30 Days of Video Games

[Emmett L. Brown]

Twenty-ninth: Most Obscure Game

Gosh, I wanna say Turrican again, but it's hugely popular in Germany and has tons of fansites, fan remakes, and fan sequels. It's even got a TV Tropes page. That's hardly obscure.

Most obscure game I've played (that was worth playing) has to be...

Push Over

It's a domino puzzle game where you play an ant. And it's got an insanely challenging puzzle factor, because you don't just have the regular dominos that fall forward. You've also got ones that, go upward, split in half, stop completely, disappear, and more. Your plucky ant character can pick up and rearrange the dominos freely, but you only get one shot at solving the puzzle once it get's going. Fortunately, infinite retries. A ridiculous amount of levels, and tons of fun.

It's a licenced game advertising some product called Colin's Quavers that I've never heard of outside this game. British crisps, possibly?

[Kuzu]

This game really saw some limited releases, especially in Europe where only the PS2 and PC version existed. Not entirely sure how I got my hands on it, some PC mag I bought in Poland once gave it away.

I'm honestly not quite sure how this didn't kick off in popularity since as far as action games go this game pretty much falls into the same category of intuitively designed action platformers such as Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter. This was a charming, really fun platformer, and it had a healthy dose of hilarious humor. It's got some genre shifting stages in lieu of games like Sly, and they're not all that terrible. Lest we forget that the main character, Ninja, is one of the most snappy, snarky, stoic action heroes out there. It's hilarious just listening to him. I mean, Billy West is voicing him. That is pretty fucking cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R2JQUpjAdU

OH, I remember this fucking game. I swear to god I'd almost forgotten about it.

[null]

Day 29 - Most Obscure Game You've Played

Uwabami Breakers - Microsoft Windows - 2007

I was going to post a certain puzzle game that involved a yandere bunny-witch-girl, but a 15,100 Google result difference says that this is more obscure. Oh well, it can't be helped. :U

Uwabami Breakers is made by ZUN, the same man behind Touhou. This is unsurprising because it plays and feels exactly like a Touhou game, using the same graphics, engine, and sound effects. What separates it from Touhou however, is that you're a bartender girl that's shooting flying items of food with breadsticks(?) and doing so will fill your beer meter. Yep. Only ZUN could think of something this ridiculous. Drunk bastards sure are funny. It is a lot more cruel than Touhou is however, since I haven't gotten past the 2nd stage out of 3 yet.

And guess what? You can download it for free from the official website!

Runner-Ups: Irisu Syndrome and Puyo Puyo Tsu 95

Edited February 13, 2012 by Ricky

[Arcade Racer CC14]

I think I've found the perfect game that I've played for this category:

Toonstruck (PC)

I played this when I was little and played more CD-Rom games. It was the first point-and-click adventure game that I ever played and I loved the concept. (I'm a big fan of animation and cartoons, so this was the perfect game for me.) Even though I never beat it, I got pretty far and ever since I stopped playing it, it's always been a pleasant memory in the back of my mind. Looking back on it now, HOLY CRAP, did I not realize just how awesome this was! For one thing, it stars Christopher freakin' Lloyd, who just so happens to be one of my favorite actors EVER, so that's a plus. Not to mention that the supporting cast of cartoon characters in this game is backed up by an amazing voice cast that any 90's animation fan should recognize. Jeff Bennett, Tress MacNeille, Dan Castellaneta, you name it, they're here. The art design is also very charming. It's just so wonderfully zany and surrealistic, that you can't help but love it. I also love some of the unique and nonsensical puzzles that call for really cartoony logic. For a game with this concept, they just fit so well. I haven't played this game since my childhood, but looking at all of the videos of it on Youtube REALLY tempts me to pick it up on Ebay and give it another go. That and just having it in my collection again would make my heart feel all toasty.

