I remember loving fighting force, mainly because I don't remember many beat em ups for the PS1, and I love that genre since I first played Streets of Rage. I thought Fighting Force was great, and as a kid I always saw it as kind of like a 3D Streets of Rage. The levels were varied and you could take different routes, and you could beat it in an afternoon, which was great to me and my friends because sometimes we just felt like beating it as fast as we could after coming back from school.
I'd like to hear your opinions, maybe I'll find some hidden gems here.
Average (or just plain bad) games you like?
The Best Unloved or Unknown Games
My list of the best games that either no one played or were generally disliked by the mainstream gaming community.
At this time, not ranked in order.
Comments welcome.
 | 1. Rally Cross A first generation PSX game, the physics in this are simply amazing. Few games have ever replicated the balance between finesse and brute force. Add in very competitive, short track events, crazy cars, and varied, balanced tracks, and you have a real winner. On top of that, the physics allowed for some insane crashes. I still play this game at least once a month. |
 | 2. Mario Andretti Racing This game had some rather simple gameplay, bland cars and tracks (except for the fairgrounds F1 track) and horrid sound. But it also had some excellent features that were way ahead of its time. With three modes and three different types of cars (sprint, stock, and F1) each with their own unique attributes. The sprint cars had a simple but somewhat deep power slide system, the stock cars were all about drafting and racing dangerously close, while the F1 cars actually required learning a racing line (rare in a Genesis era game). Throw in an upgrade system, a full career mode, and two player cooperative career progression, and you have a deep racing game. |
 | 3. General Chaos A cross between Worms and those green Army men games. Many people say this actually plays something like Fat Princess. This game was terrible, however, as a single player game. Poor micro management just really isn't fun. But as a multiplayer game there are few that can compare. Especially the Co-op. With more than one person at the controls, the insanity is full on. Additionally, there was a sort of pause trick, whereby pausing the game the would halt the action, but any live bombs or missiles would complete their arc and detonate. Thereby a grenade user could score unlimited hits with repeated pausing, but inevitably you would also do it, say, when your teammate had taken a dip in the water, causing him to drown and scream at you. |
 | 4. Grandia I am actually hearing that this game is becoming more and more of a cult classic, but at the time it came out I don't think anyone played it. Nonetheless, it had an awesome story line and interesting, if somewhat broken, character progression. Also, on screen enemies and a very active battle system were welcome additions. |
 | 5. Tom and Jerry: Frantic Antics Although the action was really slow, this game had some nice co-op platforming and some great levels. I think this may be one of the last "classic" side scrolling platform games released. It had that sort of really stereotypical, but also terribly endearing, art design. |
 | 6. SimCity 3000 This is the red-headed stepchild of the Sim City series. While nothing is really "bad" about the game, it was totally unloved by critics and Sim City fans. The first sim city is a classic, Sim City 2000 is what the first should have been, and Sim City 4 has all the features you could ever want, but in between is this guy. Still, this game was a notable step up from Sim City 2000 in terms of graphics and music. Additionally, this is where the series began the "sphere of influence" model for NIMBY and landmark buildings. Also, things like neighbor deals, high tech industry, farms, and real terraforming all were developed at this stage. |
 | 7. Command & Conquer: Red Alert - Retaliation C & C is a huge PC franchise, but Red Alert - Retaliation actually made a decent transition to the PSX. The maps were large enough to try different things on, but small enough to manage with a controller. Also, good use of the shoulder buttons as hotkeys increased playability. Finally, the 105 skirmish maps meant you could always fire this game up for 30 minutes of war fun. |
 | 8. Theme Park I couldn't find the PSX version of this, but that is what I am referring to here. This game was pretty bad in terms of basic issues like interface and core concept, but for some reason there was nothing more fun than putting in a full money cheat and building absurd roller coasters. |
 | 9. Lightening Force: Quest for the Darkstar Quite possibly the most generic side scrolling shoot em up ever, it also offered players no direction whatsoever in terms of weapon use and strength, enemy hitbox detection, or even level goals. There were so many enemies that you never seemed to be able to kill, some that you never seemed to even damage, but then one day you would miraculously clear a level. As bad as this game was, my entire family, including my father and mother, played the heck out of it. |
 | 10. Sports Talk Baseball One of the first sports games to feature commentary. Terrible graphics, only three stadiums, and few options. (The only season was 21 games long, but you had to play a three game set to save.) You could really mess with the announcer by changing the infield depth or getting in run downs. Infield in! Infield Back! Infield Normal! So bad, but so good. |
 | 11. John Madden Football '92 This game was bad, but also hugely influential. The instruction manual was huge, and contained the games playbook. The season mode was only playoffs, and you could easily throw half back screens 60 yards downfield without fear of interception, but it was quick, somewhat varied, football action. The players all had pretty much the same stats, but for some reason they decided to program different "spike" power into each skill player... |
 | 12. Disney's Toy Story Quite possibly the single best Genesis game ever made. Seriously. Graphics that were better than a lot of mid-cycle PSX games. Huge variety in gameplay, ranging from side scroller, top down racer, 3/4ths racer, even some first person levels, and yet the gameplay mechanics for each type were well implemented, fun, and fair. Followed the movie in a completely logical way, but also had its own twist to the story that made sense. Finally, this game was full of charm. Unfortunately, it showed up towards the end of the Genesis life cycle, and carried a decidedly "kiddie" movie tie-in, and seems almost completely forgotten by today's gamers. |
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