General and Gaming > General
52 Games Challenge 2026!!!
bikingjahuty:
--- Quote from: dhaabi on March 26, 2026, 11:15:18 am ---
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 10:27:28 am ---I think at this point there are no more undiscovered retro gems,
--- End quote ---
There certainly are, such as games that never released in the US that don't have English language options alongside titles for older PC systems. Although, maybe you specifically said this in reference to the US home console market which is probably more true than it's not.
--- Quote from: kashell on March 26, 2026, 07:56:16 am ---Sometimes playing the bad games helps us appreciate the good games that much more.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely, and obviously this isn't limited to video games. If you're someone who has a favorite genre within a particular medium, then engaging in lower-quality contemporaries gives you the opportunity to think critically about what it is you do actually like. Sometimes, people don't know why it is they like a particular aspect because they don't actually have anything bad to compare it to.
--- End quote ---
With how long YouTube and various other large online spaces have been around, any game you can possibly think of has been discussed to death at this point. There are some fairly obscure PC games I grew up with and even those have at least a handful of dedicated reddit threads (sometimes whole subreddits) or there's a few videos on YouTube discussing them to some degree. Sure, there are probably unreleased games that have never seen the light of day that no one but the original devs know about, but if it's been released, it's known about and the internet has fully thrust it into the gaming community consciousness by now.
marvelvscapcom2:
23. Starfox 64 [N64] - finished March 24th, 2026
GREAT THINGS COME IN SMALL PACKAGES
Starfox 64 was directed by the great Shigeru Miyamoto and produced as this glorious rail shooter with 3D video-scopic 3rd person POV. It is technically great and visually ahead of it's time. But brevity and a short run time certainly leave you feeling like you had a rendezvous with a very beautiful person who didn't think you deserved a 2nd date... a lot of the excellence of it's technical prowess and level design was cut short it seems. And at my age and attention span? That's perfectly fine with me.
The game takes place through varying planets in a galactic solar system where you team up with Falco, Skippy, and the pig to chase after intergalactic villains that were responsible for the death of your dad. And they make no reservations about that being the reality either. With countless times sitting around and saying "you're gonna die just like your daddy" and other sinister stuff this cast of true pricks manage to muster up. I honestly have never heard a video game characters father be desecrated post mordem this much. Why do Fox so bogus? But either way you spend the entirety of the game traveling to distant planets on the Arcadia such as Titania. These barren sandstorm planets, gas giants, earth like worlds and all in between battling galactic starship, monsters and all kinds of epic space fare. It feels really 64 Bit for whatever that is worth.
The SNES starfox was also a technical juggernaut. Making use of the systems full video fx chip. The N64 version seems to push the N64's hardware capabilities to the max with these lush 60fps flying sequences, lazers. It looks likeba sexier 3D Zaxxon on steroids.
Fox's spaceship has many maneuvers that you can master. From corkscrew (the spaceship spins like a barrel roll) and then the U Turn where the space ship can reverse course on an angle which is most useful for pursing enemies that are tailing you. It is very much like an arcade game. And the game is designed and centered around playing for high score and branching paths like a cockpit arcade game at the mall. Fully featuring a tron style spaceship aim cursor and epic lazer effects. Graphically and frame wise it handles well and is a fully fleshed out flying game.
I guess my only issue with it, is it ends quicker than a Kim Kardashian relationship. It feels like all the effort they put into making the game so intricate to master is wasted by simply being such a little spectacle. The final boss feels like a mid game boss because of this. It's a grain of sand. No matter how perfect a grain of sand is. It falls short of being a beach. But surprisingly my craving for brevity makes me enjoy that about it. But I can't imagine the average gamer especially at the time paying 40+ for this game could honestly say this game gave moneys worth. It's shorter than most movies. And also because of this. It feels like so much of It's climatic cinema is just left without substance. It could have tripled it's run time and been even better. And while it does gave replayability with branching methods of beating it. It is just boiled down to the same overall looping level grid.
The few bosses it does have are typically killed by locating weak spots and the final boss in particular was extremely memorable and entertaining. As Nintendo has mastery of doing.
The game certainly needed more meat on the bone. But it was damn good meat for what was there to eat....
Rating - 86/100
dhaabi:
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 01:31:02 pm ---
--- Quote from: dhaabi on March 26, 2026, 11:15:18 am ---
--- Quote from: bikingjahuty on March 26, 2026, 10:27:28 am ---I think at this point there are no more undiscovered retro gems,
--- End quote ---
There certainly are, such as games that never released in the US that don't have English language options alongside titles for older PC systems. Although, maybe you specifically said this in reference to the US home console market which is probably more true than it's not.
--- End quote ---
With how long YouTube and various other large online spaces have been around, any game you can possibly think of has been discussed to death at this point. There are some fairly obscure PC games I grew up with and even those have at least a handful of dedicated reddit threads (sometimes whole subreddits) or there's a few videos on YouTube discussing them to some degree. Sure, there are probably unreleased games that have never seen the light of day that no one but the original devs know about, but if it's been released, it's known about and the internet has fully thrust it into the gaming community consciousness by now.
--- End quote ---
Anything can be discussed, but whether people actually have the means to engage with something is another, completely separate, matter. For the kinds of games that I'm referring to, the hurdles to play are difficult in the modern era without specific, outdated, and now-limited hardware of working condition to the point where it's overwhelmingly inaccessible, or they are lost as so much time has past and items were simply discarded or rendered unusable. This doesn't even factor in games that are quite literally unplayable now but previously were, or even games that weren't sold in consumer markets. There is no way to know the sheer number of games of all these kinds there may be, which is reason enough to say that an unexaggerated use of the "hidden gem" term can still be said in good faith, and especially so as people in the modern era actually do gain the means to play them.
Even if we disregard the above—at what point does the term "hidden gem" lose its meaning? Based on the way you're presenting your position, it seems that it takes few people to make it negligible.
tripredacus:
I'm allowed to start late
--- Quote from: Ignition365's Modified Legend ---green games are games that have been beaten/endless in 2025
blue games are in progress.
standard games are games I am not currently trying to beat or have been beat in previous years.
red games are games that have been abandoned.
--- End quote ---
1. Major League Manager (PC)
2. Dropsum 2.0 (browser)
3. Diablo III (PC)
4. Civilization V (PC)
5. Mincraft [Nomifactory, Mechanical Mastery] (PC)
6. Skyrim LE (PC)
7. Fortnite (PC)
Totals
played: 7
beaten: 0
abandoned: 0
demo: 0
kashell:
30. SaGa Frontier Remastered - Fuse/Emilia
I had to do some reloading of New Game Plus in order to make Emilia recruitable for future Fuse files. It was fun seeing Fuse's perspective on Emilia, Gradius, and Ren. It was a really short campaign; much shorter than I thought it'd be. Along with Fuse (who's actually name is Roster - who knew?!) I had Blue, Liza, Gen, and Lute. The final boss fell easily so hopefully I'm ready to take on the final challenge and get my last trophy for the platinum. Wish me luck!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version