[SuperStingray]

This was a weird frackin' game. Basically, the main character, Dr. Brain, goes back in time looking for his car keys and gets lost in the space time continuum, so you have to play a bunch of puzzles based around certain time periods for some reason while Dr. Brain provides some funny commentary between attempts. The minigames were really all over the board; there was like this game where you were a lungfish and had to get from one side of a body of water to the other without suffocating, one where you had to mix potions with an alchemy machine, one where holographic brains gave you hints to a question and you had to use the process of elimination to figure out the answer- there was some pretty crazy stuff, and the title screen was certainly no exception.

Runners up: Blastworks, Cubivore, Marble Drop

[Your Vest Friend]

None of my video games have been at all obscure really. So I'll just plop with the one most likely to count as such,

Fur Fighters; Viggo's Revenge

Even here, it's only the PS2 port! Shamefully, I originally bought it because I was interested in the colourful and cartoony graphic style of the characters. However, as you can tell by previous days, it's managed to worm its way into my heart for other, more legit reasons, like great controls, an interesting cast of characters and a a variety of things to do with worthwhile rewards for it at the end. Class act!

Edited February 13, 2012 by VEDJ-F

[Sean]

Holy shit. Dr. Brain! I own the discs for both Time Warp and Lost Mind. They're really scratched up, though.

[Double Agent Motobug]

Day 29 - Most obscure game you've played.

...8D I was going to pick either Rare's "Blast Corps", Nintendo's "Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland", or Freen in Green's "Pixelated Planet" (D'ohohohoho), but I decided to go with one that you guys should've at least heard of; Sonic Pocket Adventure! This thing is pretty much "Sonic 2: Remix", with elements of Sonic 3 and some other games thrown in for the lols, and some re-arranged zones. ("Aquatic Relix/Ruin" comes after "Cosmic Casino (Night)" for example)

You'd think that'd make it pretty bad, but actually Sonic Pocket Adventure is really really fun, and smooth as all hell. Like, sometimes I enjoy playing it more than the actual Genesis Sonic the Hedgehog 2. o_O The "8-bit-ification" (Although not really; there are more than 4 colours!) of the sprites and whatnot are all done very well too, and even the music isn't directly copied from the source material, but instead remixed so that it sounds just different enough to keep it fresh/fit the environments they placed the songs into. (Example: Flying Battery is played during a fight with Knuckles in "Aquatic Relix" Zone, which ends on Hidden Palace from Sonic 3 o_O)

If you guys ever get the chance to give this game a shot, please do! It's absolutely worth it. =)

[Solkia]

Day 29- Most Obscure Game.

CEL DAMAGE

it may be obscure, it may not, but I never hear anyone talk about it so it's my pick.

This. Fucking. Game. it is so over-the-top crazy and is really addicting. and that intro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDKgLJD4c88

lolwut

[Marcello]

Captain Crunch's Crunchling Adventure

If you've heard of or played it, you're incredibly hardcore.

This game came with boxes of Captain Crunch Cereal, and it was pretty... well...

...it's not the most terrible thing ever, but it's, well. Uh, here's some gameplay:

Edited February 13, 2012 by MarcelloF

[Serperior]

Considering I don't really play anything that could be considered really obscure, the only time I did being when I was younger, this one is pretty hard for me. I'll just go with the most obscure thing I can think of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyv3gIqb7I4

Snake Rattle 'n' Roll for the NES/Mega Drive. I've never really seen anyone talk about this so I guess this could make it obscure....maybe. Anyway, this was a pretty weird game made by Rare before their glory days. It's an isometric platformer where you play as 2 snakes, Rattle and Roll, and go through levels eating small round creatures to make your snake's body grow long enough to set off a scale at the end of each level and allow you to progress onto the next one. Along your way, you have to face fearsome enemies like....mushrooms.....and killer toilet seats.........and feet..........! Yeah, it's that kind of game. I remember it being a pretty fun, albeit hard in places, game, and seeing it again really makes me want to replay it. I can't really say much else since it's been years since I even heard about this game, let alone played it.

[Tori Himemiya]

Day 29 - Most Obscure Game I've played:

This is rather tough but...

