The deal is this: there are hundreds of games that should have been given more respect by history - and today, we are going to narrow them down to a shortlist of ten. Each participant has nominated two games and underlined their passion for both, now PC Zone bods Will Porter, Steve Hogarty, Dan Griliopoulos and Jon 'Log' Blyth and CVG's Andy Robinson have reconvened after a mammoth gaming session for an almighty discussion of the utmost importance. Join us as we strive to discover the answer to the ultimate question. Just what is the greatest PC game you've (probably) never played?
10. OMIKRON: THE NOMAD SOUL
Find it: Knocking about on eBay for a couple of quid
As put forward by: Log
First, the introduction includes the most endearingly earnest yet embarrassing way of explaining how you 'control a videogame character'. You transfer your soul, you see. Yes, you the 'player' - this is after all the creation of insane genius David Cage, who would later stun and awe with Fahrenheit.
Then you're made to listen to an unskippable Bowie track dedicated to the city of Omikron. Only then are you allowed to walk around the town and try to work out what you're supposed to be doing.
The level of freedom was amazing for the time; all the doors to the buildings open for you and you've got a proper home with a woman who you can climb into bed with. Although there's no sheets and you never seem to take your clothes off. Mainly, you should play it because it's got triangular coins, pyramidal medkits and Bowie piping up occasionally. The shape of coins defines how messed-up a universe is. Triangular coins would gouge holes in your pockets. They'd dig in when you sat down. It's brilliant madness.
People probably didn't play it because:
Phwoo, god knows. Perhaps the title made everyone think it was about Jesus, or something. The stuff Bowie was releasing at the time - Seven, Survive - hardly turned out to be career-defining classics, and the cover art was an eyeball with a skull in the pupil, which is a bit naff. That's probably it. People thought Bowie had gone god-happy and released a death metal game to convert us all.
Stand-out moment of brilliance:
There's something about your wife that's excellent. I can't tell you because you've got to go and get it off eBay or Amazon and play it through yourself. But it's something that'll shock you to your core. Don't read the following sentence backwards if you don't want to know! Nomed a S'ehs Gmo.
The panel's views:
Steve: "I can see why this is here, but it's a pretty clunky game to play these days."
Will: "I like it because it's so joyously different, even if it has got a few faults - it does look dated now, and the fighting is rubbish. I just wish that after I'd completed Deus Ex someone had told me that a game existed that was almost as clever..."
The conclusion:
So off-the-wall that you really should give it a go.
9. FREEDOM FIGHTERS
Find it: On the high street or on Amazon.co.uk, for a pittance
As put forward by: Andy
In 2003, Io Interactive took a break from its seminal Hitman series to create this brilliant third-person shooter which brought squad-based combat and shooting at communists to the masses. In an alternate universe where the Soviet Union built the A-bomb first, you control a plumber-come-freedom-fighter who leads the rebellion to free New York City from the Iron Curtain and kick those Soviets back to where they came from - Russia.
Comments
24 comments so far...
bazzatuk on 12 Oct '06 said:
I had Beyond Good & Evil... there are few games that leave their mark on me these days and this will always be one of them. The story is amazing, the gameplay is amazing... its just plain amazing! Have I told you it was amazing yet?
donyb on 12 Oct '06 said:
It needs to be hammered home: Beyond Good & Evil is amazing!
FatBoyFonz on 12 Oct '06 said:
Someone should hammer the Microsoft Backwards Compatibility team to get it to work on the 360.
Doubt my pc will play it too well.
knacker5 on 12 Oct '06 said:
I didn't think it was all that amazing really. Good and quirky, what with it being French and all. Not a bad game at all but 'tis no Little Big Adventure.
Smartguy1 on 12 Oct '06 said:
Wow! I have half of those games, does that make me a cheapskate (since i bought most of them when they came out for cheap soon after release for selling so poorly) or a true gaming connoisseur? I'd like to think the latter. Anyway i really wanted BG&E, and psychonauts looked great, but i'm so glad i have uplink! The music, the design, the beep.....beep.....beep..beep..beep..beep beep beep beeeeeeep of the trace logger...Genius! And NOLF2 was great also.
My games were
Mafia (loved playing that, completed it twice)
NOLF2
Uplink
TM Sunrise
Omikron (which, if i recall, ditched the Omikron bit btw - was just called the nomad soul)
FatBoyFonz on 12 Oct '06 said:
Where's the article gone?
