Hidden Gems of the DOS/Windows PCs

[Anapan]

Gish

[Raziel]

I have two recommendations.

Sanitarium. It's an isometric adventure game, and very psychological at that. The whole theme is that you're trying to find out who you really are while you explore the manifestations of your own delusions. It's tough to describe it in detail without spoiling much, but if you like moody and atmospheric adventure games, it's worth a try.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It's not really hidden, having come out a few years ago, but like all Troika games, it's been forgotten thanks to the buggy release. Now, a few years later, it's got enough unofficial patches to make it finally playable (even though I played it with the 1.2 patch and didn't have any problems whatsoever, but rest of the world disagrees with me). Bloodlines' setting is World of Darkness, think gothic punk mixed with vampires, werewolves and all sorts of nasty creatures (Bloodlines centers on vampires though). It's one of the best examples of a "mature" game with it's dark approach and while at first glance the maturity consists only of childish swearing and pointless violence, it's much more. It's one of the darkest game I've played, and it's not really horror, more of a mix of suspense and macabre . It perfectly portrays the themes of WoD: masquerade, alienation, secrets, schemes, the approaching end of the world. Now, I know that I haven't even described the gameplay or direct story whatsoever, but I'll leave that for MobyGames' entry.

Oh, and Gabriel Knight 1 is worth checking out too, although it's not really a hidden gem. A far cry from those other early 90s' adventure games with their absurdly cheesy humour.

[Niode]

Outcast.

That was an awesome game, not many people I know have heard of it though. It was unique for using a ray casting voxel engine. The game looked amazing when it came out. Had so many effects that we take for granted now like translucent/reflective water, self-occlusion, character shadows and depth of field.

I immensely enjoyed playing this game back in the day.

[Zork]

More Recent Games (As in 2000 onward)

Command & Conquer Renegade: It's a more recent game, came out in 02 or 03 I believe but reviews were generally not too kind to it. I found the single player was a little banal but the online play is very addictive and fun. It's worth looking into.

Myst IV and V: Myst was previously mentioned and I wouldn't count it as a hidden gem myself since a lot of people have played it, but I feel that the Myst series' twilight was overlooked as most people didn't care anymore after Riven and the collapse of the Adventure genre. Both games are really beautiful and you'll enjoy them a lot especially if you continued to like Myst or just like Adventure games.

Star Wars Jedi Academy: I felt that this game was really good and didn't get the big recognition it was supposed to get, the single player story is pretty good and it's mostly broken up into optional missions and the multiplayer aspect is still very strong. There are still quite a few servers up and there is a lot of custom content available for download.

Older Games (1999 and older...this may get a bit Adventure heavy...)

Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge: You always hear people talk about Monkey Island, Grim Fandango, Kings Quest, and Day of the Tentacle when the old Adventure genre is brought up (This is why I don't think Grim Fandango necessarily qualifies as a "Hidden Gem" because most people who've played PC games for a while have heard about this game and know about it or perhaps they've even played it.) but you never hear about a lot of the other greats, Monkey Island 2 is one of them.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: This is honestly one of my all time personal favorite games. Again just sort of look above at the Monkey Island 2 entry to get a feel of where I'm going with this. This game was recieved pretty well but I never really thought it got it's due. I think it's the best game of it's Genre. It had a cool Indy story that would've been worthy of being a movie, great music and sound effects with the Imuse system, and it had great replay value for an adventure game because there were three different paths you could take in the game and they would each be really different. This game always just sort of gets an honorary mention when the Adventure Genre comes up.

Duke Nukem 2: This is starting to go pretty far back but I don't care, I felt that Duke Nukem 2 was a damn good action/platformer. It had a lot of flare back in it's day. Duke Nukem is pretty much known for Duke Nukem 3D and Duke Nukem Forever taking forever to come out. He had some decent games after 3D but I think he had better games before 3D, this was his best.

The Dig: Another LucasArts adventure, another unappreciated gem. This one really reminds you of various sci fi flicks and it's pretty engaging.

Thats pretty much all I have but if you do decide to go through with this I would recommend breaking the games up into two categories, Modern and Legacy or something like that. Just because there are games that are now 8 years old...hard to believe that will still run on XP or Vista but then there are games that are older that required Windows 95 or DOS or other things and they require different means of playing.

[fastbilly1]

I agree with Zork fully on Fate of Atlantis and The Dig. They were two of the best SCUMM titles, and two of the best games of their time (if not all time).

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Has anybody suggested Theif yet? Its probably the best stealth game just under Theif 2. It came out in 1998 I believe. It does stealth so right though. Just another one that I felt definately reserves a spot.

[JJJ]

The Thief series is awesome in so many ways. The multiple objectives you'd have to pull off to win the harder difficulties was a true accomplishment!

The first game was also extremely scary on certain levels with zombies and skeletons. This is partially due to the awful graphics engine. Everything was dark, grainy, angular and disorienting. And the sound design was extremely creepy. So basically, you were exploring these disorienting levels, filled with sickening audio - while watching your back for the multiple zombies on the level! And to rachet up the tension even more, I believe you could only kill these enemies with holy water arrows, which were in *very* short supply!

All in all, a hugely under-rated series from an under-rated developer. Looking Glass was truly one of the all-time PC greats.

[J T]

Full Throttle- Because your character was an absolute badass. It should be nominated for this one scene alone:

[BIZ]

Some of my fav DOS/Windows games. Not sure if they are hidden gems, but definitely fun games:

Rise of the Triad
Grim Fandango
Treasure Mountain
Commander Keen
any of the Duke Nukems
Leisure Suit Larry
Full Throttle
Scorched Earth (and later Warheads)
Dark Sun
Kings Quest
Gizmos & Gadgets
Sam and Max Hit the Road
Exile series
mixed up mother goose
civilization I & II & Colonization
Theme Park

(bear in mind some of these are like educational games, because the only computers I could get my hands on back in the day were at schools. Still fun none the less)

also, any old Mac users remember Power Pete?

[alexandre]

Full Throttle and Beavis and Butthead: Virtual Stupidity is too nostalgic for me. They are hidden gems absolutely!