Your favourite "niche" games.

[RoyWill Rumble]

I'm sure that the EWB community will know of most of these games, but what are some of your favourite less-mainstream and lesser-known games?

Mine?

First and foremost, Harvest Moon. Harvest Moon is fucking fantastic. I first got into it with Harvest Moon 64, which I swear to God I played for at least 6 hours a day. I leant it to a friend who saved over my save file that was eight fucking years into the game and lost interest after that. I forget the name, but the PS2 version was pretty swell and the Gamecube games were awesome too. Friends of Mineral Town for GBA was fantastic, and Rune Factory, a sort of fantasy RPG/Harvest Moon hybrid is absolutely fucking amazing, too. It makes me miss my DS.

Stubbs (maybe Stubs, I forget) the Zombie for the XBox. Playing a game as a zombie? Yes please. It had some flaws but it was fun.

What else? The Katamari games. Speaking of fun, these games are it.

The Ace Attorney games are also rad.

When the first few games came out, I was rather interested in the .hack games. A fake online world in the midst of real online gaming, with a subpar anime alongside? Sure, why not? It's got rather ridiculous how many games they've released now, though. In retrospect it wasn't much other than an average game with an interesting premise to it, but I enjoyed the first game.

After seeing Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation mention it, I played Painkiller and he is right. That game must be played.

We all know it too, but I dunno how many casual gamers or people in general know of Eastside Hockey Manager and Football Manager. Fuck if I haven't lost many hours to those games.

The Oddworld games. I don't remember if they were amazing or terrible or even that niche, but I remember finding them cool.

Fire Pro Wrestling. We all know it, but ask an average gamer and they'll give you a look of "A buh?" I don't give a fuck if the graphics look like an SNES game, this is wrestling.

Speaking of wrestling, King of Colosseum II is basically the 3D version of Fire Pro, and despite an awkward running animation and a few other things, this game is superb. It's sad I've only played it maybe twice at most on a friend's modded PS2. I would kill for this game.

Lastly, rFactor. Best racing game ever because of the insane modding community. If I had a better computer, I'd be playing that shit every day.

Edited October 2, 2008 by Will.

[Guest deknegt]

Well i just love katamari and harvest moon.

And i play older games <2000 like Jagged alliance 2 or fallout 1&2.

Any management game is fun to play for me.

And i play a game called Superpower 2 (for people that never heard of it, you take over a country in the world and try to become world dominator, fun isnt it )

[stokeriño]

Europa Universalis series for the win.

[METALMAN]

Without a doubt.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Pro Cycling Manager series. Yumyum.

Way Of The Samurai series.

[Slogger]

I know I sound like a broken record with this but like Will with rFactor, NASCAR Racing 2003 Season, Because there still are a mountain of sites and people that play and mod it, The fact that it's as rare as fuck makes it even better.

[JStarr]

Gladius.

Cross between gladiator-themed tactical strategy and sports-like team management.

It's like green olives on pizza, two seemingly opposite tastes that taste great together.

[OGpistolpete]

Jet Grind Radio and Jet Set Radio Future.

[SRN]

Jet Set Radio Future.

[Spee]

Would The Longest Journey count as being a niche title? If so, that. And Rez HD on the 360.

[Kyle_]

Test Drive: Eve Of Destruction. That game is amazing.

[Farmer Reil]

Chaos League: Sudden Death.

And when it comes out, Blood Bowl too. Since Chaos League is a complete rip-off of Blood Bowl to the extent that GW sued them for it and forced them to make Blood Bowl in the first place.

[MalaCloudy Black]

The Oddworld games were awesome. The first one came with the first PC we ever bought, I think I may still have it around here.

[RoyWill Rumble]

I've just remembered the Mutant League that came out in 1990s by EA I believe. There was hockey and football and they fucking rocked. Those need to be either updated to next-gen or released on XBox Live, the Wii, and the PSN.

[Farmer Reil]

Pffft. Mutant League Football was Bloodbowl. I'm still not sure how they got away with it when Cyanide didn't.

Either way, Blood Bowl 2009 is being released on the 360, so you get your wish in a round-about fashion.

[wrathofcarnage]

I forget what it was called, but back on NES there was some baseball game you played with robots where if you tried to steal a base you'd have to fight for the out. I pretty much just always tried to steal all the way to home even when all I hit was a single.

[Rocketbusta]

I forget what it was called, but back on NES there was some baseball game you played with robots where if you tried to steal a base you'd have to fight for the out. I pretty much just always tried to steal all the way to home even when all I hit was a single.

I believe that was Base Wars.

[Guest ftw!]

I'm not sure if these can be considered 'niche' games but ...

Escape from Monkey Island. I mean, c'mon, Guybrush Threepwood ftw.

Dark Cloud 2. One of my favorite roleplay games, for sure.

[SRN]

Oh oh Z, dammit! Z! Fucking hell, that was an awesome game. Not just for the comments that your soldiers had on the progress on your game but everything else. I wish I could sine a working copy, program, anything. I so badly want to play that game again.

[Guest ftw!]

There is a demo of it here, Sousa.