Weekend Question: Is there a game only you seem to remember?

[PCG Jody]

I ask the PCG staff a regular Weekend Question and post the answers on the site. If you'd like to throw in an answer here, I'll squeeze the best into the finished article!

This week's question is: Is there a game only you seem to remember?

I think it had aliens in it. And the theme tune was unforgettable. It went, "da DA da," or something like that. Is there a game locked away in your memories, something from the distant past, that you can't remember the name of and nobody else ever mentions? In the foggy soup of edu-games and random things that came packaged with the family PC, is there something you wish you could recall? Maybe someone else will know what you're talking about. Now that I think about it, they probably weren't aliens. They might have just been weird fish.

 

[Colif]

We seem to get questions like that every week.

I have a book I can't find, but not a game.

 

[Zloth]

Eamon Adventures was like that for me for a long time but, obviously, I did eventually re-discover the name. I can always find them now, with a little googling.

I think it had aliens in it. And the theme tune was unforgettable. It went, "da DA da," or something like that.

Alternate Reality: The City. You're getting confused because most of it seems like a fantasy game, when it's really science fiction.

 

[Brian Boru]

You're getting confused

You might be right, but I think the biggest clue is the final thought:

They might have just been weird fish

Clearly, it's one of the earliest aquarium screensavers, with a looping Beethoven soundtrack.

Is there a game only you seem to remember?

I can't remember any game I've forgotten. Er…

 

[DXCHASE]

Timelapse, i wish it would get a remastered version like Myst. I loved that game and the 7 discs it came with.

 

[FreezerBurn]

Legend of the Red Dragon. It was a game we played on bulletin boards that you had to dial into... pre internet.

 

[Zloth]

Clearly, it's one of the earliest aquarium screensavers, with a looping Beethoven soundtrack.

That's "da da da DA"! Wait, you don't think Jody modded the screens saver to play Holst or, heaven help us, Philip Glass do you?

 

[Frindis]

@PCG Jody

View: https://youtu.be/lNYcviXK4rg?t=49

 

[Pifanjr]

There's one game I remember seeing at an acquaintance's house when I was a kid, probably around 8-10 years old. I think something went wrong with starting it up or something, because I don't think we played any of it. I just remember it having a lot of brown and I'm pretty sure the name started with a D. I've never heard anyone mention anything about a game that reminded me of that game since then.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

A really great game that I'm the only one who remembers is Giants: Citizen Kabuto. And I'm not sure why nobody remembers it. It seemed like a cutting edge AAA game back in 2000 when it came out, but maybe it didn't do as well as I thought it did. It was an amazing game, though.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

Remember the combat in the original Witcher? It was kind of like a rhythm challenge with mouse clicks. There was an RPG game for the PS2 a few years before that had a similar system except you had to press the correct face button in order or you lost rhythm and missed an attack leaving you open. Top down view like a Cannon Fodder or Commandos, might be that you could zoom in and it became more 3d but I preferred to be further out.

I always thought it was called Summoner, apparently that was something else.

 

[Brian Boru]

Giants: Citizen Kabuto

Rejoice, you are not alone! Got it in my GOG library

 

[mainer]

Almost 20 years ago (2003) there was an isometric RPG called LionHeart: Legacy of the Crusader, developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay. It was sort of a supernatural take of the Medieval Period on Earth, and you (the player) were a descendant of King Richard the Lionheart. You journeyed through an alternate Europe, dealing with various factions, people & enemies. From what little I can remember, it played very similar to the Baldur's Gate games. But instead of D&D rules, it used a modified SPECIAL system, which was the system used in Fallout 1 & 2.

I don't think it was very popular or successful for some reason, and no one I've mentioned it to has any memory of it.

 

[Brian Boru]

Ah, just thought of one: Dark Reign 1 & 2 were pretty decent RTS games which nobody seems to remember in the last decade. They came out in the golden RTS era, and so got buried under all the AAA RTSs of the time.

I rate the DRs AA. Both are available on GOG—read the first few reviews, you will need to grab a community patch for DR1.

 

[Zloth]

A really great game that I'm the only one who remembers is Giants: Citizen Kabuto.

It showed boooobs! The controversy was extreme!! But it still didn't sell all that well.

 

[Sarafan]

It's Submarine Titans in my case. The game is an old RTS that draws the best characteristics from Starcraft and blends it with an underwater setting. I remember that when the game was released some reviewers announced it as a Starcraft successor. Even the three fractions resemble heavily those from Starcraft. Time showed however that the game didn't gain the popularity it deserved. It's mostly forgotten now, but you can actually buy it on digital distribution platforms. I would highly recommend it to every strategy fan.

 

[WoodenSaucer]

Rejoice, you are not alone! Got it in my GOG library

+

It showed boooobs! The controversy was extreme!! But it still didn't sell all that well.

Giants: Citizen Kabuto was a really awesome game. I have no idea why it didn't sell well. It was really fun, and it pushed the tech envelope, too. I remember it was one of the first games I saw that supported bump mapping.

