Longo_2_guns said:
Okay I want to play God Hand now.
Games You Never Heard Of, But Should Play
- Thread starter LinksOcarina
- Start date
Okay I want to play God Hand now.
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division.
I don't know if anyone has played this or heard of it (I am assuming there will be people here) but the reason I bring this one up is because everyone I know "iRL", all my gamer friends, none of them have heard of this game.
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a first person shooter released in 1998, developed by Monolith Productions. It was released for Windows PC, Mac OS and Linux, so it was never released on consoles. It was a game heavily influenced by Japanese anime. The selling point of the game is that missions take place in either two ways, on foot as the main character Sanjuro (a soldier) or Sanjuro piloting a giant mech robot, similar to a Gundam.
The game is set in the future on another planet, Cronos, but there are mentions of other planets in-game (I forget if you visit different worlds or not). As mentioned above, missions take place either on foot as a soldier, or inside a giant mech robot, both of which control pretty much the same. On foot, you'll travel through small streets, inside bases etc. In the robot, you'll most likely be covering large amounts of terrain and inside big cities. The only real difference in terms of controls was that the mech could turn into a car-like vehicle and move really fast, however in this form you couldn't attack, so it was transport only.
There were three mechs to choose from, and the choices are varied but a bit typical. There's the default mech, which is the "all rounder". Then there's the heavy mech which is quite slow but very durable. The final mech was weaker than the other two but was the fastest. My favourite was the fast one because I appreciated the speech much more than the durability.
Usually combat involves soldier VS soldier, or mech VS mech. As a mech, you will encounter normal soldiers trying to take you down with RPGs and such, but you can easily dispatch them or even step on them. As a soldier, you will occasionally encounter a mech or something, which are very difficult to take down and require heavy arms to do so.
I first played this game when I was ten years old. It was one of the earliest first person shooters I've ever played on the PC (my first FPS ever on PC was Duke Nukem 3D at age nine). One of my most fond memories of this game was the intro, which when I watch it now I think it's hilariously bad yet still awesome, but when I watch it I just think "that is so anime", mostly due to the Japanese theme song in the intro.
Here's the intro - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTT83I7fqEA
I'm probably spamming this topic... but it's Nostaliga Lane for me.
Again people have probably heard of this game online but like I said in my Shogo: Mobile Armor Division post, this game is one that none of my gamer mates "iRL" have heard of.
The Creed:
I first played The Creed when I was twelve years old back in the year 2000, so a couple of years after it's initial release.
The Creed is a third person action/adventure game that was released in 1998 for PC. It was developed by Insomnia Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, now known as the big bad EA Games. Little information on the game seems to be available online, which I find very strange, but let's see what I can find and remember...
The Creed was a game where I like to think of it as a mix between Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil. The reason I say this is because the game had fixed camera angles with pre-rendered backgrounds (and coincidentally not a very good control scheme) but the game was set in a very big environment, a big city where the player could go almost anywhere they wanted to. The game was also very violent and contained a lot coarse language and potentially offensive dialogue, drug use, sexual themes etc.
Players take control of either the bounty hunter Guy Wolfe, or the infamous criminal Gene Matrix. Both characters are essentially the same, the only real difference is cosmetic appeal. The basic story is that Guy Wolfe has recently collected the bounty of Gene Matrix, and while on board a ship... uh, I don't know why but Guy seems to have planted an explosive on board and blows the ship up. No idea why. If anyone knows, please do tell.
The ship is destroyed and coincidentally, Guy and Gene end up in the same escape pod together. The pod crash lands on the planet Outpost IV, and unfortunately for survivors Guy and Gene, they've landed on one of the most violent cities in the universe, Cerberus. After a quick and violent encounter upon their arrival, Guy and Gene quickly split and escape different directions (then you take control of whoever you've chosen to play as).
This city is plagued with violence and crime, as well as three warring factions who you can choose to work for and undergo a heap of missions. These groups include the Government, the overly religious Brotherhood, and the dark, murderous finale the Order, but they're also the ones who can help Guy/Gene escape Cerberus.
The streets are so dangerous in this game. Random muggers will try to get you (with their overly used line "Give us ya money, or we'll bleed ya!"), corrupt police officers might give you a hard time with a shot gun or someone might randomly try to gun you down in a drive by. Depending on what group you're working for can affect this too, e.g. working for the Order means you'll get attacked by the Brotherhood, and so forth.
An in-game screen shot, Guy Wolfe is going nuts with a mini gun.
Like I said before, the controls were pretty annoying. It was very much like Resident Evil, so running and gunning could be quite difficult. It was important to get weapons quick and weapons of a "spray and pray" variety were often the keys to survival, weapons such as shot guns, machine guns, the mini gun, a flame thrower etc. You could also drive vehicles, but you couldn't steal vehicles like the GTA series.
