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/vr/ - Retro Games

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1679698 No.1679698[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

What's the strangest retro game you've ever played?

>> No.1680062
File: 99 KB, 320x317, Mony-Python-Complete-Waste-of-time.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680062

This.

>> No.1680087

Drakkhen. What a fever dream of a game. The crude graphics, the baffling animations, the unearthly sound effects, and the surreal menagerie of monsters just make it feel like a long, slow acid trip taken while someone whispers passages from AD&D manuals into your ears and a Halloween sound effects record plays in the background. It's just fucking bizarre.

LASERHOUND! FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgNQYX2zH1Q

The fucking STARS are trying to kill you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0YhyGOLpQ

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnE9XEC5mWw

>>1679698
Don't tell us what that game is or anything drastic like that.

>> No.1680112

>>1680087
It's Kult, aka the temple of flying saucers in the US. From the same french wave of weird games that brought us drakkhen and the Ark of Captain Blood

>> No.1680135

>>1680112
Man, what the fuck was going on in France back then?

I have a love/hate relationship with Drakkhen. I mean, it seems like I might be putting it down for being strange, but really, I wish it had committed to being even more bizarre. At times, it was almost too conventional in a Tolkienian way, what with dragons and wizards and taverns. It was most interesting when things were getting very, very weird and alien, but the gameplay and presentation were so crude and sometimes frustrating that it took away from the experience.

>> No.1680353

Idk what it was called but i kept going down sewer drains then all of a sudden im wearing a raccoon suit like some furry. Turned it off immediately.

>> No.1680361

>>1679698

http://www.kongregate.com/games/rete/dont-shit-your-pants

>> No.1680364

>>1680353
Why are you dissing Mario 3?

>> No.1680375
File: 20 KB, 512x448, yume_grid.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680375

Dream Maze: The Kigurumi Adventre

>> No.1680381
File: 97 KB, 512x361, trio the punch.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680381

This game. This whole game.

The ending is priceless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIPtzZHJnkg

>> No.1680426

Moonstone: A Hard Day's Knight. Looks like a normal beat-em-up party game sort of thing. And then you fight the dragon and hear the sound it makes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUyIO2VJlGQ

>> No.1680747

>>1680381

I don't know what I just watched but that was funny.

>> No.1680860

>>1680353
>>1680364
I believe that's what's referred to as a "joke."

>> No.1680869
File: 177 KB, 256x305, Shufflepuck_Café_Coverart.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680869

Shufflepuck Café.
The enemies were pretty strange for me, as a kid.
The soundtrack still keeps me on high voltage!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pUmfxM9h54

Techno Cop was also pretty strange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1009PEDLCE

And Shadow of the Beast, of course. That music...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-U6HUaAONI

>>1680426
Loved this game. Just nearly pissed my pants laughing at the dragon. Wtf?!
I never got a hit on him, though. I died every time in his fire breath. I always thought you were supposed to avoid him.

>> No.1680885
File: 19 KB, 214x300, Gyromite_front.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680885

Used to love playing this with other people

>> No.1680904
File: 132 KB, 5200x1092, jsw_map_col.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1680904

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlXdCKmp8rA

>> No.1680919

>>1680869

nostalgic game for me... music was cool

>> No.1680962

Gregory Loses His Clock on the Spectrum was pretty weird. Jet Set Willy also, but only for the weird names of the rooms. Go Spectrum or go home Spechums!

>> No.1681032

>>1680135
>Man, what the fuck was going on in France back then?

There are two answers to your question:

First, back then when it took one to three people to make a game, a few thousand sales were considered a success and games were made by misfits in their garages rather than suits in offices it was easier for games to retain individual identities instead of being focus-tested murrikan-compatible samey stuff. There also were strong regional styles as a result, ie french games were strange adventures inspired by metal hurlant, german games were war games and RPGs, etc. German games haven't changed that much because they're a huge market and their tastes aren't that odd, but the french got uniformized by trying to appeal to the US.

Second, *those* french were fucking crazy. I'm talkin Ere Informatique here, an oddball group who figured they should handle video games like you'd handle music. There's a quote out there that says darkstalkers is like a great rock album, well, that's exactly what those guys were going for. They were acquired by Infogrames and started two labels, Exxos (for weird sci-fi games including Kult and Captain Blood) and Drakkhos (which was stillborn but Drakkhen came out of it).

When I'm saying they were crazy, I'm not just talking about their games. They had a prayer to Exxos, the game making god (Ata ata hoglo hulu!) which they chanted at press conferences, and if those were for the launch of a new game they'd sacrifice the machine the final version had been compiled by destroying it with an axe and distributing the pieces to journalist like they were sacramental bread. For their final game they had made a rubber alien which they similarly cut up and distributed to their fans and journalists.

Later, when working for Infogrames turned out to be shit, they founded another company called Cryo, which went big with prerendered CD-rom games. At first they were weird sci-fi/fantasy too (they made the first Dune) but eventually lost the spark.

>> No.1681075
File: 183 KB, 1280x853, Sanitarium.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1681075

>> No.1681785

>>1681032
I've always been fascinated with the strange wave of French adventure games we saw pre-2000.

Where'd you read about all this?

>> No.1681795
File: 17 KB, 256x223, Wedding Peach-2-full.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1681795

Wedding Peach all the fucking day long.