Demonophobia is a rather obscure PC game. I can't figure out the origin of this game because I keep hearing that its either Korean or Japanese. But anyways its a rahter mature survival horror game, and by mature I mean it has blood, guts, and lot of shit so I'll try to keep this post SFW as much as I can.

Oh look this is where hell starts

Demonophobia is about this one girl (I forgot her name) and she's gets stuck in Hell for some reason. And so she wants out but she's going to go through a lot of shit. This game is pretty hard since you can either die and learn what not to do or just continue with the game. But man either way this game loves to be hell.

All Hell and no play makes demons pervs

I should mention that there's no sound what so ever in this game which can add to the scare factor because we can only imagine what the breaking of bones and tearing of the flesh in hell sounds like. Or maybe that's too much of a good thing?

Anyways I haven't beaten this game yet but I doubt I will ever come back to it. I won't recommend playing this game since its so NSFW. I will admit I did got scared by this game.

Runner ups:

Moonlight Syndrome:

A Japanese playstation 1 game that never made it to the states. The reason why I took an interest into playing it is because it was created by Suda 51, the guy behind killer7 and No More heroes, and the fact he named the character Margaret after this game. I couldn't play it due to it being in Japanese and having shit loads of cutscenes.

Odin Sphere:

I would say its obscure but people have heard about it so it really doesn't count.

[Jeffhog]

Day 29 - Most Obscure Game I've played:

This is rather tough but...

Demonophobia is a rather obscure PC game. I can't figure out the origin of this game because I keep hearing that its either Korean or Japanese.

From the katakana I'm reading, I'm betting it's Japanese.

[Starman Swift]

Day 29 - Most Obscure Game

Was this day meant for me in mind?

Anyway, anyone happen to play any of these games? Varying degrees of obscurity, but...

(Clockwise from upper left)

Nightmare Ned

I've already mentioned this twice in this topic before. It's a platformer/puzzle children's game made by Disney that turned into a cartoon show with only 12 episodes. There are very few videos on youtube of this, much less good quality videos. I can't even find a ROM of it.

Dragon Warrior Monsters 2

Mentioned in that most obscure games you've played topic. it's a bit like Pokemon, if anything could breed with anything to produce a completely different Pokemon, if pokeballs were replaced by meat, and if everyone could learn 12-ish skills instead of 4.

Warlords Battlecry 3

RTS series that doesn't change much between sequels. This one involved a bunch of snake-people summoning a 5th horseman as vengeance against some Empire dudes that were forcibly colonizing their lands. You can help any of the factions, but I'm pretty sure it always ends with killing the horseman. Also Undead are the funnest faction to be. Just saying.

Disciples: Sacred Lands

A gothic, more obscure Heroes of Might and Magic. Rather lacking in the campaign department though, you're usually playing the same level but through a different faction's eyes.

Rage of Mages

Honestly don't remember too much about this one. An overhead RPG game where you pick between a warrior and mage and then explore and kill monsters. I don't recall it being too good, though.

Clue Jr. Spyglass Mysteries

A whodunit game with minigames in it. Very simple, game-wise. It had a magnifying glass like thing that you could plug in to your computer to make clues light up when you looked through it, but I lost mine. I don't recall this one being that good either.

Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim

Ok, it's an RTS game, but you don't directly control your units! You build guilds to recruit heroes, but they just sort of do their own things, like rangers exploring the unknown, warriors pursuiting glory, healers planting healing herbs, etc. You can entice them with rewards, of course, but they usually just stick with their AI.

The Ocean Hunter

Apparently this is one of the rarest arcade cabinets ever. I've only seen it twice myself. You and a buddy go to different seas in the world to kill giant sea monsters causing trouble for bounties. A fun rail-shooter game, it's a shame there aren't more of these around.

Honestly though, the most obscure games are some demos I've played as a kid. To this day, I am unsure what they're called, or if they're even mentioned anywhere on the internet.

[JezMM]

Picture the scene: Lil' Jez is roughly 8 and Gozilla is the COOLEST FUCKING MOVIE HE HAS EVER SEEN.

So what happens when lil' Jez sees THIS in the local electronics superstore?

OH. MY. GOD.

