Under the Radar - Hidden gems of the gaming world

I am always on the lookout for games which flew under the radar. Maybe they are too old to be discovered by younger generations or suffered from bad PR or reviews. Maybe fate had no success in store for them, who can explain the bizarre ongoings in the game world ? I decided to create a list of games I found to be rather unknown and underappreciated by the gaming community, so that other players may discover and enjoy them as well. Some of these games are great, some feature interesting and rare concepts and some are just bizarre. For whatever reason these games got buried in the sands of time, I think they shoud not be forgotten.

List items

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  101. Spider-Man

  Due to the nature of Spider Man's special abilites, he is prone to be the star of many computer games. The ATARI version does a good job of taking all that makes Spidy exciting and putting it in a simple, yet addictive game. The player tries to web, climb and crawl his way up the buildings to face the green goblin, while try and hinder the enemies from cutting off Spidey's web and let him fall down into his demise.

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  102. Flood

  One of Amiga's best Jump N Runs. The players controls a strange tentacular creature trying to stop the flooding of the levels. The controls are very smooth and the playing avatar quite versatile it what it can do.

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  103. Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe

  Bitmap Brothers (like Psygnosis and Blizzard) were known for the high production value of their games. Speedball 2 is another prime example. Great graphics and controls make for great fun. The players control teams in a distant-future team-sport which can become quiet hands-on rather quickly and players will smack each other around, to the enjoyment of everyone involved.

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  104. Depths of Peril

  The Indie-Genre has many hidden gems to offer. Depths of Peril offers a solid game engine, making the player the leader of a barbarian tribe. A mix of Diablo-esque Hack and Slay and intertribal diplomacy make this a genrebending experience. The graphics and value are limited by the budget but the fact that many aspects of the game are randomly generated make this highly replayable.

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  105. Albion

  Blue Byte was a very successful German game company (The Settlers, Battle Isle) which had quite a prolific output in the 90ies. Albion is a adventure/rpg hybrid which looks and plays like many console RPGs, top-down view and a very deep and rewarding story. The fact, that the player character is stranded on an alien planet make the pace and structure very entertaining and solid. A fantastic game with lots of details to be enjoyed and digested.

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  106. Shadow of the Beast

  Once more, Psygnosis delivered a soild Jump N Run of amazingly high production value, fantastic, if not legendary music and graphics, the overall feel of the game is almost the sole reason why this game should still be played today.

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  107. Bureau 13

  The best aspect of the game is the creeping atmostphere and the overall b-movie atmosphere of the game. While there are many better adventure games out there, this one is too unknown for what it is and will appeal to people interested in aliens and scary games.

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  108. Star Wars: Rebel Assault

  One of the first games to advocate the necessity to purchase a CD-Rom, Rebel Assault is a blast to play. A great license, diverse levels and frenzy gameplay make this a very good game.

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  109. Historyline: 1914 - 1918

  A spin off from the turn-based warfare series Battle Isle. History Line depcits the First World War in several chapters which relate to what happened back in the day. Essentially, the game is a hex-grid based tactical strategy game in which players take turns movie their units and fighting each other (Think Advance Wars).

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  110. Boston Bomb Club

  A nice puzzle game with a unique and funny theme. A steampunkish group of Victorian Gentlemen meet to engange in a game of bomb-pushing and puzzling. The game is very simple to learn and pick up but becomes more engaging and rewarding as one plays along. Underrated.

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  111. Abomination: The Nemesis Project

  Many games tried to surf the wave of X-Com's success but not a single one succeeded (at least not to my knowledge). Abomination pits the player in a dystopian city overrun by a strange called and mutants. While the game controls are fiddly and take a while to get used to, the game features random missions and a non-linear structure which is a definitve plus, especially when compated the X-Com games. Do no try and play it without reading the manual first, it is not easy to figure out. Still, if you are into squad-based games, this should be for you.

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  112. Battle Bugs

  A weird little real-time game without the base building and resource gathering. Battle Bugs is game of warfaring bugs in the garden and domestic areas. Spiders fighting with ants, bees dropping bombs on cockroaches and so forth. The levels play like puzzles, despite being real-time (with a pause function), because there is usually one optimum way to go about the levels. Still, despite the lack of replayability and flexibility, the game's unique theme makes it enjoyable.

