Diamonds in the Rough

There are many factors that make games rare. The kind that make people pay big money to buy later: sleeper hits, different covers, small number of pressings, etc. Not all of these games deserve the prices they command on eBay. Just because there's phallic towers on early covers of "The Little Mermaid", doesn't mean it makes the movie any better after all.

But some of these games deserve more recognition than they got. So my question to you, my fellow goodjers, is this: what games do you feel are rare but deserve to be hunted out? That really shine and shouldn't be as hard to obtain as they are. Why do you feel this way?

The List:

NES:

  • Earthbound (Azure Chicken)
  • Mighty Bomb Jack (Bazarov)

Genesis:

  • Herzog Zwei (Unknown Soldier)

Playstation:

  • Xenogears (Trachalio)
  • Intelligent Qube (Trachalio, Asz)
  • Pop Poy (Trachalio, Aries)
  • Silent Hill (Trachalio, MaxShrek)
  • Return Fire (Aries)
  • Unholy War (Aries)
  • Team Buddies (Crouton)
  • Crash Bash (Crouton)
  • Rally Cross (MaxShrek)
  • Pandemonium (MaxShrek)
  • Die Hard Trilogy (MaxShrek)
  • Circuitbreakers (jonnypolite)
  • Fighting Force 1 (shihonage)
  • Devil Dice (Asz)
  • Einhänder (Mex)
  • Chrono Trigger (Souldaddy)
  • Bushido Blade (H. P. Lovesauce)

Dreamcast:

  • Ooga Booga (Crouton)
  • Wetrix+ (Asz)
  • Shenmu (dejanzi)

Playstation 2:

  • Rez (Trachalio)
  • Gitaroo-Man (Trachalio, necroyeti)
  • Frequency and Amplitude (Trachalio)
  • Mark of Kri (podunk)
  • Devil Dice (Asz)
  • Culdcept (Bazarov)
  • Shadow Hearts: Covenant (psu_13)

Xbox:

  • Phantom Dust (Sinastar)
  • Fire Blade (MaxShrek)
  • Evil Dead Regeneration (MaxShrek)
  • Psychonauts (Souldaddy)
  • Call of Cthulhu (Running Man)

Gamecube:

  • Chibi-Robo (Desram)

Xbox 360:

  • Viva Piñata (Souldaddy)
  • Chromehounds (Souldaddy)

Nintendo DS:

  • Advance Wars: Dual Strike (Zenzic)

PC:

  • Rocket Jockey (Robear, Mex)
  • Giants: Citizen Kabuto (Edwin)
  • Endless Ages (Danjo Olivaw)
  • Minesweeper (Mex)
  • Septerra Core (Vector)
  • Freespace 2 (Azure Chicken)
  • Ultima 9 (Souldaddy)
  • SiN (Souldaddy)
  • Sacrifice (Elysium)
  • Subspace (Elysium)
  • Call of Juarez (Certis)
  • Anachronox (Demiurge)
  • Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel (Nei)
  • Earth & Beyond (Bazarov)
  • Twilight 2000 (Folklore)
  • Sanitarium (Running Man)
  • Pool of Radiance 2 (Running Man)
  • Allegiance (H.P. Lovesauce)
  • Bad Day on the Midway (croaker)
  • Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist (croaker)
  • The Neverhood (croaker)
  • 3 Skulls of the Toltecs (croaker)
  • Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Wick)
  • King of Dragon Pass (H. P. Lovesauce)
  • Chaos Gate (H. P. Lovesauce)
  • Blade Runner (H. P. Lovesauce)

Board:

  • Dark Tower (computer_love)

Return Fire for PSOne, highly addictive, great two player game.
Definately agree with POY POY, many a hour spent beating up my friends

and I am not sure how rare it is now, but it didn't seem very popular at the time, Unholy War for PSOne, cool chess-like turn based strategy game.

What, you thought that the French was too much?

I love Gitaroo man.

Frankly, I want to see a remake that uses the Guitar Hero controller.

wordsmythe wrote:

What, you thought that the French was too much?

Yeah. In hindsight I realized that some people would assume the whole post was en français so I changed it.

Phantom Dust would get my vote.

Rocket Jockey.

Edit - you know what just occured to me? Rocket Jockey on the Wii. omfg

Wait, was Rocket Jockey the one with the soundtrack by Dick Dale?

You fly around and rip other riders off their cycles, and tie them to posts?

That game was awesome.

Good topic, Trachalio.

There was an excellent real-time strategy game for the PS1 called Team Buddies. Psygnosis of Lemmings fame developed it. Wonderful multiplayer gameplay, and had a great sense of humor that was equally violent and British.

Another is Ooga Booga for the Dreamcast. It's one of my all-time favorite multiplayer games. One of my friends got a Dreamcast only to play this game.

Edit - 1 more.. Crash Bash for the PS1. Excellent party game.

