Sky. Great stuff. Great box art/cover to :P

Great article! Need more!

I think the Fallout games are massively appreciated - especially with Beth on board for FO3.

As for Loom, it got on the list because its unusual, inventive and clever, plus a great game to play - but I think it's eclipsed out but other Lucasarts games. People (like me) hacked their DSs and PSPs for Sam and Max, Monkey Island, Broken Sword and Day of The Tentacle. Flight of the Amazon Queen, The Dig, Full Throttle, Simon the Sorceror and Loom were secondary concerns.

It was admittedly a hard choice between The Dig and Loom, but Loom won in the end. It may not be as long and character-driven, but it [i]feels[/i[ more epic at the end and has a lot of inventiveness behind it. A lot of people are attracted to The Dig because it was presented by Spielberg (and is the remnant of a film he couldn't get funding for), but Loom is largely forgotten about because of the awkward nature of the interface.

Longest Journey was a game myself and Andy toyed with putting on the list but, in the end, we decided that like Psychonauts, it has heroes elsewhere to champion its cause. I can't authoritatively speak on it either as I never finished it because of the stupid stealth bits.

Originally Posted by CardJoe

Longest Journey was a game myself and Andy toyed with putting on the list but, in the end, we decided that like Psychonauts, it has heroes elsewhere to champion its cause. I can't authoritatively speak on it either as I never finished it because of the stupid stealth bits.

The Longest Journey or the sequel Dreamfall?

I started to play dreamfall and found it tedious.

KKND? Awesome game :)

Originally Posted by Gunblade
The Longest Journey or the sequel Dreamfall?

Dreamfall.

KKND - a game I remember there being a big hubbub about at the time because of the title, but I think MDK grabbed my attention more using the same premise :P

Originally Posted by CardJoe
Dreamfall.

Yeah the stealth and fighting sections were a bit pants, I persisted and enjoyed the rest of it immensely though. Love the robot bear(?) so much. :o

Originally Posted by CardJoe
Dreamfall.

Yeah, thats what I thought. The Longest Journey is a much better game. The sequel was a huge let down with the fighting bits and what not. If you ever get the chance The Longest Journey is still a good game the graphics even hold up like Deus Ex does.

I player pretty much a full year Nethack in the school. It was a booring year and after watching letters move around the screen for so long I felt disgustingly nerd. I guess it beats flash-games on long-time use..

Joe you suprised me. I was expecting you to refer to the Loom reference in the Scumm Bar in the original Monkey Island.

Great list, looks like I might have to go shopping soon :)

Well that article rang true, only this morning I downloaded and replayed Beyond Good and Evil from Metaboli (legal :) ) Then I log on and read this article....weird

to the best games no one ever played list i'd like to add a non-pc related game

Tetris Attack

http://www.vgmuseum.com/scans/gb/carts/tetrisattack_cart.jpg

I've played Beyond: Good & Evil, just after It came out IIRC.

Definitely some great gems on there. I was inspired enough to go out and download a copy of The Neverhood and man.... amazing. I strongly suggest everyone go locate a copy! Now to get it to run smoothly in Windows Vista...

Loving Beyond Good and Evil so far, only problem I have with it is the controls/interface/menu are a bit clunky compared to other PC games, it's fine for a console game but they didn't bother to update it for the PC. A minor annoyance though, the other problem is it doesn't like dual cores, and alt tabbing out to set the CPU affinity makes a cm strip above and below the game window to constantly flash between the black strip of the game and my desktop. This one is a bit more annoying as it's quite distracting.

Can you not create a boundary which runs the game with the CPU aff. preset so that you don't have to alt-tab out?

I cant believe only Joe has mentioned Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy the whole control system and mental element makes it superbly atmospheric and the central duality of playing opposing characters at the same time is very original, plus the story is great. And the Dig Ive been trying to find a copy of that for years. Another game I realy like is Fragile Allegiance a strategy game based on asteroid mining with inter species diplomacy, trade and war thrown in for good measure.