A couple of years ago, the original Giants devs started a kickstarter for a spiritual successor they were working on. It really looked promising and brought back some great memories. But they didn't raise enough funds, so they had to drop it.

 

[Brian Boru]

Submarine Titans

Another in my GOG library! Guess I should play it sometime—I see they say it works on Win10&11. Impressive that there was an unofficial update last year, per its GOG forum.

 

[Sarafan]

Another in my GOG library! Guess I should play it sometime—I see they say it works on Win10&11. Impressive that there was an unofficial update last year, per its GOG forum.

I have to return to the game at some point. The campaign is quite demanding, harder than the one from Starcraft, but the title is extremely playable nonetheless and provides tons of fun.

 

[flashn00b]

Operation: Inner Space.

The people who made the game are currently MIA, and the last time we've seen them, they've shown no interest in porting the game to 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems, which really kills the appeal of the game if you can only run it on a virtual machine or DOSBOX Win3.1 folder. Basically, it's a top-down shooter in a similar vain to Asteroids, though the game world's currency are icons represented by .exe or .dll files present in your actual computer, and icons are used to repair/upgrade your ship along with purchasing new weapons to use other than your basic machinegun.

Where the fun really happens with Inner Space however, are the NPC ships that spawn in after clearing the first few folders that introduce players to what's probably the first implementation AI faction wars in a singleplayer action game, along with a basic law and order system that the player is seemingly encouraged to throw out the window, though if you are found stealing the spoils of war or destroy one too many donut launchers, the Enforcers will eventually give up on arresting you and try and kill you outright.

It sucks that we'll never see another game like Inner Space, because the concept of your computer's contents being a means of level generation is a pretty novel concept especially when the point of the game is that it takes place inside your computer.

 

[Zimbaly]

God when it comes to snes rpg games very few people ever mention Robotrek.

 

[Iyosin]

I posted this in the comments of the article, but I will here as well: MechCommander and MechCommander Gold, an action RTS game from the late 90s and early 2000s from MicroProse. I had so many hours in that game, I was huge into the BattleTech franchise (TCG, MechWarrior, MechCommander, Books, the Table Top game, etc).

 

[Iskhiaro]

Operation: Inner Space.

Thank you! This is a game I've been trying to find for years and I had no idea what it was called. I had a demo version that at one point didn't function and gave me access to the whole game for some reason. Loved this a lot as a kid.

 

[Coreulmex]

I have one I've been looking for ages and I can't seem to find it. I would really really appreciate if someone can help.

It went like this.

When you start the game there was a cutscene of a bad guy that looked like Doctor X who stood at some field where a green stone ( think philosopher stone from Harry Potter but green and bright ) had fell from the sky or was possibly dug up from the ground. There was a crater possibly formed from the stone. The bad guy picks it up and squeezes it with his hand and there's a close up of him looking into it. Then the game starts and it was a FPS ( like Serious Sam and Will Rock ). The level was a huge mansion, you start in the yard and make your way inside the mansion where you go inside a very large room and an enemy appears taunting you. It was a vampire that could pass through walls and you had to chase him thru the mansion. Your starter weapon was a revolver. The game really looks and feels like Will Rock & Serious Sam yet I still can't find it.

These are my vague memories of the game, I would love to find it.

 

[Throwaway24601]

There are two PC games I vaguely remember whose identities have been bugging me for years:

One I remember playing on a computer in the school library back in the late 90s. It was set in medieval Europe (so historical, not fantasy) and you could play different factions, but the only one I can remember specifically was the Vatican. IIRC, most of the gameplay took place over a map of Europe where you had diplomatic/economic relations with the other factions but there was also battle element if you went to war with someone (it was either top-down or isometric, can't recall specifically) where you had things like archers and swordsmen and the like as troops you could purchase. The only other part of the game I can remember was you could build pre-set or design your own castles by laying down a floorplan of where the walls and such would be along a grid. Over time and with proper funding the castle would then be built similar to when you laid down a residential or industrial-zoned area in Sim City 2000. I only ever saw/encountered the game on that one school computer and haven't been able to find out what it was since. All I can say for certain is it was NOT one of the Stronghold games.

The second game was an early 2000s point-and-click (fully 3D) adventure game where you played a female protagonist in a far-future setting where most of the western world had amalgamated into one government. IIRC, part of the lore premise of this high-tech future world was that it was matriarchal (or at least females had more/higher social status than males), marriage had been abolished, and children were raised by the state. Your character is a police officer or detective of some sort investigating a murder that (I think), over the course of the game, reveals a conspiracy of some kind that threatens the current world order. That's genuinely all I can remember about it besides one scene were the main character contemplates flirting with the bouncer at a club she was visiting as part of the investigation. I had picked it up thinking/hoping for an experience similar to The Longest Journey or Syberia but was sadly disappointed. I remember it not being that great of a game, the puzzles weren't interesting and the story fell flat (or just became generic), and I sold it back to the store I bought it from soon after finishing it - back in the days when we could still do that for PC games.

Any help in identifying these games would be greatly appreciated! If for no other reason than to put the nagging memories to rest at long last.