There was mulitplayer in this game as well however when I tried it back in the day, no one was ever playing, so I never got to give it a go.
The Creed is one of those classics that I would love to play again, even just for half an hour or so.
Here is the intro sequence to the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILwDtYmXJtE
Again people have probably heard of this game online but like I said in my Shogo: Mobile Armor Division post, this game is one that none of my gamer mates "iRL" have heard of.
The Creed:
I first played The Creed when I was twelve years old back in the year 2000, so a couple of years after it's initial release.
The Creed is a third person action/adventure game that was released in 1998 for PC. It was developed by Insomnia Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, now known as the big bad EA Games. Little information on the game seems to be available online, which I find very strange, but let's see what I can find and remember...
The Creed was a game where I like to think of it as a mix between Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil. The reason I say this is because the game had fixed camera angles with pre-rendered backgrounds (and coincidentally not a very good control scheme) but the game was set in a very big environment, a big city where the player could go almost anywhere they wanted to. The game was also very violent and contained a lot coarse language and potentially offensive dialogue, drug use, sexual themes etc.
Players take control of either the bounty hunter Guy Wolfe, or the infamous criminal Gene Matrix. Both characters are essentially the same, the only real difference is cosmetic appeal. The basic story is that Guy Wolfe has recently collected the bounty of Gene Matrix, and while on board a ship... uh, I don't know why but Guy seems to have planted an explosive on board and blows the ship up. No idea why. If anyone knows, please do tell.
The ship is destroyed and coincidentally, Guy and Gene end up in the same escape pod together. The pod crash lands on the planet Outpost IV, and unfortunately for survivors Guy and Gene, they've landed on one of the most violent cities in the universe, Cerberus. After a quick and violent encounter upon their arrival, Guy and Gene quickly split and escape different directions (then you take control of whoever you've chosen to play as).
This city is plagued with violence and crime, as well as three warring factions who you can choose to work for and undergo a heap of missions. These groups include the Government, the overly religious Brotherhood, and the dark, murderous finale the Order, but they're also the ones who can help Guy/Gene escape Cerberus.
The streets are so dangerous in this game. Random muggers will try to get you (with their overly used line "Give us ya money, or we'll bleed ya!"), corrupt police officers might give you a hard time with a shot gun or someone might randomly try to gun you down in a drive by. Depending on what group you're working for can affect this too, e.g. working for the Order means you'll get attacked by the Brotherhood, and so forth.
An in-game screen shot, Guy Wolfe is going nuts with a mini gun.
Like I said before, the controls were pretty annoying. It was very much like Resident Evil, so running and gunning could be quite difficult. It was important to get weapons quick and weapons of a "spray and pray" variety were often the keys to survival, weapons such as shot guns, machine guns, the mini gun, a flame thrower etc. You could also drive vehicles, but you couldn't steal vehicles like the GTA series.
There was mulitplayer in this game as well however when I tried it back in the day, no one was ever playing, so I never got to give it a go.
The Creed is one of those classics that I would love to play again, even just for half an hour or so.
Here is the intro sequence to the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILwDtYmXJtE
LinksOcarina
Rookie
I have Shogo on my GOG account. need to download it and play sometime. I'll add it to the list.
Shogo is a good game. I'd love to play it again sometime.
Shogo is a great game.
WickedLiquid
Regular
But Godhand is better
StudioTan
Regular
Great blog by the way, Links! I really like how you give some insight on the developers' perspectives as well as a bit of their history. I just heard about Éric Chahi today after watching a German Spy video on YouTube. He briefly talked about his development of 'Heart of Darkness.' He truly does have a unique and creative mind.
"The Creed" sounds totally awesome! I hate there isn't a console port. I loved the era of games with pre-rendered backgrounds; a perfect match for the suspenseful/horror genre. Those games felt pretty realistic at times, even with the terrible voice acting (which I love) and they were just a unique niche in gaming that you just don't see anymore. Personally, I think those games still hold up very well. It was around that time I really started getting into video games and building a collection of my own, so I'm probably a bit biased.
All these games sound great, actually.
"The Creed" sounds totally awesome! I hate there isn't a console port. I loved the era of games with pre-rendered backgrounds; a perfect match for the suspenseful/horror genre. Those games felt pretty realistic at times, even with the terrible voice acting (which I love) and they were just a unique niche in gaming that you just don't see anymore. Personally, I think those games still hold up very well. It was around that time I really started getting into video games and building a collection of my own, so I'm probably a bit biased.
All these games sound great, actually.
COMaestro
Veteran
WickedLiquid said:This game might not have aged well but I remember Winback was one of those games I loved but oddly enough nobody had heard of.