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  113. James Pond 2: Codename: RoboCod

  Another legendary Jump N Run for the Amiga system. Great graphics, a quirky theme and tight controls make this a classic Amiga 2D platformer.

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  114. Fast Food

  This game is more or less a bizarre novelty and should be experienced. The player is a mouth roaming around the screen and eating the way through, you guessed it, fast food. Not really worth tracking down but if you ever stumble across it, give it a go and have a laught.

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  115. Wolfchild

  A fantastic Jump N Run. A solid platformer with an amazing theme. Lots of work went into the graphics, the detailed gameworld, interesting enemies and so forth. A classic !

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  116. Squish 'Em

  The player ascends some sort of building, collecting money and avoid being bitten by weird creatures that look like winged boxes. While you can "squish" the critters, they will quickly respawn and try to hunt you down again.

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  117. Black Lamp

  A very lovely Jump N Run. The game is slightly better than average, yet the game world and artwork is very appealing, set in a medieval world of fantasy.

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  118. Who Dares Wins

  A slower version of the legendary vertical shooter Commando. Who dares wins plays at a slower pace and has the player taking on hordes of enemy soldiers using his gun and grenades. The game is quite difficult as one enemy hit forces you to forfeit a live.

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  119. Jumpin' Jackson

  A puzzle game with a weird theme. A little rock-n-roll creature, which looks like a mix between Sid Vicious and ball of butter. The game music is good and fits the Rock theme very good. The difficulty and complexity increases in a rewarding and inspiring pace and the game should appeal to classic puzzle fans, although conservative puzzlers might be put off by the flashy and off-the-rocker art style.

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  120. The Last Ninja

  A slow-paced and intense beat-em up again. The Last Ninja is played from an isometric perspective and depicts the journey of a "black ninja", a popular fictional archetype in the late eighties, as he takes on all sorts of villains and bad guys. The fighting is way more complex and slower than other, more arcade-style beat 'em ups. The game features good graphics and an infamous soundtrack.

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  121. Outlaw

  A simple head-to-head shoot Em Up. The game pits two colt-wielding cowboys face to face, shooting each other. The levels vary and feature different obstacles such as stagecoaches and cacti.

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  122. Hard 'n Heavy

  The core game is an average military theme shooter and does not stand apart from most FPS out there in the same vain. Yet, the game features a solid random mission generator system which is good past time and lots of fun. I recommend to check it out.

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  123. Hot Wheels

  More or less a sandbox game, the player can custome-build fancy cars and drive around the city, showing off and taking part in the odd minigame (one game being an early top-down rendition of Destruction Derpy). A nice game for kids, it is great fun to build all sorts of different cars and take to the road.

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  124. Ghost Master

  With some games, the premise alone sounds interesting enough to pick it up and try it. Ghost master flew under the radar for no reasons. Good reviews and player reviews but it became an underdog and it still is. The player controls various forms of supernatural entities (ghosts etc.) and needs to scare the crap out of people in various houses (levels). The interface resembles The Sims games and it is great fun to scare and manipulate the poor humans, forcing them out of the premises in terror.

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  125. Crusader Kings

  While many games are simply too old to be well-known, Crusader Kings is not one of those. Instead, Paradox Interactive caters for a small group of dedicated fans looking for complex historic simulations which make civilization and Total War look like Paper Mario. Crusader Kings however shifted the heavily tactical focus to "histoirc person managment". Who marries who, how does the offspring turn out, who is the right successor and so forth. The fact that the game focus is on persons and more "human" factors of history make it the most accessible of the series and should appeal to many. There is a great Video Tutorial available on Youtube.

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  126. Sky Skipper

  The players man a plane and try to rescue caged animals and avoid a crash landing. The game is quiet difficult, primarily due to the quiet hard controls which take a while to master.

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  127. Putty

  A good Jump N Run game whose lead character's unique ability to move (a ball of wobbly jelly) make this game unique and unsual.

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  128. Trashman

  A simple premise but enjoyable gameplay. The player takes care of the neighbourhoods trashcans while avoiding cars, crazy drivers and cyclist.

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  129. Enigma Force

  A cute little game about a pilot and his plance who is on a mission to rescue caged animals. The game is very simple but requires a good dexterity and it takes while to master

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  130. The Chaos Engine

  Before the heyday of Internet-multiplayer, it was important to have a solid array of multiplayer games in your stack. The Chaos Engine is a prime example of a fast and entertaining coop shoot em up from a top down view. The controls are great and never frustrating. The graphics are good and the character artwork done in an exquisite comic-noir style.

