Dungeons keeper 2. The vibes were impeccable. Miss it dearly.

As a kid, I spent a lot of time glued to SimCity 2000, so stumbling into this game and being able to fly around the cities I built, and in 3D no less. And then do... awkward janky helicopter shit in them? Mindblowing.

I really cherish this one. The story and combat are simple and basic but the sense of community and overall goofy tone that evolves into a understanding of how bad systems of power can be for everyone living under said systems really stuck with me.

Oh fuck I didn’t say Arcanum because I assumed we are always thinking about it

I played all of Saboteur again last year!
You just need the GoG version, that one is fixed for Windows 10 and multi core systems.
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Saboteur

https://xenkogames.gitlab.io/DIDOEN/

genuinely one of the best incremental games I've played, wish it got more progression.

Freespace 2 is one of my favorite sci-fi stories, and an incredible game. Has shockingly good ongoing mod support, there are tons of high quality, fully voice acted campaigns.

Stunts/4D Sports Driving. That game was pretty incredible for the time with its 3D graphics, instant replays and track editor. One of the games that made me a racing game sicko as a kid.

That canned Resident Evil DS game that got recycled into a spooky moon fps game. You wouldn't believe it, it's called Moon

No one has been able to re-create how this game felt. Every attempt at making a new version of this one loses something in the process. Game studios don't understand that graphics and fluidity aren't the defining features of a game. The defining features are

• no voicechat
• plasma discing someone mid air during a duel
• jetpacking into an enemy base, stealing their flag, and skiing away
• destroying your enemy's generators and hiding out in the basement to kill them when they come to repair them
• vibes

Haven't played this game in nearly 20 years and even then it was considered an old game with only around 3-4 dedicated servers left. Wonder how that's going nowadays.

Lord of the rings: battle for middle earth 2: rise of the witch king

So I'm old, but there's this NES game called Abadox that my brother and I played growing up. It was an insanely hard shooter that scrolled horizontally and vertically. You're inside some sort of alien body zooming around killing shit, but also some paths will dead end and you just die if you go the wrong way so you gotta memorize (or hand draw) the maps. One hit kills you and you lose all upgrades, so sometimes continuing becomes impossible because the enemies are too hard without upgrades.

I used to have nightmares about this game

Freelancer. Oh what could have been.

Sid Meier's Pirates! Oh what could have been.

Basically I like ships and the fantasy of being a privateer. But everyone who makes a privateergame fucks it up somehow. These are the only two that have gotten close.

Honourable mention to Armoured Core.

Another game that pops into my mind at time is Rogue Soldier (I think? You were a blue guy with a chip in his neck? It had some neat covershooter mechanics.)

And of course Time Splitters: Future Imperfect.

I'm not sure anyone ever thought of it unfortunately, but Yoku's Island Express was an indie metroidvania pinball game.

I had never really enjoyed a metroidvania before this game, but something about it got me excited about the genre in ways I hadn't been before. I've since played a ton of metroidvanias and its one of my favorite genres.

I highly recommend it if you've never heard of it. It's a lot of fun and uses the pinball mechanics in an open world really well.

https://www.freeinfantry.com/

Infantry Online. An old game that i think was owned by Sony in the early 2000's. It was F2p for a long time and I played it during that time with my friends. Had an absolute blast with it. But then it went P2P with a subscription, killing most of the playerbase and finally, the game. Its been revived a bit with the above private server, but its just not the same :(

Golden Sun 1 & 2 (3 didn't happen)

I remember the Saboteur, it was part of that period where if you bought the game firsthand it came with a 1 time use code unlocking certain content, to deter secondhand purchases. The content for the Saboteur was uncensored titties in the burlesque shows you could visit lmfao.

I'll bring up Alpha Protocol, the janky secret agent rpg, it wasn't particularily good, but I remember playing it.

I loved the Saboteur they should have made a bunch of them.

I liked all 3 Army of Two games for split screen coop.

Battle realms the Asian themed RTS that’s probably problematic but had so many neat things and quirks.

Star Trek Elite Force. Weird combo for Star Trek to make a game in the Quake engine, but I love it

Dunno if it's still popular as it's about 20 years old, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chornobyl. Best experience I ever had in a game. Full of dread and tension.

Syphon Filter, fun Metal Gear Solid-esque shooter for Playstation

Informed my imagination for years as a kid

Really like prey (2017). I want to play a dense basically open world game with multiple endings again.

Saboteur just got a steam release actually, I went back and replayed it. I really liked that the progression system was based on challenges, if you wanted to you could go and do all of them before you even started the story. It still holds up graphically thanks to the way they did the colour.

My one would be Quake Wars (2007). It was the first asymmetric multiplayer game I ever played and it was the last proper Quake game.

Another one I can guarantee nobody other than me thinks about. Alpha prime

Master of Orion 1, it was overshadowed by MoO2 but i still play it.

I never once played a mechwarrior game but I got a copy of this in the box when my parents bought me Tribes and I absolutely loved it. I've never spoken to anybody whose even heard about it let alone played it.

I've played through the Saboteur at least 3 times and really enjoyed it (remember the heavies flamethrower guys being really annoying). I also remember Yahtzee's ZP review praising it quite a lot at the time which was rare in those days.

Alien vs Predator 2

Chock full of jank. Weird ass Lithtech engine. But the multi-player was so fun.

Still the only "alien" franchise game where you start as a face hugger, lay an egg, and chew your way out of a chest. It's a delight.