It introduced a great cover system that was later copied and praised in Gears of War. There was also a remake on the PS2 but the voice acting was so awful (even for the time) that you're better off with the text cutscenes on the N64.
Never played it on the N64, but I did play the hell out of it for the PS2. I thought the gameplay was excellent. I must have gone through it 2-3 times in a row because I just found it to be that much fun. Good call!
Again this is one of those games that I'm sure people on the Internet, including the GR community have played, but I seem to be the only one out of all my "iRL" gamer friends who has played this game, let alone knows of it.
Hybrid Heaven
Hybrid Heaven was developed by Konami, released in 1999 exclusively for the Nintendo 64. It was a game played in a third person perspective, combining elements of an RPG, fighting game and action/adventure into the one game. It was also one of the few N64 games that required the memory card to save/load one's progress. The game also featured RAM pack support but unlike games like Perfect Dark or Donkey Kong 64, it wasn't necessary.
Without revealing too much of the plot, the game's takes place on Christmas Eve and revolves around "Hybrids". Hybrids are synthetic clones of humans created by an unknown source (the bad guys, basically). These clones were created to slowly be placed throughout the high levels of society, particularly politics and leadership to take control of the world. Your character gets caught up in all this, ended up in a massive, unknown bunker right beneath New York City and of course, has to inevitably stop it. The storyline is very sci-fi, with a mix of 80's action cheese.
My description of the plot is very far'fetched and "wtf", but it actually makes more sense and sounds better if you play it and go through it. I was just trying to avoid spoilers.
A screenshot of walking through one of the halls of this said gigantic bunker.
There's a heavy emphasis on exploration but it is a bit linear, considering most of the environment is just a variety of metal corridors and such. You run around, find items and that sort of thing. When you encounter an enemy, they'll usually run at you to try and engage a fight, or if you manage you can get a surprise attack from behind to begin the fight with an advantage. Some fights can be entirely avoided, sometimes they can't.
The player engages an enemy in a fight. Enemies can vary from humans, to Hybrids, to monsters, mutants and robots.
All fights are one versus one. When you fight, movement becomes different. You're always locked onto your target and you move in an eight direction axis, essentially circling the opponent. You can run, which disables your lock on and drains your stamina.
Before you can attack, your Power bar must reach full limit. If you attack when it's not full, your attack won't be as effective. When you move close enough to attack and press the attack button, the game will pause and then you'll make a choice of what to do. You can attack with a punch, a kick, or attempt to grapple the enemy to try and do something like a throw or take down. When you attack, the enemy can either try and dodge, block or even counter your attack.
When the enemy attacks you, the game pauses and you are given a choice. Counter, block or dodge. Blocking was the easiest but you would still take damage. Dodging was recommended if you had the distance, while countering is the riskiest but most rewarding, allowing you to hit the enemy right back and cancel their attack(s). The combat system is essentially turn based, to a degree.
As you win fights and defeat enemies, you'll gain experience points and level up like in any RPG. Your stats will increase and you can level up parts of your body to be able to do more damage, effectively making your punches, kicks and grapples more effective. It's up to you if you want to balance it out or be strong in certain areas. Personally my character was useless at punching, but was great at kicking and grappling, since kicks had longer distances than punches and because grappling was quite powerful.
You can also eventually acquire the ability to perform combination attacks, or combos. Your power bar can eventually increase up to five times, which can allow you to attack an enemy up to five times if you wish, dealing some serious damage. However, should an enemy counter you than the rest of your combo is cancelled out.
The range of attacks is very broad, to the point of being almost ridiculous. It wasn't just "Punch" or "Kick", it became things like "Right hook", "Left hook", "Right low kick", "Left high kick" etc. There was so many. The reason for this is because you and the enemy can both take damage in certain parts of your body, which means you or the opponent (if struck in a certain spot too many times) can effectively become crippled in certain areas of the body, meaning you'll move slower, take more damage on that spot and be less effective when attempting to strike with a crippled limb. It's also entirely possible for you or the opponent to be knocked unconscious during a fight, which if that's the case, means you or the enemy can beat the opponent to death while they're unconscious.
The combat system is interesting and it is pretty fun. It has a very funky 80's action movie vibe to it.
Here's a quick and annoying gif of combat in action:
Hybrid Heaven also included a two player versus multiplayer. It wasn't that fun really, because all of the characters you can choose from are level one, with the exception of the main character who is whatever level he is in your campaign. Still, if you had a friend to play with who had the game as well, you can fight each other with your levelled up characters, since the game carries save data on the memory cards only.
The game had a pretty cool, almost cyberpunk style soundtrack. The game also includes some voice acting, mostly in just the intro and final cut scenes. As expected, the voice acting is pretty bad, but it's still kinda cool.
