Games

Pixel Junk: Eden by Q-Games. Available on PlayStation and PC, it's a platformer of sorts. You play as a little insect, swinging on a silk line and jumping from plant to plant. On the way, you collect pollen which makes new plants sprout and grow. The game was made in collaboration with Bayion - a Japanese designer, artist and DJ, who art directed the visuals and composed all of the music for the game.

Playing Eden feels a bit like Tetris Effect or Rez. You get hypnotized by the visuals and music. Nothing quite like it - I actually bought my first console (PS3) after lifetime of PC gaming in order to play this title (it was exclusive back then).

Also, they just announced Eden 2!!!

While we're on the subject of DS classics, here's an even more obscure one: Over the Hedge.

While admittedly it never quite got the time in the oven it deserved, being a release tie-in with the movie and put out alongside all the console versions, this one in particular was something special. It's a third-person over the shoulder perspective stealth game with tank controls, sneaking into the hilariously well-protected homes of humans to steal their junk food. And if that wasn't enough, it had you managing two characters in real-time by swapping back and forth between them, using their varying strengths to defeat the ridiculous laser alarm systems and traps along the way. It's slow paced and relatively simple, and I used to have a blast finding ways to completely break the game because the devs didn't have enough time to iron out all the kinks entirely, but it never quite got the attention it deserves for being such a unique labor of love.

I have to give it massive props for having so much creative heart when a tie-in for a mediocre animated movie has no right to be that good. The developers saw the opportunity to make something that put its source material to good work instead of just another hack-and-slash romp (like the console tie-ins were) or a minigame collection (like the later DS game (???) was) and their dedication to the craft of game development really shines through some of the jank involved in its presentation and sometimes wonky physics. By now, a unique take on a stealth game is nothing all that special, but at the time this was one that really grabbed me.

I love Rocket Slime! and Keeping with the Dragon Quest Theme...

I love the Dragon Quest Builders games.

To many people sleep on them because they think they are simply Minecraft games with a Dragon Quest skin. And yes, there are a lot of mechanics lifted straight from Minecraft, they have a story mode that is like a typical RPG, and most of the time you are building a living, thriving town to act as your base of opperations as you execute quests and complete the story's campaigns. I especially like the story in DQB2 because of the bromance you form with your partner, and how much it expands on the size and the scale of the first game, though I also like the first one because it's a lot more digestible for short bursts.

Rocket Knight Adventures, back on the Genesis. Not the easiest game, and the "jumping from platform to platform by your tail" was ass to get the hang of in a boss fight, but I miss when games weren't so serious about themselves and you could just play something for a while. Sometimes I really want a grand statement that will leave me in a crying heap. Sometimes it's nice to just be a possum in jet-propelled plate mail.

Haha, SimTower for classic MacOS. I've always wanted to put together a clone of it.

Might and Magic 6. It was such a weird product of its tech limitations, but they managed to squeeze such a good rpg power curve into it, it's still super fun.

No one lives forever. Came out around 2000. Was a spy fps that has all the cheese of 60s and 70s bond movies. I remember it being lots of fun. Doubt it would hold up now, but was lots of fun.

How about the flash games of Orisinal? They're a bunch of extremely chill tiny games. With the death of internet Flash they're much harder to play, but one can use Ruffle, which has browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. (Homestar Runner can be viewed that way too.)

Outer Wilds, really wonderful sci-fi puzzle-ish game

@LeylaaLovee

N64 "Beetle Adventure Racing" is crazy fun! Race against the clock to improve your time, race the computer, race another player, and best of all are the wild Arena battles - up to 4 players. This was always big fun at family gatherings.

Wii "Godzilla Unleashed" is my favorite solo game. I'd run the sound through my home theater and crank up all the lovely authentic Toho kaiju roars, screeches, howls, and destruction. Controls varied slightly by monster but always felt intuitive. Battling other beasts could get a little glitchy in tight quarters but knock a few buildings out of the way and all's well. Greatest cathartic stress reliever, ever!

Warzone 2100. A seminal classic for me, from the year 2000.

@LeylaaLovee Opoona on Wii, even though it has an official ENG translation