A lot of today's biggest games stick to a pretty standard formula for success, featuring just the right smattering of collectibles, decent storyline and fancy graphics to keep us happy. It's a safe formula used every year by the biggest franchises, meaning that we rarely see AAA games push the boat out and offer something really different. But there are occasions when a video game has a premise that sounds just a bit too weird - or outright mundane - to really catch our attention, and yet has some special something that makes us fall in love with it. These kinds of games don't rely on marketing millions to get our attention, but on their quality after release (because it's not easy trying to convince the world that cars and football are an excellent combination, that a game with about five genres in it is any good, or that playing as a microchip on a bizarre zoo-planet is actually insanely fun). So here's to the freaks, the oddballs and the outsiders of the gaming medium. Those video games that dared to be different, and succeeded in being so, delivering off-the-wall experiences that we should all try out. Here are 10 of the best oddball games that we'd never have expected to be as awesome as they are.
10. Space Station Silicon Valley
Ever wonder what Rockstar got up to before they became 'the studio that makes GTA and games like it'? Interestingly, DMA Design, as Rockstar was known in the 90s, had a heavy involvement with Nintendo, releasing several games for the SNES, as well as a couple for the N64 - one of which cast you as a microchip capable of jumping into various mechanical animals in a giant space zoo. The levels of Space Station Silicon Valley are vast and puzzle-oriented, though the diversity of the creatures you possess - which include a dive-bombing parrot, a four-wheeled dog and a tortoise tank - means that the game whimsically bounces around between the genres. Throughout the large biome levels, you'll get tasked with things like beating up camels as a boxing kangaroo, mouse-racing and commanding an army of rats as a King Rat. Silicon Valley had a free-wheeling, 'we don't care' spirit that came to full fruition with the GTA series, but not even that can stand up to Space Station for unrestrained, off-the-wall weirdness that worked so well.
Gamer, Researcher of strange things.
I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.