DAD PLEASE BUY THIS FOR ME NOW. EVEN THOUGH IT'S ONLY £5 AND HAS NO SCREENSHOTS ON THE BACK THERE IS NO REASON AT ALL FOR ME TO BE SUSPICIOUS OF IT'S CONTENT.

OH MY GOD DAD BOUGHT IT FOR ME I AM GOING TO PLAY AS GODZILLA AND SMASH SOME SHIT UP OR MAYBE I'LL PLAY AS A PERSON AND HAVE TO FIGHT GODZILLA I REALLY DON'T CARE RIGHT NOW.

AWW YEAH LET'S START THIS THING UP.

PUSH STAAAART

Wat.

Turns out "Godzilla" for the Game Boy is an old cutesey puzzle-platformer (you know one of the lame ones where you can't actually jump), based off the original old Japanese movies. And it was laaaame.

Honourable mentions that are slightly more well known, and I actually really love to this day:

Cool Spot (Master System Version)

Glover (N64 Version)

Mischief Makers (N64)

Chibi-Robo (GameCube)

Oh, and one more big one that deserves a mention:

Actually in fact I'm upgrading this from honourable mention. I'm only not deleting all that Godzilla stuff because I put a bit of effort into it.

3D Movie Maker

DAMN, this game! I've poured ridiculous hours into it from being a kid through to my late teenage years. My old Windows 98 computer is still packed with possibly over a hundred of my movies. I never got into any of the modding or user-made content that the internet brought as it's always been quite a nostalgic excercise for me. Adding new content would cheapen the act of creating great things with the limited default content - and frankly I've got rather attached to that content.

My oldest movies are of course ridiculous and nonsensical and the majority of them just had characters running for minutes at a time because I insisted on showing EVERYTHING. The idea of cutting to when they arrive at another area of the set was just alien to me.

Then I briefly moved onto making movies of my various own characters (luckily all quite simple in nature), constructing them out of the basic shape props and stop-motion moving them frame by frame.

The end of my career from primary school through to college would be my infamous collection of "Rolf Movies", all in which involving Rolf Harris going on stupid adventures or just trying to live his normal life, before being killed at the end of the movie. At first they were very juevenille of course, but as I grew older and wiser through my teens they eventually actually started having a whole universe of characters and running gags, and the deaths got more and more ridiculous and cartooney in nature as oppose to "creatively violent" like the originals were. A recurring antagonist was also introduced in the form of a very overexaggerated version of one of my school teachers, who eventually became as eponymous with the series as Rolf himself, with eventually pretty much every movie being a case of the teacher in question just coming up with elaborate schemes to make Rolf's life a complete misery for no reason other than his own entertainment. The final movie that sadly to this day remains unfinished involved a very meta plot where one day he kills Rolf and then Rolf fails to come back to life the next week. A great adventure began to be embarked on but I lost my inspiration. Clearly the world wasn't ready for a status quo subversion like that.

The longest Rolf movie I made was a good half an hour or so. Despite how dumb they are... well, the better ones towards the end I'm still proud of to this day in terms of all the comic moments. I did some honest to god good "writing" and "directing" on some of them.

So... yes. 3D Movie Maker. Good stuff.

Edited February 13, 2012 by JezMM

[Semi-colon e]

I'm cheating by going with an indie game a fair few people may have heard of, still has over 10 million results in Google. It's not obscure enough to not have a TV Tropes page, though.

Within A Deep Forest.

It's a vaguely Metroidvania-ish game in terms of progression (get ability to get to new area etc.), where you're a bouncy ball and all you can do is bounce higher or bounce less aside from obviously moving to get on platforms (the level design is blocky like above the entire game). There is a main Hub and you basically go through different levels within the hubs, getting more and more forms for the ball, usually making you go higher, or being made of glass where you can pass through lasers but smash if you bounce too much leading to insane puzzles or intricate platforming, or even a really shit one that does nothing and is abysmal except for getting past this cat... thing. Some of the levels can be very basic and normal, or there's a minecart section that plays very differently to the rest of the game, or one with fake platforms, or the one in the Lunar Cheese Extraction Facility , or there's the level which requires use of the glass ball the entire time and being full of dickery, or a castle one early on with a tricky puzzle...