Here's the intro to the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAADLwvy0Ps
Hybrid Heaven
Hybrid Heaven was developed by Konami, released in 1999 exclusively for the Nintendo 64. It was a game played in a third person perspective, combining elements of an RPG, fighting game and action/adventure into the one game. It was also one of the few N64 games that required the memory card to save/load one's progress. The game also featured RAM pack support but unlike games like Perfect Dark or Donkey Kong 64, it wasn't necessary.
Without revealing too much of the plot, the game's takes place on Christmas Eve and revolves around "Hybrids". Hybrids are synthetic clones of humans created by an unknown source (the bad guys, basically). These clones were created to slowly be placed throughout the high levels of society, particularly politics and leadership to take control of the world. Your character gets caught up in all this, ended up in a massive, unknown bunker right beneath New York City and of course, has to inevitably stop it. The storyline is very sci-fi, with a mix of 80's action cheese.
My description of the plot is very far'fetched and "wtf", but it actually makes more sense and sounds better if you play it and go through it. I was just trying to avoid spoilers.
A screenshot of walking through one of the halls of this said gigantic bunker.
There's a heavy emphasis on exploration but it is a bit linear, considering most of the environment is just a variety of metal corridors and such. You run around, find items and that sort of thing. When you encounter an enemy, they'll usually run at you to try and engage a fight, or if you manage you can get a surprise attack from behind to begin the fight with an advantage. Some fights can be entirely avoided, sometimes they can't.
The player engages an enemy in a fight. Enemies can vary from humans, to Hybrids, to monsters, mutants and robots.
All fights are one versus one. When you fight, movement becomes different. You're always locked onto your target and you move in an eight direction axis, essentially circling the opponent. You can run, which disables your lock on and drains your stamina.
Before you can attack, your Power bar must reach full limit. If you attack when it's not full, your attack won't be as effective. When you move close enough to attack and press the attack button, the game will pause and then you'll make a choice of what to do. You can attack with a punch, a kick, or attempt to grapple the enemy to try and do something like a throw or take down. When you attack, the enemy can either try and dodge, block or even counter your attack.
When the enemy attacks you, the game pauses and you are given a choice. Counter, block or dodge. Blocking was the easiest but you would still take damage. Dodging was recommended if you had the distance, while countering is the riskiest but most rewarding, allowing you to hit the enemy right back and cancel their attack(s). The combat system is essentially turn based, to a degree.
As you win fights and defeat enemies, you'll gain experience points and level up like in any RPG. Your stats will increase and you can level up parts of your body to be able to do more damage, effectively making your punches, kicks and grapples more effective. It's up to you if you want to balance it out or be strong in certain areas. Personally my character was useless at punching, but was great at kicking and grappling, since kicks had longer distances than punches and because grappling was quite powerful.
You can also eventually acquire the ability to perform combination attacks, or combos. Your power bar can eventually increase up to five times, which can allow you to attack an enemy up to five times if you wish, dealing some serious damage. However, should an enemy counter you than the rest of your combo is cancelled out.
The range of attacks is very broad, to the point of being almost ridiculous. It wasn't just "Punch" or "Kick", it became things like "Right hook", "Left hook", "Right low kick", "Left high kick" etc. There was so many. The reason for this is because you and the enemy can both take damage in certain parts of your body, which means you or the opponent (if struck in a certain spot too many times) can effectively become crippled in certain areas of the body, meaning you'll move slower, take more damage on that spot and be less effective when attempting to strike with a crippled limb. It's also entirely possible for you or the opponent to be knocked unconscious during a fight, which if that's the case, means you or the enemy can beat the opponent to death while they're unconscious.
The combat system is interesting and it is pretty fun. It has a very funky 80's action movie vibe to it.
Here's a quick and annoying gif of combat in action:
Hybrid Heaven also included a two player versus multiplayer. It wasn't that fun really, because all of the characters you can choose from are level one, with the exception of the main character who is whatever level he is in your campaign. Still, if you had a friend to play with who had the game as well, you can fight each other with your levelled up characters, since the game carries save data on the memory cards only.
The game had a pretty cool, almost cyberpunk style soundtrack. The game also includes some voice acting, mostly in just the intro and final cut scenes. As expected, the voice acting is pretty bad, but it's still kinda cool.
Here's the intro to the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAADLwvy0Ps
LinksOcarina
Rookie
Posted some new articles, latest being about the SNES game of Nightmare Busters.
I also put Shogo and Hybrid Heaven into my master list. Keep up the good suggestions guys and please keep reading, I always like feedback of course, I am a whore for it.
I also put Shogo and Hybrid Heaven into my master list. Keep up the good suggestions guys and please keep reading, I always like feedback of course, I am a whore for it.
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