What is your favorite unknown game?

[Methpoodle]

I never thought Jagged alliance 2 got the attention it deserved. I loved that game as a kid.
Every character was memorable and had interesting quirks. Some mercs had conflicts and refused to work with certain others.
The story was interesting and felt open. The small cut scenes broke up the game with some humor. I always laughed watching queen Deidranna beat the shit out of Elliot.
The turned based combat was some of the best in any game to date. Combat was tactical. Cover and accuracy felt great.
There was a shit ton of customization and weapon choice. Weapons felt different and the various calibers really performed different. (the whole hollow point vs FMJ was well implemented)
On top of that, there were hundreds of great mods to extend play time. I must have lost thousands of hours of my life in Arulco.

[Hard Carved Winter]

Imagine my shock when I realize I'd missed out on such a celebrated title when my PC gaming habit was in its infancy. I simply had to have it. Fortunately, GOG's winter sale afforded me the chance. So far, it lives up to its reputation. As long as one can admire the presentation and trappings of a 90s era action movie, it proves to be a unique strategic romp.

[Gluesponge]

My "unknown" game would have to be Space Empires IV. (I started with Space Empires 3). It's a 4x game in the traditional sense, but it does away with most of the details so that you can do military and defenses.

I have loved the 4x genre since my days playing Stellar Empires on my Atari 8 bit (IIRC, I think that was the name of it. Mostly text, but it was a blast.)

[TakahiroSama]

NaissanceE. Played it a few years ago and it's a kind of walking sim with some light puzzles. There's not much in terms of gameplay but I really liked the art style. And it's free now on steam ^^

[bogusdata]

Star Control II (1992)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Control_II

Space exploration, combat and diplomacy, with a light-hearted, zanny vibe (still managed some real pathos from time to time). Quite a large map, lots of alien races to meet, tech to discover and secrets. Fully voice acted (hilariously). You can configure your main ship in many different ways, plus build a fleet of alien ships as you gained allies. You basically had to keep an IRL captain's log to keep track of your discoveries. The combat was simplistic, but had some nuances to it. The best parts were exploring, meeting/interacting with new races and the secrets/story.

The fans have managed to keep the code alive (and free) with the blessings of the original creators under the project name The Ur-Quan Masters, can be found here:

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

By the by, if you decide to try this game (and you should), I found a good solution for keeping track of your travels. The in-game map gives you very little info other than co-ords and there are lots of star systems and info to track. Therefore, annotate a high resolution image file of the star map (using MS Paint or similar), zooming in gives you plenty of room to make notes, circle particular stars, etc [attached & links below for convenience - note that the map with more details has game-ruining SPOILERS] .

Spoiler free map:
https://imgur.com/a/IUP3360

Better map but has totally game-ruining SPOILERS = for tourist mode:
https://imgur.com/a/Obmmugj

[InternetNobody]

Easily my favorite unknown game (Series) is "Killing Floor". The first one was only released on steam, and it is truly a hidden gem. Fortunately, with the release of Killing Floor 2, the series has gained a bit more popularity due to it's release on consoles, plus it being free with ps+ at one point. It's basically like left for dead, but imo better. No campaign but each boss has it's own style and personality, there's tons of classes and each class has it's own set of weapons. There is also a bunch of different characters you can play as and earn cosmetics for. Yes, I say earn and that is because KF2 actually lets you unlock things without having to pay extra. It does have micro-transactions but all they get you are emotes and skins. Not really anything you can't unlock for free. I encourage anyone who liked left for dead to check this game out.

[Necromancerx69]

Darkwood, not many people talk about it and I consider it a really good top down horror survival game.
It has interesting npc's (Wolfman is my favorite of the bunch), the story is quite interesting, I love the art stile of the game, it's just awesome.
If you love horror games I can't recommend this enough.

[Astraea]

I find there's almost no 'uknown' games since everyone started to come together on the internet. You name it and there's a fanclub somewhere. To highlight how much of an impact the internet has had on gaming communities: Diablo 1 and Fallout 1 released around the same time period, but most people only knew Diablo. In that exact time period however, FF VII released as well, and while still an obscure game compared what mainstream used to play, it had a lot of fans already. Let's move to an even larger title in the same time period that could be considered mainstream; 'Quake II' now this had proper exposure among almost all gamers (and for good reason), it was played by so many people.
Fast forward to where we are now, all these titles mentioned above are known by pretty much all gamers and i'd dare say some of the more obscure titles have gathered many more fans than Quake 2 did.

[fenrif]

My "unknown" game would have to be Space Empires IV. (I started with Space Empires 3). It's a 4x game in the traditional sense, but it does away with most of the details so that you can do military and defenses.

I have loved the 4x genre since my days playing Stellar Empires on my Atari 8 bit (IIRC, I think that was the name of it. Mostly text, but it was a blast.)

Love me some Space Empires! I started playing back on 2 or 3. Me and a mate would stay up for entire weekends playing turn based hotseat games.

Have you ever played the Dominions series? If you like Space Empires I reckong you'd enjoy it. It's a fantasy 4x where you control a pretender god fighting other dieties for the throne to be the one all powerfull god. You can customise your god and have anything from a pile of bones that constantly raises the dead unleashing zombie hordes to a mighty dragon skilled in creating magic weapons. There are also a slew of difference civilisations to lead. Regular humans with wizards and knights, lizardmen empires, mermen that live in the ocean depths, fire demons that scorch the ground around their feet, etc.