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  131. Warlords: Battlecry III

  A great fantasy RTS with a big variety of units and races and an immersive semi-linear gameplay. The game mixes RPG elements with solid RTS strategy gaming.

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  132. Spider Fighter

  Another good Defender/Space Invaders clone. This time, the player must prevent spiders from descending from the top by blasting them to bits.

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  133. Fatal Rewind

  Like Blizzard, Psygnosis games were famous for incredibly high production valures. The Killing Game Show (aka Fatal Rewind) sports amazing graphics, soundtrack and sound effects. The game world if quite bizarre and might not appeal to everyone. The game play is fast and thrilling and despite being not very well known, The Killing Game show is a hidden game of platforming

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  134. Darklands

  A cute and simple vertical platformer. The players ascend a construction faintly resembline a building which is loaded with crawling monsters that look like weird boxes, collect money on your way and should an evil box get to close, try and squish it to a pulp.

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  135. Switchblade

  A great platformer that makes up what it lacks in game world design with tight controls and fast-paced gameplay

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  136. Armalyte

  A great 2D sidescrolling shoot em up. High production value and good controls make this one of the best examples of the genre

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  137. P. P. Hammer and His Pneumatic Weapon

  A great Amiga Jump N Run game about a little guy and his pneumatic hammer

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  138. Greenhouse

  A quiet bizarre game. A gardener looks after his plants, watering them and making sure the weed does not take over. The game is a "one-screen" platformer (think Donkey Kong, Lode Runner etc.) The gameplay is fun and the theme makes it an obscure gem.

• 139. Hollywood Mogul

  To this day, no game has managed to simulate the world of filmmaking to a satisfying degree. Some games use the theme to hide a goofy tycoon game (The Movies) while others are way too linear (pre-written movie plots, static actors/actress profiles etc) to simulate the exciting ups and downs of the film business. Hollywood mogul is quite detailed and highly moddable with many user-made databases available for download. Hollywood Mogul might be as close as one can get (as of now) to a realistic experience of running a film production company. Some people might find this game to fiddly. The primary focus is on business issues, number crunching, negotiating contracts and so forth. Still, if you are into complex business simulations with a unique theme, Hollywood Mogul is for you.

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  140. Star Trek: The Next Generation - Birth of the Federation

  A solid space-empire game at its core, the Star Trek license makes this game highly immersive and enjoyable. From the races and technologies to the graphics and sounds, the license in well implemented.

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  141. Uplink: Hacker Elite

  A interesting premise which lends itself to PC gaming to quiet a higher extent as one would expect. The player are hackers taking on all sorts of datamining and datatheft. The interface is very slick and it can be very exciting and thrilling to take on missions of ever increasing difficulty and illegality.

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  142. Vixen

  A quiet raunchy and pulp-platformer about a feist amazon roaming through the jungle and facing all sorts of evil critters. The controls are not the easiest to master and the game is quiet difficult, but the charming lead character and lush gameworld make this is a good platformer experience.

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  143. Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix

  While SOF2 is an average FPS at its core, the game features are solid and interesting random mission gengerator which is reason enough to track this game down, because I have not seen a similar form of random map generation in an first-person-shooter

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  144. Hostages

  The forefather of the popular SWAT series, hostages depicts shoot-to-kill missions in which the players has to take out terrorists. The graphics and art style is very engaging and emits the thrill of minutely planned SWAT missions.

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  145. The Oregon Trail: 5th Edition

  A simulation of pioneers facing the perils and dangers of travelling Westeward Ho! in North America. The player faces resouce Managment, planning issues and decision making in order to secure the sage passasge of his wagons into the west. The game is both educating and charming.

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  146. Yars' Revenge

  A very bizarre game and despite the solid and simple gameplay it takes a while to get used to the strange graphics. The players try and shoot the enemy located on the right side, which is protected by a wall of dazzling lights and can hurl all sorts of projectiles on its own.

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  147. The Lost Vikings

  Another title from the range of Blizzard's very good pre-WOW & Starcraft output. The Lost Vikings is a nice mix of Jump N Run and puzzle game. The player leads a group of vikings through various stages, filled with puzzles. The vikings all have different abilites and the player will constantly have to switch between the different vikings to make good use of their abilites.

