Some of the best games you've probably never heard of

Ok boys and girls this aint your ordinary best games list. this round up is dedicated to those games that never really took off yet are totally worth your time.

and first up is

Nethack.

First released in 1985 Nethack isn’t so much a game as a gameplay style. Essentially a Roguelike, Nethack is a free open-source game that’s been continually upgraded and expanded since the concept first leapt into the mind of the designers.



The plot is deliberately basic – players just choose a class and venture off into a randomly generated dungeon. The aim is to get to the bottom and recover the Amulet of Yendor from the obligatory evil wizard. What makes the game so addictive and loved though is that players end up generating stories of their own because of certain gameplay elements. Random levels and items, a lack of saving and very limited graphics that force players to imagine their surroundings in detail – these things go along way to creating a uniquely memorable environment for play.

Nethack is mercilessly unforgiving on anybody who mistakes the simple graphics as an indication that this is a casual game though and the dungeon ruthlessly and constantly punishes players who don’t take the time to learn the basics. A common saying among the Nethack is that ‘the developer has predicted all’ and it’s something that certainly looks to be true. The possibilities for suicide and self-harm in a hardcore Nethack run are so extensive that it’s a reason to try the game in and of itself.
with its countless mods and open gameplay, Nethack is something everyone should try at least once.

Neverhood

released in 1996, the game casts players as The Klayman, a completely mute character who wakes up one day to an abandoned world. The world is startlingly stylised, full of TVs which grow out of the ground and buildings that, as you can see by the fingerprints pressed into the clay, are moulded by very careful hands. It is however, completely devoid of intelligent life and it falls on the player to direct Klayman through the various puzzles to find his friends, Big Robot Bil and Willie Trombone.



The gameplay can be frustrating and this is one of those games which is now infuriatingly hard to track down either on the net or in shops, but it’s very much worth the effort. It’s clear from the start that the developers really didn’t pull any punches when they set out to make The Neverhood and the game doesn’t compromise with players at any point. When Doug TenNapel sat down and decided that the soundtrack should be a freeform experimental jazz affair full of rambling men and gargling sounds of someone swilling mouthwash around their gums, you can bet that somebody told him it would be a bad idea.

Thankfully though, Doug didn’t listen. He didn’t meet the marketing staff halfway. He just hired Terry Taylor to do the craziest music he could and flung it into the game regardless because he knew that that is what this story needed. The whole of the game is carried through on TenNapel’s uncompromising vision which, for better and worse, never let gameplay or marketing concerns stand between the idea and the reality. This game is one unique piece of code and I for one very much enjoyed the ride.

Outcast

Outcast was a game that was massively hyped on release in 1099 but which managed only moderate sales despite critical acclaim. It also deserves a nod for being the game with arguably the most fleshed out and established back-story ever.

A third person action-adventure set on an alien planet, players take over Cutter Slade – a US Navy SEAL sent as protection for a team of two scientists and a linguist on a journey to an alien planet. The four-man team has a simple enough mission – save the world from a black hole that formed as an unintended side effect when an experimental inter-dimensional probe was damaged in an alien universe.

Footage from the probe showed that an alien freaked out, shot the probe and caused an energy backlash which now threatens to devour the solar system. Cutter and Co. go through the dimensional rift to gather together the remains of the probe so that the energy disruption can be reversed. All in a day’s work...

Unfortunately, there’s a hiccup in the plans and Cutter is separated from the rest of his team. Kauffmann, the scientist in charge of the expedition is lost completely, mathematician Anthony Xue is captured by a fanatical tyrant called Fae Rhan and the linguist Marion Wolfe is taken underground by Fae Rhan’s pacifist opposers. It’s all south of FUBAR and Cutter is left desperately trying to put the pieces back together.



Outcast was one of the first games to blend so many genres together so seamlessly. On the one hand the game is clearly a third person shooter, but at the same time it has RPG, adventure and platforming elements. The player can take on side-missions from the native population, complete main missions in a number of ways, upgrade weapons and skills and explore the six unique ecosystems of the planet in any order they wish thanks to a free-roaming game design.

The theology, fauna and language of the alien creatures that the player interacts with during the game were enormously detailed too. The game even went so far as to introduce an automatic lexicon which monitored what alien phrases the player overheard and what their probable meanings were – expanding on descriptions and translating as the game moved ahead.

Most astounding of all though was that the game did all of this in rather stunning 3D, despite using a graphics engine which relied solely on putting voxels together. The result was incredibly CPU intensive at the time, but hardly a problem nowadays and there are several patches to help players run it today.

Beyond Good and Evil

released in 2003. with what appeared to be no marketing whatsoever this game disappeared as quickly as it arrived, which is a real shame as it actually very good.

Set against a complex political backdrop, Beyond Good and Evil stars Jade as a would-be reporter on the planet Hillys. Living in an isolated lighthouse with her uncle Pey’j, an anthropomorphic pig, Jade divides her time between making a living as a photographer and running an orphanage for children whose parents have been killed by the Domz – a parasitic race currently invading Hillys.Jade is a naïve girl who trusts that the Hillys international army, the Alpha Sections, can repel the Domz threat – but not all is what it seems and the Alpha Sections have an agenda of their own. Pulled down into an underground resistance of spies and reporters, Jade and Pey’j venture out on numerous intelligence missions to expose the conspiracy with the only weapon they have – the truth.



Beyond Good and Evil is one of the few games which can truly be described as a triumph of game design on almost every level – in fact, if you removed occasional camera glitches (the game uses the same engine as the Prince of Persia series) then you’ll be hard pressed to find any fault with the game. The presentation is beautifully stylised and deceptively effective. This is a game that you will not regret giving a go.

Nethack seems interesting, will try it when I have more free time.

There is also an very good hardcore RPG called Avernum which certainly deserves more attention, it's very hard and incredibly addictive.

"Avernum is worth any true RPG fans' time. 4 Stars" - Computer Games Magazine
"Hit - Go and check Avernum out." - Daily Radar
"At only $25 for the full version, it's hard to beat." - PC Gamer

Site if anyone wants to try game (free demo available for each game) or read more about it: http://www.avernum.com/

They also have few more games that might be worth checking.

Outcast was a classic game, I remember borrowing it off a friend, the world was gigantic for the time the game was released. I highly recommend it.

Beyond Good and Evil, now that is a great game! Have to pick it up again some day and play it.