Mr_A_Hulse on 3 Nov '06 said:
I always quite liked the look of Beyound Good And Evil but I never saw a review or heard people talking about it. Sometimes I take a punt on a game I don’t know but there often crap so I do it less and less. I think I will try and track this down though, sounds like I missed a good game!
AmitG1984 on 3 Nov '06 said:
Man,this article sure is strange coz most of these games have been heard of and for me the game i enjoyed the most was NOLF 2,i had to change my graphic card to be able to play that!
so the moral of that article is don't trust articles and website!
Demoki on 3 Nov '06 said:
i bought beyond good and evil and prince of persia when they came out and both were amazing and both no one bought cause most gamers have one leg longer than the other and have no clue.
dannyfranks on 3 Nov '06 said:
amit, i don't think the moral is don't trust the article - these games were all selected because after being reasonably well received by the press, they all sold poorly. If anything, the fact that you heard of or got most of them (like me - I'm only missing 2 on this list!) just means that you did trust the reviews when you first saw them and were one of the few to bother picking them up and you enjoyed them...
... or something...
Since reading this, a mate of mine borrowed and loved NOLF2 and psychonauts, so the real moral of this article is to trust reviews every now and again and go get the games! They're great!
manky_munky on 3 Nov '06 said:
Mafia, what a game!
Easily one of the best games ever and no one I know believes me and keeps saying "Mafia's a poor mans GTA". Personally I think Mafia is 100 times better than GTA...OOOOH CONTROVERSIAL!!!
If you dont have it, find it, play it and love it. Every night
ptechg on 3 Nov '06 said:
I'll give you:
OMIKRON: THE NOMAD SOUL
VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES
TRACKMANIA: SUNRISE
UPLINK
Great games all. However I wasn't impressed by Beyond Good and Evil or Psychonauts, as told in my recent feature.
Klodrik on 4 Nov '06 said:
Where is Sacrifice. Shinys brilliant third-person action strategy adventure is one of the best games ever made and probably one of the most underrated to.
And btw. I have Freedom Fighters. Good game but it isnt half the game that Sacrifice was.
Anonymous on 4 Nov '06 said:
10. OMIKRON: THE NOMAD SOUL
never head of it
9. FREEDOM FIGHTERS
put off by the name and don't really like that style of game
8. NO ONE LIVES FOREVER 2: A SPY IN HARM'S WAY
who have played NOLF1? if so, why would anyone not play the 2nd game?
i so much prefer 2nd game. it is very fun to play and extreamly funny.
7. VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES
bad marketing, while everyone is busy playing HL2, no one noticed this.
6. MAFIA
looks better than godfather? better look out for it. GTA series is a blast, hope this will also be as fun
5. TRACKMANIA: SUNRISE
i thought with the release of Trackmania Nations, Sunrise should be popular. but it seems i was wrong.
i bought Sunrise after playing Nations.
4. BEYOND GOOD & EVIL
always seen PCZ talk about it, but never seen it in shops.
3. TRIBES: VENGEANCE
Tribes 2 was great. this single player is also a great experience.
2. PSYCHONAUTS
heard of it. but didn't like adventure games. same with Beyond good and evil
1. UPLINK
look at it, as PCZ said, i was put off by the graphics.
humorguy on 4 Nov '06 said:
Please excuse me if I feel just a little superior...!
10. OMIKRON: THE NOMAD SOUL
GOT IT
9. FREEDOM FIGHTERS
GOT IT
8. NO ONE LIVES FOREVER 2: A SPY IN HARM'S WAY
GOT IT
7. VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES
GOT IT
6. MAFIA
GOT IT
5. TRACKMANIA: SUNRISE
DON'T LIKE RACING GAMES
4. BEYOND GOOD & EVIL
GOT IT
3. TRIBES: VENGEANCE
WILL GET IT
2. PSYCHONAUTS
GOT IT
1. UPLINK
GOT IT
Most accurate article I have ever seen (and there aren't many!) in PC Zone!!!
PS: If you want people to buy these games (Nomad Soul) Why do you give the answer - even if you have spelt it backwards? I mean why do that at all?! Because once a gamer is tempted to read your answer, why would he/she now buy the game? Stupid stupid stupid PC Zone!