Being a Nifflas game, it has such a simple art style and FANTASTIC relaxing music, which makes it less annoying because the entire thing is so silly and charming as well as bleak when it needs to be, just such an atmospheric game. It's a free download and I highly recommend it for a change of pace.

It has a very minimal plot, but it has voice overs at the start and end with some really nice art as well.

[Marcello]

I've already done my post, but would Radical Rex count as obscure?

[Senator NinjaShark]

Day Numbero Finale Part 1- Ninja's Hipsteriffic "I liked Kami's choice more when it was unpopuler", Most Most Obscure Game(s)!

I got this game long ago for PS2, since I liked the First XXL game and because I'm a Big Fan of the Comics these games are based on.

This is a real Fun little Beat 'em up/Platformer mix, with about a Shitload of Video Game references, and some Awesome Combo Attacks and at times Huge Battles with up to Hundreds of Enemies. The Boss Fights are pretty samey and unremarable, but the Enemy fights and the Showdown with Cesar (and his Clones) makes it all worthwhile.

This is a Game about Shooting People.

The First Gungrave game was a simple yet Fun game, Featuring some Neat Character Designs by the Creator of Trigun, but being sadly really, really short.

it's Sequel, Gungrave: Overdose reticifies all of it by making it Longer, have more of a Story to it, and adding 2 additional Playable Characters (the Melee Oriented Blind Samurai Zombie Jyuji Kabane and the Electric Projectile Oriented Rocker Ghost Rocketbilly Redcadillac, with Grave Himselv being a Mix of the two basically) and overall a Better game in my Eyes (with some annoying places here and there, but nothing's Perfect)

it even had a Anime Adaptation a Long time ago, wich from what I saw is generally Obscure too, a Shame since the Game itself is Really fun and worth a Try to anyone that wants some Mindless Shooting action.

here we have yet another Sequel, this time a Game about Music Stars beating the Crap out of Each Other in a Flashy way.

Despte the Silly premise, this game is actually Pretty Good, Featuring a Large Cast of Music Stars Ranging from Snoop Dogg to Xzibit, or you can go Create your own Fighter and have him choose from 5 Different fighting styles of wich 3 can be combined to form a completeley different Style, and a Large selection of Clothing Items and Accesories and have him Kick People in the Butt.

it was Followed by Def Jam: Icon, wich from what I heard is not nearly as Good as Fight for NY, and Def Jam: RapStar, wich has you go down the Singstar route (no fighting...sadly), so the Future of this Series is Questionable at best

[Covskin]

It's a licenced game advertising some product called Colin's Quavers that I've never heard of outside this game. British crisps, possibly?

You suspect the truth, chum. Quavers were bought out by Walkers a few years later, retiring Colin in the process. But as I said near the beginning of this topic, PushOver was one of my first games, bloody great it was too.

As for my pick...I could go for a couple of my old NES games (Solar Jetman and Dr Jeklyy & Mr Hyde come to ind...the latter was absolute shite), but I'll go for this Playstation game instead:

Overboard! This game came bundled with my Playstation, along with Ace Combat 3, Independence Day and Actua Soccer 3. Not a great selection by any means, and the only one we didn't trade back was this. It was a cartoony take on Pirates, and you went round various levels in an almost action-platformer kinda way. Enemies to defeat, puzzles to solve so that doors would open...but it also wasn't particulary amazing.

4 player mode though, that was a barrel of laughs. Multiplayer had a frantic, almost Bomberman feel to it, with everyone whizzing around, either laying ines or fring cannons from the bows. It made up for the dull single player, anyway.

[Carbo]

I've already done my post, but would Radical Rex count as obscure?

The who what now

Also I already said this isn't an objective category.

[Marcello]

The who what now

I take that as a yes? I had this on the Genesis.

It had a skateboarding T-Rex. Hell yes.

