What’s the most imaginative or bizarre video game you’ve ever played? (1 Viewer)

[StephenA]

The Horde for Panasonic 3DO. What a weird game, with all those different types of hordlings, the ape hordlings eating your villagers saying mmmm num nums then and burping, and how the hordlings destroy the villagers' houses. It even has little movie clips with Kirk Cameron. If the Kirk Cameron clips aren't weird, I dunno what is.

Marble Madness for the NES. That game with all those mazes was just weird. The difficultness of the game just added to the weirdness. It's like you're trying to walk a straight line from a bar to home while drunk, but you keep falling off the curbs and tripping/swaying all over with no control.

Clu CLu Land for the NES. It's weird because there's no point to it except to move your little character around the screen while trying to avoid the enemy and create a picture with the bars you make pop up when you hit the right area. It was a pretty pointless game, but very addicting.

 

[Graeme Clark]

There are lots of games that had bizzare or imaginative concepts, which in the end didn't really help, or quite work out.

But I'd vote for most of the classic LucasArts adventure games also. While the aren't really all the bizarre on the surface, the mostly all offer a wonderfully twisted imaginative world which works well and helps to keep the game fun. Even the puzzles in the game tend to stay light and mostly employ what I call "Goofy Logic" where in the real world they make no sense, but in their game world they are perfectly practical (for the most part).

Grim Fandango probably is the very best example of this. The starting idea of basing a game off of the mexican Day of the Dead festival and legends is brilliant to begin with, but then the way they make that into a fairly coherent storyline, with wonderful characters, many varried settings and some great puzzles just shows that it takes more than just a good idea to pull off a classic game.

Edit: Got it-Sanitarium. After all this fuss, maybe I should try to play it?

It's only.... so-so. I tried to play through it twice and haven't made it. Far too much uninteresting dialogue to sit through, and the voice acting isn't all that great (but not terrible). I think I might put it on my list of games to finish, but Longest Journey and GK3 will certainly come first (in the adventure genre at least).

 

[Benjamin_L]

A bunch come to mind (out of this world, Star Control 2), but my fave would have to be Vagrant Story (ps).
Very nice graphics (for its time) and so-so gameplay mixed with some of the best dialogue, atmosphere, and storytelling ever to grace a video game.
When I say this game had good dialogue I mean it! Had a distinct, shakespearean feel and a great sense of the macabre: such as a corrupt church and government, unexplained magics, backstabbing, betrayal and all that good stuff.
A very hardcore action CRPG. Many room name on the automap had a bizarre and marvelous name (i.e. Hewn from Nature, The Judas Cradle) that made you just stop and say, "Huh?" I gather the designers wanted to tempt you to spend as much time involved with it as they did designing it.
Great brain candy. If only there was a sequel...
Doh, forgot Darkseed and Alone in the Dark (the original survival/horror game?). Another day perhaps.
Edit: Forgot Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers! that game was spellbinding! heh

 

[Clinton McClure]

Yeah, Mark. The Neverhood! That was such an awesome game. My friend Eric and I spent countless hours and sleepless nights finishing it. Does anyone know if it is OOP or still available and on a Win 98 platform?

 

[Kenneth]

Playing through "For I have no mouth but I must scream" on the PC was a bizarre experience. All the characters are messed up and getting them through their fears is quite an experience. I doubt it is easy to find anymore though. It had an extremely weird ending, as I recall.

Kenneth

 

[Brian Kidd]

I actually think that SANITARIUM is one of the better adventure games to come out on the PC. You can find it cheap, so it's definitely worth a play. The voice acting can get a little tedious at times, but you can click through it. It's a very quirky and at times creepy game.

 

[Iain Lambert]

Clearly, no-one has attempted to play Deus Ex Machina, then. I frankly didn't have a single clue what was going on there.

I, Of The Mask was pretty bizarre as well, and had amazing solid poly work for a Spectrum.

Finally, any Dreamcast hardware at all. You had:
One of the most odd looking joypads of any major console
Stunning quality arcade stick, far better than normal
The Microphone, for the surreal Seaman
The Maracas, for Samba
The Fishing Rod,
The Dance Mat, and the legendary
VO:OT Twinsticks.
Not since the days of the Virtual Glove have peripherals been so bizarre. Most insanely, half of them were for specific games.

 

[Romar Armas]

I'd have to go with Seaman for the Dreamcast. Very bizzare indeed and certainly imaginative.

I second that motion. I haven't seen ANY other game do what Seaman did. I had to rush home to check up on it and find out the tank was all murky.
What was that game by SEGA that was fully based on sound? They even made a 2nd part to it.

 

[BrianB]

Clearly, no-one has attempted to play Deus Ex Machina, then

LOL, Iain, you took the words right out of my mouth, Deus Ex Machina was going to be my suggestion.

 

[Jean-Michel]

Lemmings was pretty bizarre before everyone and their mother ripped it off. Ape Escape has monkeys with flashing lights on their heads which is pretty fucked up (although it was topped by the Japan-only semi-sequel where you had to steal monkeys' underpants with a vaccuum cleaner). There was also an old text adventure game called Asylum where the goal was to convince yourself you're so insane that you can build an invisible catapult and escape from the institution.

 

[ChrisV]

Why would monkeys wear underpants?

 

[Mark Evans]

Lemmings, now that was brilliant!

"Let's go!"

 

[KevinRB]

The most trippy game I've ever played is Nitrous Oxide for playstation. It's an advanced Tempest clone with lots of colors and a Crystal Method sound track. Way underrated...

Chu Chu Rocket is also a novel concept. Who thought of the idea to heard mice into a rocketship?

 

[Andres Munoz]

Definately A BOY AND HIS BLOB!!!!
Man, did I love that game. And it was so hard. I don't think I finished it. That game was endless.

It'd be great if it came out on the new platforms.

 

[BrianB]

Why would monkeys wear underpants?

Why wouldn't they?

 

[Mark Evans]

A Boy & His Blob does end, I've finished it many a time. The trick is to get all the treasures but one, because one is absolutely impossible to get.

The parts on Blobalonia are nasty though, tricky jump and timing puzzles. Helps if you use the vita-blaster though!

Boy, who knew I'd ever get to write a post with the words Blobalonia and vita-blaster in it?

 

[Andres Munoz]

Ah, Blobalonia. LOL. I remember blasting off in my little Blob rocket and flying through various screens.
I miss that game.

 

[Donald Wong]

While searching for A Boy & His Blob, I've discovered that it's coming out on the GBA.

 

[Yoshi Sugawara]

The SNES game "Earthbound" (Mother 2 in Japan) and its predecessor (Mother on the Japanese NES). What a wierd game - I remember getting attacked by a truck that blows exhaust on you and you end up coughing during the whole battle until you apply some asthsma spray...or saving your game by using a phone to call your father (who never appears in the game) who also is a bit eccentric...wierd characters and story too!

 

[Troy_M]

I would have to say that OUT OF THIS WORLD(SNES) and ICO(PS2) are the most imaginative games that I have ever played. ICO had no music and some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. The fact that you had to escort the princess everywhere using ingenious tatics was awesome. The atmosphere was just amazing...its only flaw is its shortness in length, I pray they make a sequel. Out of this World was amazing..I remember my whole high school coming into the classroom one free day and watching me play..everyone was captivated..it was awesome.