Rally Cross for PSX on multi-player, for its time, was awesome! Suicide Races and watching the video replay kept me and my brother glued for hours.
Silent Hill was the first videogame to truly disturb me- those baby demons.
Fireblade for the XBox/PS2 was really fun, even with the simple graphics.
Evil Dead Regeneration for XBox/PS2 was, for a budget title, completely awesome and addictive.
Pandemonium for the PSX was simple but very fun.

Lastly, I'm not sure if this counts, but PSX - Die Hard Trilogy (the one based on the movies, not the horrible Viva Las Vegas) was hands-down the most fun and ridiculous game on the PSX, with a driving game, a light-gun game, and a over-the-shoulder shooter game. Almost everything could be shot, destroyed, damaged, etc.. Going into the airplane terminal in Die Hard 2, shooting out the ceiling panels one at a time, and then shooting the water nozzles off, flooding the floor? This is a game that had to me made by hard-core gamers.

Circuit Breakers, PS1. I love this game, love smashing into people and running them off the tracks. But don't bother with single player, only multi.

p.s. i don't think this is necessarily rare, just overlooked, so maybe it doesn't really fit into this thread. But you should still own it.

Gaints: Citizen Kabuto.

You may close the thread now.

Does Mark of Kri for PS2 count as rare and underappreciated?

Yes it does. But we are talking about rough games. Mark of Kri was in excellent shape.

Edwin wrote:

Yes it does. But we are talking about rough games. Mark of Kri was in excellent shape.

No, it still counts. Diamonds in the Rough just means games that didn't get their due exposure and now are hard to find because of it is all

Edwin wrote:

Gaints: Citizen Kabuto.

You may close the thread now.

Giants received more exposure than it deserved with the typical slew of mag ads and especially because of the purple nurple thing. It also is not hard to find.

Fighting Force 1 for PS1 and PC. The last great hotseat co-op beat-em-up.

I wish I could get it to work on XP

Endless Ages for the PC.

Edwin wrote:

Gaints: Citizen Kabuto.

You may close the thread now.

I've actually been looking for this one on PC but can't find a repudible dealer that has it.

Beyond Good and Evil (why has no one suggested this yet?)

dhelor wrote:

Beyond Good and Evil (why has no one suggested this yet?)

Possibly because it's not all that "rare"? It's fairly easy to come across in the used section of any game store.

That isn't to say it's not an excellent game. I loved every minute I played of it and keep meaning to pick up a copy so I can play through it again.

I just want to show some more love for Rocket Jockey. I thought I was the only one who played that. What an awesome game.

Minesweeper.

Septerra Core for the PC. Very good turn-based RPG done by an American company that worked for free to get it made and published. Excellent plot set in a very interesting universe.

Trachalio wrote:
dhelor wrote:

Beyond Good and Evil (why has no one suggested this yet?)

Possibly because it's not all that "rare"? It's fairly easy to come across in the used section of any game store.

Well... it took me quite a while to find the Gamecube version. But yeah, I did see a lot of PS2 versions while looking for my beloved GC copy. So, I concede your point (and you're lucky, I don't concede very often - consider yourself blessed :P).

Wait, was Rocket Jockey the one with the soundtrack by Dick Dale?

You fly around and rip other riders off their cycles, and tie them to post

Yeah, that was it. It was rough in the sense that you got the basic functionality, a set number of tracks and arenas, and they left it at that. I mean....Just imagine the MP in that game. It would be awesome! Use the nunchuck for movement and speed and leaning, point the Wiimote for harpooning...Oh, it would rock!

I still think Wetrix+ for Dreamcast is one of the greatest puzzle games devised, it really is time for an XBLA version! Devil Dice for PS1 and it's sequel, Bombastic for PS2 are also some of the best puzzle games around. Bombastic in particular is awesome as it lets you use alternate rules found in the earlier two games of the series. Again, another puzzle game: Intelligent Qube for the PS1 was a big reason I wanted the original Playstation. The problem? by the time I got a Playstation (around late 98') Intelligent Qube was impossible to find. To this day I don't own a copy of it, though I did get incredibly lucky and find it's Japanese sequel IQ: Final floating around a local trade-shop for only $15!

I'm going to preemptively suggest Chibi-Robo as I can imagine it will be impossible to find pretty soon.

Einhander.

Asz: I've got both Devil Dice and Bombastic. Love 'em both to bits!

Mex: I rented Einhänder when it first came out, loved it, and kept putting off purchasing it. Now it's utterly impossible to find at a decent price

Freespace 2. I mean, come ON. Can you actually find this game for <$70 used?

Same with some of the better SNES titles.. Earthbound, couple of others that slip my mind.

Vector wrote:

Septerra Core for the PC. Very good turn-based RPG done by an American company that worked for free to get it made and published. Excellent plot set in a very interesting universe.

They worked for free? Wow. I have a copy of this game that I never really got into.. and the t-shirt.