Let’s face it: no matter how much time we dedicate to gaming, there’s never enough time to play everything. Thousands of games are released each year, and whilst some are swept away in a wave of popularity, others fare more modestly (and sometimes not at all).
For every new Call of Duty there’s a hundred other games that will be released without most gamers realizing they even exist. There’s a multitude of complex reasons that determine a video game’s success or failure. Poor marketing, simultaneous releases or high pricing all contribute.
So here’s 10 awesome games that went by generally unnoticed (this article contains no spoilers or plot reveals – wouldn’t want to ruin these fantastic games now, would we?).
10. Perimeter (PC) (2004)
On the surface, Perimeter appears to be your run-of-the-mill Real Time Strategy game. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find one of the most innovative strategy games ever developed.
With Perimeter, the land is your primary resource. Players need to Terraform the land around them to fit their gameplay style. Land mass could be both raised and lowered, stretched and compacted. This feature forces players to frequently expand their base while transforming the landscape into heavily defensible organic fortress.
Terraforming formed the basis of Perimeter’s core gameplay and suffered as a result. Rebuilding the enviroment while facing off against waves of enemies took a great deal of skill. The steep learning curve and complex control scheme didn’t prove hugely popular with gamers at the time and as such, Perimeter failed to sell.
Despite the gameplay innovation, Perimeter suffered from poor enemy A.I and horrible frame rate issues. Patches released from Developer, KD-Labs fixed many of the games problems, but not before the initial fanbase had moved on. A cult following emerged in the years after release, but sadly never developed into one big enough to support the game’s surprising sequel, Perimeter 2.
Released in 2009, Perimeter 2 went largely unnoticed by gamers everywhere.
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6 Comments
Suggestion: put “next” button at the top of articles. Damned annoying to have to repeatedly scroll down to go to the next page after its reloaded. As is a top 10 list that’s needs ten and more pages.
For the nothing it means to you I wont be visiting this site again because of BS like that.
But Bob, then people wouldn’t read the text! Most people start reading at the top of the page and, when they get to the bottom, they stop. At this point, if they like what they’re reading, they’ll want to proceed to the next page. So look! There’s the “Next” button. Brilliant!
A strange reason indeed to boycott a site, but I guess that if you’re never coming back, we can say whatever we like about you and you won’t be able to get annoyed.
You got the name of this article wrong! It should have been called “The 10 Best Games Ever Made”. Seriously, Psychonauts! It plays like a particularly deep Saturday morning cartoon. Loaded with charm and, at times, genuine pathos – it’s also fun, satisfying and engrossing to play. Just brilliant in every conceivable way.
10 Awesome Games that Nobody Played is the perfect title… because, all these games, like Psychonauts, is bloody brilliant and nobody played them… that’s kind of… the point… of the article… best games… nobody played… which would be why Psychonauts is number 1… it is one of the greatest games possible, yet no one played it… If you had the best games ever made you would have plenty of games that people DID play… but… yeah… just saying… this article isn’t disproving Psychonauts awesomeness, it’s highlighting it’s criminal notplayedness….
Yep. That’s why I used the S-Word. “Seriously”. It was to provide a bridge between my facetious opening gambit and the more substantial second part of my comment.
OK? OK.
“On the surface Hostile Waters appears to be your standard ‘Blow everything that moves’ action game.”
“‘Blow everything that moves.’” vs “Blow UP everything that moves.”
Two things that are very different. An unfortunate typo.