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  148. Shadow Dancer

  A great Amiga Platformer/Arcade about a white Ninja and his faithful dog taking on hordes of villains and bad guys. Great controls and the aspect of having the dog fighting alongside you make this an interesting and unique game of its kind.

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  149. Zaxxon

  A great space shooter. I dont think I have played many isometric scrollers, not that it plays much different from a vertical scroller. The colour scheme is quite loopey, but the gameplay is slick and great fun. Good sound effects as well.

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  150. TwinWorld: Land of Vision

  A very cute and charming Jump N Run game which is not as difficult as some would prefer to, but the immersing and twinkling gameworld is reason enough to give this little gem a go.

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  151. Time Commando

  The basic game is an average action-adventure with a sliglty slower pace than most and lacking any platform features focussing on combat. Yet, the game's setting is very uniqe and despite being so simple it is lots of fun. The lead characters jumps from era to era and faces different enemies, depending on the era. From ancient rome to WW2. The whole journey makes the unsual game worthwhile.

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  152. Stunt Car Racer

  Unlike in other vehicle/driving games, you wont have to race or fight against other cars but take on challenging obstacle course in high altitudes.

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  153. Apidya

  An interesting sidescroller shoot em up. What makes this game particulary interesting is the setting. The player controls a shooting fly taking on all sorts of insects and critters.

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  154. Bagitman

  A quirky platformer about a robber and his wheelbarrow

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  155. Dino Wars

  An interesting Archon clone which makes up in theme what it lacks in polish and controls. Instead of mythological creatures, the players take control of hordes of dinosaurs which face off both on a chessboard and in Beat-Em Up sequences.

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  156. Disney's DuckTales: The Quest for Gold

  Duck Tales is basically an assemblage of Mini-Games. A bet prompts Scrooge McDuck and his nemesis to amass the first million. The players engage in various mini games and collect money depending on their performance. Take photos in the jungle or delve in maze caves.

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  157. Dungeon Keeper

  An innovative idea mixed with slick and polished gameplay as well as Bullfrog's trademark black humour, Dungeon Keeper is still very much playable and addictive.

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  158. Battle of Tiles

  An interesting mix of casual gaming, simple graphics and some RPG elements. Control a band of tiles which is recruited by buying enemy tiles before they engage you and take that band of fighters, archers, mummies, blobs, sorcerers and many more variants across many stages of increasing difficulty. Your tiles can level up and become stronger.

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  159. Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space

  The surge of independent games lead to myriads of great "little & ingenious" games which do resemble old school classic which could fit on one "disk" in times of the Amiga, C64 or old school PC. WW:RTIS is no exception. Roam around in a randomly created 2D universe, collect artifacts, fight aliens and do all sorts of things a good spacetraveller does. Always keep an eye on the date because you will have to return to your homeworld eventually and take a shot at the highscore. A cute little game with lovely graphics which are not breathtaking but still enjoyable and serve their purpose. A great mini-game.

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  160. Europa Universalis III

  Despite having a learning curve like a wall and being rather dry, at least compared to the thrilling Total War series, Europa Universalis 3 is an incredibly deep and complex simulation of world history. Although the course of history can change and the game remains unpredictable at its core it is very accurate when it comes to historic information. This makes it less appealing to chaos games who prefer Sid Meier's rendering of world history but the more interesting to people who are into alternative versions of actual history.

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  161. Mr. Jones Graveyard Shift

  Out of the myriads of unnecessary Tycoon games out there, Mr. Jones graveyard shift is a welcome exception. A neatly designed, simple yet rewarding (both in gameplay as well as in thematic experience) game. Take care of your customers by developing your graveyard, use the right plants, headstones etc. to earn the most money. Avoid ghosts and zombies on your way. Not the reinvention of the wheel, but a great installment of the classic tycoon genre.

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  162. Fire and Brimstone

  A solid platformer with a great theme, good controls and a rather steep difficulty curve.

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  163. TrackMania Nations Forever

  A free racing game with a solid game engine and free online mulitplayer support. The best thing however is the ability to make your own tracks. Needless to say those servers out there are filled with amazing tracks and it is great fun to jump right in and face one new challenge after the other.HX

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  164. Battle for Wesnoth
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  165. DreamWeb
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  166. The Gene Machine
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  167. Hinterland
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  168. Drawn: The Painted Tower
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  169. Magic: The Gathering
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