[Gluesponge]

I played Dominions 3, iirc. I bought it from MatrixGames, IIRC. Wonderful game. Have you tried the latest? (I saw it on Steam recently.) I need to get my install CD back out and play it again.

[Sabre]

Oh boy I have a bunch:

The 2006 version of Prey. It doesn't have any relation to the more popular 2017 version except that they're both first-person shooters. It's a pretty gory game. Your character is abducted from a Native American Reservation by these weird aliens and onto their planet sized ship where humans are...processed into meat. The aesthetics are pretty unique in that the entire place is a weird and unnerving mishmash of organic and mechanical technology and many of the weapons are their own symbiotic organisms that you pick up and use. It also messes a lot with gravity and portals and can be pretty disorienting when you're suddenly fighting on the ceiling before jumping through a portal and now "down" is the left wall or something. Plays a lot like a slightly faster paced version of Doom 3. Similar vibe too.

Sunrider: Liberation Day which is an anime-style hexagonal strategy game. You control a handful mechs and your main ship on a 2D grid against enemy mechs/cruisers. It has a pretty interesting backstory in that your carrier and mech compliment are the sole fighting force left after a surprise invasion by a much bigger empire destroyed your entire planet and you're on a crusade of revenge to try and take down as many of them as possible. It was hard but fun and desperately needs a sequel to finish the story.

Also, Project Sylpheed for the Xbox360 was a really great game that got overlooked. It's another sci-fi space game that you play from the perspective of a fighter pilot as part of the Federation in a galactic civil war against an alliance of colonies. It's a fast-paced space fighter game kind of like a more free-style Star Fox or a space version of Hawx. You have to take on elite pilots, massive battleships and atmospheric defense platforms as you go throughout the galaxy fighting back against the colonial confederation. Your best friend was from the colonies and ended up joining them when the war broke out so you run into him throughout the game. I don't think there was anything I didn't like about it. I loved the story/characters and the rivalry/romance between them, the fast-paced gameplay, the awesome visuals (for the time) and the variety of weapons you could customize your ship with.

Cold Fear is one that I don't think got enough attention. It's a 3rd person survival horror game very much in the spirit of the early Resident Evil series. It was released in the early 2000s and has the same graphics as Resident Evil 2 or 3 and in my opinion is just as fun. The story is that The Coast Guard suddenly receives a distress signal from a Russian whaling ship in the middle of a fierce storm off the Arctic coast. When you get aboard you find out the horror of what really happened on the ship and what's still on board with you. It has a unique mechanic of being on a storm-tossed ship so when you're on deck the ship rocks back and forth making it a lot harder to aim at times. Waves will also wash over part of the ship and they can knock you or your enemies over the side. If you liked the early RE games you like this one.

Long Live the Queen is a umm...simulator? Visual Novel? Choose your own adventure? It's an anime-style indie game where you play as a princess who just inherited the kingdom from her recently deceased father and you have to try not to die/run it into the ground which is a lot harder than it sounds. In fact you'll probably die. A lot. You basically have to decide what skills you want to put your points into and then proceed with the story. Each chapter you run into challenges that you'll need a certain level of skill to resolve and if you don't it might kill you (though it might not). Depending on your decisions and whether you pass or fail the different challenges you proceed onto the next stage of the game until you reach the end and survive to your coronation.

Sudden Strike 4 is a WW2 strategy game. It's basically Company of Heroes 2. Almost an exact clone with slightly different style of gameplay and different campaigns/missions. Plenty of DLC for extra missions.

I could go on but I'm getting tired of typing and you're probably getting tired of reading. Definitely check the games above out if they sound like something you'd be interested in!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prey_(2006_video_game)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Sylpheed

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3...tains_Edition/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/15270/Cold_Fear/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2...ive_The_Queen/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3...dden_Strike_4/

[James27]

There's a game I bought a few months ago - Nuclear Dawn. It's a FPS/RTS hybrid where one player on each plays the role of commander, placing structures, giving orders etc. Only their units are the other players on the team. It works extremely well. The first time I played it I got in to a pretty populated server and had an absolute blast. Unfortunately, every other time I've been on I've only seen 2 - 3 other people online. It's a real shame, because it's unique and it works so well, but barely anyone plays it.

[aileron]

I don't know if this is unknown enough or not but it's called Freedom Force vs The Third Reich. You can basically create your own superheroes and battle against others. I played it a long time ago at a LAN party with friends, yeah, old school, but I believe there was a way to play online too. More recently I bought it on a Steam sale but the online/multiplayer didn't work. Not sure if the company/servers are gone or what. Anyhoo:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free..._the_3rd_Reich

[Hambone]

Madden 19 is my favorite obscure game

[Darth Garak]

Steambot Chronicles was a PS2 game I had found at my local Gamestop some 10+ years ago and fell in love with it.

You have a mech you can pilot and run around in, can play around 6 different musical instruments with a band and earn money, go hunting for fossils to fill a museum. The music in the game has still stuck with me to this day and I went out of my way a couple of years ago to track down a copy of it, and had to pay a pretty penny for the game.

[Borghir]

Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition! Playing this game just brings a smile to my face.

[BrotherDust]

Jade Empire !!! i dont think gets it's due.

[bogusdata]

This was a long, interesting, nuanced game, totally agree. might still be on XBLA.