Written by: Bodhruj Jaman;
Date: Saturday, June 21st, 2008;
Filed under: Featured;
Tagged with: fighting force, Playstation, ps1, PS3, psx, quake, spyhunter, the bouncer, underrated games, vagrant story, video games.
Comments:

I thought, with the release of Metal Gear Solid 4, some people would be feeling a little nostalgic, thinkingback to those days when gaming was so simple, so cheap, and fairly unknown. Now, gaming is a pretty big phenomenon these days. In this article, I’m going to go back in time - maybe not that long ago in some cases - to uncover some of our ‘diamonds in the rough’ from both the PS1(PSX) and the PS2.

5. Fighting Force:

Fighting Force was an up to 4 player co-op game, without split screen, funnily enough. The game is quite story driven, without any tedious long cutscenes. The graphics may have been up to par with the most overrated games of the PS1 era, like Tomb Raider for example. It was a great game, I just wish I hadn’t snapped that disk!!! This particular game didn’t sell as well as expected, and was seen as the ‘next Streets of Rage’, as Sega took a shot at buying the game for their Streets of Rage sequel.

4. SpyHunter:

This is a game that sort of grew on me. It’s full of imperfections, but I was drawn to the sweet graphics (back in the day) and the James Bond Car Knock off, I can’t even say which car it was, it was so long ago. In the end, I never actually owned it, but it was a ‘must-play’ whenever I visited my gamer uncle. It was all a bit surreal, I mean, a car getting shot up on ground and then flying into the water, and, miraculously, floating! Brilliant.

3. The Bouncer:

This is a game with a unique concept and storyline, released on the PS2, it was a game that even I didn’t ‘like’ when I played it. The story was pretty good, as it allowed you to see each characters perspective. Sort of like the movie, ‘Vantage Point’ or maybe the recent video game ‘The Club’. There’s not much I can say about this game, but I do remember missing it when I was parted from it, even though I only played it when I was bored.

2. Quake II:

A lot of people have called the very underrated Quake series a Doom knock off. I disagree completely. The concept is the same, but I found the gameplay much, much better than doom. This really is a diamond in the rough. Follows the conventions of a FPS Horror game, but improves on the finer points, namely gameplay and also graphics.

1. Vagrant Story:

A JRPG from the masters, Square Enix. the guys at SE really know what we want: a deep, engaging, intense, quirky storyline. And that’s about it. Oh and don’t forget graphics. Gameplay is never really an issue with SE RPGs and traditional JRPGs in general, but the developers always deliver the expected.

I hope this gave you a bit of insight as to which games you may have ‘missed out on’, or maybe it’s given you a couple of titles to look out for while browsing the net and shops. Some of these games can be picked up (2nd hand of course) for a maximum of about £5 ($10), so I recommend you look into it an make a purchase!