20 Severely Underrated 90s Video Games You Forgot You Loved

2. Kingpin: Life Of Crime - PC, 1999

Not many people remember this gritty, crime-based shooter from the end of the 90s. Kingpin's popularity wasn't helped by the fact that the Columbine High School massacre happened shortly before it, and the United States launched a full-on opprobrium against violent video-games for lack of finding a legitimate explanation for the tragedy. Kingpin sees you beaten up and left for dead in a back-alley. Once you wake up, you pick up the first weapon near you (a lead pipe), and head off on your revenge quest against the Kingpin (essentially Marsellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction) and his stooges. Beneath the murky, meat-headed facade, Kingpin was actually an innovative game. When you clobbered or shot enemies, their skin would get damaged, and if they fled the scene then you could track them down through the alleys of the game by following their blood trails. You could also wander into bars, interact with NPCs, buy armour for different parts of your body, and hire thugs; I remember these scowling, murderous brutes were some of the first video-game characters I ever became attached to, feeling a genuine pang of sadness when they got take down in gun-battles - their blocky bodies lying gormlessly on the ground, never to be revived. Kingpin was a brave FPS/RPG-Lite hybrid, and its unique mechanics haven't been repeated since. Like many underrated 90s games, it's now become something of a cult classic. There are some good graphics update mods out there, and it can be purchased at GOG.com as well.