[Covskin]

Nightmare Ned

I've already mentioned this twice in this topic before. It's a platformer/puzzle children's game made by Disney that turned into a cartoon show with only 12 episodes. There are very few videos on youtube of this, much less good quality videos. I can't even find a ROM of it.

I did have this one! An Aunt gace it me as a Christmas present when I got my first P.C., but I never completed it. I think our Bathroom level was glitched, so that ghost was only 2/3 revealed. Darnit.

3D Movie Maker

DAMN, this game!

Holy crap, I forgot all about this! And that annoying purple host...THING. But yeah, I spent ages on this too. I was terrible (took me ages to realise if I rewound the action I could make two people move at the same time), and ended up just recreating TV comedy sketches. The comedy did not survive the transition.

Damn, I'm getting some blasts from the past today.

[Bria]

Day 29: Most Obscure Game ever Played

There is quite a list of games I've played that I would surely deem 'obscure', but I have one in mind that I know was an extremely odd game that I played for a few hours before deciding to put it down. It wasn't so much that it was an awful game, it just had a terrible auto save feature. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to---

Darkened Skye

This game was alright, I guess. It was your basic awkward controlled adventure/puzzle/third-person shooter game in which you had magical powers via staff. The intro opens up with her as some sort of sheep/goat herder when a strange object suddenly falls from the sky and lands besides her. You go on some quest to find your mother, or something (never beat this game, by the way), while encountering some gargoyle...demon creature who acts as your familiar in a sense. So you have to find out what the strange source of power is that came from the sky by talking to some village elder after completing a variety of small puzzles to get to her, and once you find out what that magical source is...boy was it a 'What the hell?' moment. It is rather obvious, but I knew nothing about this game at the time. The 'magical objects' which you collect throughout the game in a variety of colors are Skittles. Yes, you collect friggin' Skittles to power your magic. At first I made small jokes about the stones looking like a Skittle, as they are round, colorful, and even had a S symbol on the front, not to mention to slight rainbow bit in the intro when she finds an orange one.

So....if you see a Skittle then make sure to pick it up if you want magical powers? Or if you want sudden mythical hordes of monsters after your ass. Anyways, here's some short gameplay footage. The controls were really awkward, jumping was pretty terrible. The voice acting isn't bad but the writing is horrible, as are the sound effects.

Other Mentionables

>Space Station Silicon Valley

>Kya: Dark Lineage

Edited February 13, 2012 by Briaaaah

[Danj86]

Obscure? I've already made a post about a game in a different topic, that I would say is pretty obscure and it is one I love too.

Graffiti Kingdom

An adventure game with a difference. You can completely customise your character, and when I say customise, I mean, create from scratch, absolutely anything and anyone. Find that hard to believe? Type Graffiti Kingdom creations in the Youtube search engine...

Something else that is cool to know is, despite the cameos you can create, there is actual cameos in the game. As the Taito Corporation developed the game, a couple of familier Taito faces make it into the game.

This picture shows them both. One of the space invader enemies and Bub (or Bob) from Bubble Bobble. As an extra surprise, the creator of Touhou was also involved in the project and as a result Reimu Hakurei also makes an appearence under the name "Flying Maiden".

The only downside to the game that I can think of is that it's just too short.

[gato]

Day 29 - Most obscure game you've played.

Well, I must admit defeat here, I don't really remember playing anything that other people don't know about...

...

Oh wait! I did! A lot of times actually! But this isn't a specific game thing so I'll put it in spoilers and leave another answer bellow...

I'm going to be talking about a website, and I'm not sure if this counts as advertising, so feel free to edit or delete (or tell me to do this by myself) if I'm breaking any rules.

Let me introduce you to something that took some days out of my youth.

Home of the Underdogs

Back in the day when me and my bro had our very first PC we were craving for some other gaming experiences apart from the limited amount of CDs we had, we were a little short on money so we decided to try to use the internet to our advantage...