Also: Play.com has sold out of Tribes: Vengence for £2.99, so you're looking at paying about £8-9 for it on ebay instead
zelda001 on 4 Nov '06 said:
I haven't played Beyond Good & Evil yet (it looks pretty good though) and I've got Freedom Fighters and TrackMania Sunrise (both are brilliant). With the free (and also brilliant) TrackMania Nations, people tend to play that rather than Sunrise (especially online), so it's a shame Sunrise isn't played much.
Acheron51 on 6 Nov '06 said:
Finally i find someone who sees the light. Sacrifice was a piece of art that never deserved to be confined to the online 99p bin. It was an enormous pile of newly invented concepts and designs. Truly one of the greatest games of our time.
humorguy on 6 Nov '06 said:
It's really sad to see Beyond Good and Evil in Computer Exchange for a fiver when they have so much dross for £24.99!!! I feel glad for the person that gets BG&E just because it's cheap and then finds he has found a gem, or a parent that buys it for his/her kid, again, because it's cheap and doesn't know he/she will teach his/her kid morals and at the same time, make him a more discerning gamer!
verence on 22 Nov '06 said:
I bought Uplink pretty much sight-unseen (stumbled across their site) and got completely hooked very, very quickly. Sadly, I also knew that the vast majority of people I gamed with wouldn't "get" it at all.
One of the best open-ended plot games I've ever seen, with all sorts of unexpected bits popping up to stop it getting stale. So I'm not surprised it was so underrated.
Beyond Good and Evil, on the other hand, is simply perfection incarnate - it's a work of art. I didn't even get bored trying to find the last few elusive creatures to photograph (you're right about the whale.) It's up there with Little Big Adventure and the like in that whole "weird French design" space that no-one else dares venture into (clearly because it isn't commercially viable.)
There are a very small number of first-person games that can survive revisits: BGE and NOLF2 are two of them.
humorguy on 22 Nov '06 said:
Nicely said verence.
humorguy on 22 Apr '07 said:
Now that we can download DOSBox so easily, with a front end like D-Fend that makes it's use child's play, and we have the XP compatibility mode and VDMSound, etc, as well as PC's that can easily have a win95/98 and XP dual boot system, I wonder why we don't talk more about the earlier great games that nobody played?
Games like Terra Nova from Looking Glass Technologies, the first and still one of the best squad based tactical games? Or another great team based tactical simulation: Seal Team by Electronic Arts? What about the only RPG that Microprose ever released 'Darklands'? An RPG set in 15th century Germany using over 200 historical saints to garner favour and 1000's of chemical elements to mix in your mortar and pestle to make potions and chemical concoctions - again all based on the 'reality' of 15th Century Germany, the people then beleived in witches covens and various other creatures, corrupt politicans and church figures, so Microprose included them in the game!
Then you've got great games like The Last Express, which I hear maybe being re-released and RTS's like Dark Reign, which was the intelligent gamer's version of C%C and TA with options that were created in that game and have been in every RTS since!
With ebay having a specific retro section and many games being available legally as abandonware, it time we started talking about these missed-out classics instead of just games like X-Com and Elite!
agon on 24 Jul '07 said:
Sacrifice was great and unique - but maybe it needed to guide you more through the various routes - ie to be more structured. Also (like with Dungeon Keepers 3D mode) you hardly ever need to use all the play-modes available - maybe a mark against it?
To see all the different endings, I went through the (slightly differing) stages under each deity and it became repetitive only just towards the end of my doing this - a real shame I thought, as after completing it once I coulnd'nt wait to control all the minions I had perviously battled!
I'd recommend anyone playing it through once or twice - controlling each deities minions at least a couple of times! They are just a little too similar to do it for every one.
It's one of those games (like MDK 2) that PCZone didn't stay with long enough to give a fair review IMO.
I there was an aawrd for the most gorgeous skies in a game it would have to win it too!
agon on 24 Jul '07 said:
I game I was looking for for years, by the way, was Blade Runner by Westwood. Did anyone buy that? - it's pretty old now. You won't be disappointed if you can stand point and click - the professional story telling (and artwork) in it is fantastic.
I eventually found it, bizarrely, in the biggest 'Super-Dixons' in the UK (open for about a year in Cardiff!). Just the one copy was sitting there the day it opened and I made a rugby dive for it (not that anyone else seemed remotely interested!).
humorguy on 18 Oct '07 said:
I love to hear stories of how people find gems - like Blade Runner!