Revisiting Obscurity #1

I was the outcast among outcasts when I was a kid. I wasn't playing Mario or Sonic, I was playing Wolfenstein and digging through shareware compilations. It was awkward at the time, but it's left me with a decade full of offbeat, obscure gems (and garbage) that have long been forgotten.

So, I decided to blog about as many of these "classics" as I could. Both in the interest of revisiting/discovering them, and in the interest of raising awareness of them. I'm going to start by running through the entirety (compatibility willing) of the Game Empire trilogy, one of my favorite shareware compilations. I might do a handful of games per post, or just a couple, depending on how much I have to say about each title. I'm also going to skip card games and "famous" games, although I will touch on some fairly well-known ones. The games will be chosen at random.

After I burn through Game Empire, I plan to keep going with other PC obscurities, but that's going to take a while.

Let's get cracking then, shall we?

Game #1: Sledrider (1997) by BOCC Software

1997, huh? Wow. Okay. I'd have pegged it at 1993. I don't remember this one, and it's clear as to why: It's basically a bland mix of Toobin' and SkiFree with none of the polish of either. Not a great start to this project, but you gotta take the crap with the cream. Not much to say about this one.

Game #2: Starfire (1992) by Silver Lightning Software

Ah, here we go. I remember this. It was a pretty fun, if generic, shmup. After playing it again just now, I can honestly say that it is indeed a game I have played. Woof. Okay, it's not horrible, but the controls are really rough, and the horrendous sound actually made me nauseated. The game itself is the usual "shoot a fleet of abstract ships and grab powerups". There's just nothing here worth seeking out.

Game #3: Pong Kombat (1994) Stefan Gagne

And to round out this first entry, we have a personal favorite of mine that I may have cheated the randomized system to put on this list, because I needed a positive note to end on.

This one is a little more well-known. Pong Kombat is exactly what it says: Mortal Kombat-style Pong. It had a weirdly full feature set for a joke game, with secrets, specials, fatalities, even the pit stage in glorious early-90s pre-rendered CG. It's surprisingly fun, too, inspiring a couple fan sequels (that I've never played). I'm still waiting for my $1.34 and a plastic cup, though.

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So that's three games down. Let me know how I can improve this in future installments, or if I should even bother continuing. Any particular obscure favorites I should look at? Even if I did this daily I'd have years of material, but I haven't played everything. I'm not completely married to just doing summaries, either, if you have any suggestions as to how I could change it up some. Maybe the occasional gameplay video.

Pro Tip: "Revisiting Obscurity" sounds like a pretentious school essay on film or something.

GB does video archives called Encyclopaedia Bombastica, which is exactly what you described this blog as. What you should do is take the name and slap Community on it. "Community Encyclopaedia Bombastica". Then everyone will know exactly what it is. Second, don't post a blog. Post it as an Off-Topic thread OR (even better) attach it to the specific game it's about.

For whatever reason, nobody reads or posts on blogs on GB. Even VGK gets like 10 responses most of the time.

Finally, I would ditch any personal text like "this is how I got into obscure games" and just get straight to the meat and potatoes.

Two paragraphs a game is good. Your first paragraph is, frankly, useless. Lol. So if you have nothing to say about a game that is interesting, we probably aren't going to find it interesting either. Just knowing a game exists isn't really very exciting. Your Pong Kombat is a great start, just needs a wee bit more fleshing out.

Videos help, but I think nail the text down before you start biting off that much work duder.

@geraltitude: Thanks, that's exactly the kind of feedback I was hoping for. I put this together off and on throughout the day while doing other things, so my writing isn't at its best here, and it's more "proof of concept" than anything. I hate the title too, so that will definitely change.

My ultimate plan is to see if anybody's even interested in reading about these weird little games, then move the whole project over to Blogspot, hopefully with some preinstalled readers. I want to go more in-depth when possible, and use this as a jumping-off point with which to do all sorts of things in the interest of documenting these games.

I feel like I have a good concept here (and please correct me if I'm wrong about that... I'd hate to put a bunch of work into this just to find that nobody gives a damn), I just need to find the right way to approach it.

I wouldn't. That might come off as false advertising, depending on whether or not this becomes an actual video feature. Then again, a video feature with short exposure for each game might work very well for this compilation stuff.

To be honest, I'm not very interested in reading about them. I am, however, extremely interested in watching gameplay videos of them. Throw in some commentary and I'd be a regular viewer. I'd also be happy to contribute my own video content to something like that.

@onyourwifi: I'd be happy to whip up a quick video version of this to gauge reactions. Wouldn't take long at all. It won't be polished by any means, but it should be serviceable.