I should probably mention that we weren't so aware of piracy nor the sites where those kind of people would get together and share their booties, so we mostly had Altavista (we also weren't aware of Google back then... Can't really remember if Google even existed on those days) and our limited knowledge of how to use a search engine. As we navigated trough the seven seas of the webz we found this little site that offered free and interesting games to play... We didn't really knew what was it all about but they were games and free so we just got in and downloaded as much as our 56k connection would allow us to.

My bro spend more time in this game than what I would have liked to.

And that's as far as my story goes, Home of the Underdogs (or HotU for short) is an abandonware site, a place where games that are no longer supported by any company are shown (and made available)... Call it a museum of sorts.

So yeah, here you can find really obscure titles and I got to play a lot of them, like the soccer one shown above or one of my personal favorites (back in the day), a quite addictive racing game called Terep 2:

Hands down one of the most fun and versatile off-road simulation games ever made, Terep 2 is a wonderful freeware racing game that is amazing on both gameplay and technical levels.

Also known as Deformers, the game was developed by Invictus, a small Hungarian team who later developed the improved commercial sequel called Insane, published by Codemasters in Europe only.

Terep allows you to drive great-looking, realistic 3D cars on various surfaces. Similar to Stunts, you can drive anywhere you want -- on the tracks, off the tracks, into the fields and beyond. Absolute freedom, in other words. The 3D physics engine is very well-coded -- even the cars get deformed as you bump into roadblocks. In many ways, Terep 2 is a "work in progress" version of Insane, but the high production value will keep you occupied longer than many commercial games. In addition to the tracks included, you can create your own tracks using paint programs such as Paintshop Pro.

The "mega" version (the one for download here) includes over 30 tracks made by the designers and fans. The game looks great, and plays great especially in two-player splitscreen mode. If you are a fan of off-road racing, it doesn't get much better than this little-known freeware underdog. A must-have for racing fans!

Not sure how obscure it is, but I freaking loved WWF Wrestlemania (Arcade)

So yeah, my first vote would go to this site, I think most of the games there would fit nicely in the category of "most obscure thing I've ever played"... I know Terep 2 certainly qualifies! (and thinking about it, I should have done a whole post about it, but I'm running out of time so)

As for a more "legit" answer I have 2 titles, I'm not sure if they are that obscure (but I feel like they are).

1)

Demolition Racer

I find this game to be severely underrated since it gave me one of the funniest times I've spend with my brother's PS1.

Demolition Racer is what you would expect from the title and the cover, a racing game that allows drivers to crash each other into oblivion, in fact, it encourages you to do so because how much damage you do actually influences in the final score (along with the finishing position).

Wheeeeeeeeeee!

The races are pure arcadey fun! And you also had some extra modes like the typical demolition arena or another one where some drivers would go in the opposite direction with the clear intent of ramming into you, there was also a not so entertaining (IMO) suicide mode when you won by being the first one dying.

Also, the game's soundtrack is freaking awesome:

If this doesn't make you want to blow shit up I just don't know what will...

I feel the game didn't really took off here (not sure how it went everywhere else) because it was sadly overshadowed by Destruction Derby, a game that did the same and did it first. (and was way more popular for it)

2)

Wrecking Crew

Oh I loved this one as a kid! Wikipedia categorizes it as an action game but I believe is more like a Puzzle one (with some action), you follow Marion and Luigi in a set of environments where your objective is to pretty much break everything,

You can't jump in this game, so you must find the best way to break all the objects without getting traped.

It's a simple yet fun little game that I never managed to complete (the puzzles became way too hard for me in later levels... Maybe I should re try them one of these days) but what drew my attention the most was it's level editor, I loved to mess around with it despite not having a save function (it did have a save function, but that was only supposed to work with something called "Family Data Recorder" that never leaved Japan), I could spend hours creating and playing my own levels (despite the lack of a save function you can actually "test" the levels you make).

I'm not really sure about how obscure this game is, but I'm pretty sure I was the only one in my zone that bothered to play with it, and the same could certainly be said about messing around with it's level editor.

And that's it! I hope this post counts, it took me a while to come up with these games (and website). >_>

Edited February 13, 2012 by gato