>> No.1681964

>>1681032
That's some crazy shit. Thanks for sharing.

>Cryo
I remember them! I l played the fuck out of MegaRace as a kid.

>> No.1682107
File: 44 KB, 379x500, Atlantis_II.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1682107

>>1681032
>they founded another company called Cryo
>they were weird sci-fi/fantasy too
Man, that takes me back.

>> No.1682201
File: 50 KB, 640x640, dreamsreality.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1682201

>>1681032
>Cryo

This game was a real trip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcIeWFrTjW8

>> No.1682360

>>1681032
Fucking french, why is your art world always the most entertaining one?

>> No.1684881

>>1681785
it was all over the french press back then, and subsequently many french retro sites still have articles about it.

Also, to more directly answer OP, I bring Captain Blood, their first game, to the table. You play a failed game programmer turned space captain who's roaming the hydra galaxy in his biomechanical ship, the Ark, to prevent a plot by pacmen to conquer the earth as described in a short story that shipped with the game, and all that's irrelevant because before the game even starts you have a hyperspace accident that fragments your very being.

Clones of you have been created with your life force, and the prevent your death your ship's slowly turning you into a machine, which will technically kill you *anyway* so when the game starts your goal is to find your five remaining clones and juice them (there's a clone juicer in your ship, no shit. It doubles as a fridge) to get your lifeforce back. To do so you travel through a procedural galaxy with procedural planets and communicate with weird-ass aliens through an icon language to find your clones' whereabouts and maybe solve a few other problems along the way. You can teleport passengers in and out of your ship and blow up any planet you want. You land on the planet by sending space dolphin biological probes genetically engineered by your ship. One additional difficulty is you're decaying in real time. If you don't get a dose of clone juice every two hours you'll get the shakes, space parkinson style, which is a problem since your mouse cursor is your hand. It even has tits.

>> No.1684907

>>1684881

Much, much later, through a satellite company of Cryo, they made a sequel, Commander Blood. Gone were the procedural planets and icon language, it's very much a FMV adventure, but most of the aliens are live action muppets, which is awesome. Really, the aesthetic is like nothing else. The plot is demented. Bob Morlock, ex-captain Blood and the richest and oldest being in the universe, is going to die very soon. In fact he's only alive because he's frozen most of the time so he can make the few hours left to him last. Before dying, he wants to see the Big Bang and so he's genetically created you, Commander Blood, to take him there. He's given you a new Ark, with fantastical enhancements that include a bigger fridge (to store Bob *and* other things), a TV with 6 channels (alien TV shows are sometimes hilarious), a phone line with a 28.8k modem, an alien language translator and a sarcastic on-board AI. Your goal is to find black holes to use to jump backwards in time until you reach the Big Bang, so along the way you'll have to help aliens to get info on where those are.

At one point you raid a tomb and steal a mummy and the resulting curse is all TV channels show the same boring show.

Still, gameplay-wise it's not as fun as the previous game since you're missing the language and freedom of action. Also it has one of the most frustrating endings ever.

>> No.1684909

>>1684907
There's a third, almost unknown game, Big Bug Bang, where it turns out you fucked up the big bang and now have to hasten evolution of life until it once again culminates into the perfect life form, that is to say Bob Morlock. Despite the amusing premise, it's a buggy, broken, boring piece of shit entirely made of recycling assets from the previous game, and half the dialogues are literally the developers telling you via proxy characters you're stupid for buying that crap game and their bosses are monsters for making them work on it. Its only merit is if you can avoid all the bugs and moon logic and developer spite and finish it you'll finally see the ending they couldn't finish in time for Commander Blood.

>> No.1686092

>>1681032
those are the guys who published a strip poker game where on the final screen the girl removes her own skin because she was an alien robot all along

>> No.1686674

>>1679698
Captain blood.
So amazing.

>> No.1686684

>>1684881
>You play a failed game programmer turned space captain who's roaming the hydra galaxy in his biomechanical ship, the Ark, to prevent a plot by pacmen to conquer the earth as described in a short story that shipped with the game, and all that's irrelevant because before the game even starts you have a hyperspace accident that fragments your very being.
typical french video game story. No wonder they also made EYE Divine Cybermancy.

>> No.1686687

>>1686092
what a twist.

>> No.1686805
File: 185 KB, 500x600, somer_assault_front.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1686805

Somer Assault for the TurboGrafx-16. You're a slinky and have to stop an evil witch or something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mruKBoC9lpQ

>> No.1688164

>>1681032
> for the launch of a new game they'd sacrifice the machine the final version had been compiled by destroying it with an axe and distributing the pieces to journalist like they were sacramental bread.

very much related: http://youtu.be/U8zpZh8UMT4?t=5m16s

>> No.1690192
File: 17 KB, 320x200, Captain_002.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1690192

>>1684881
Been playing this, captain Blood, for a bit. There's nothing quite like carefully decoding alien langagues only to find out the only alien i've met so far who isn't complaining about girl trouble has turned out to be gay and hitting on me.

>> No.1690205
File: 19 KB, 320x200, Captain_008.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1690205

Also this guy is mocking feminists

>> No.1690206

>>1690192
I definitely need to find a download of this game because it sounds awesome.

>> No.1690218

>>1690206
the best version to play is the Atari STE version, it's the original and the only one that has the alien voices. Get the Steem emulator there: http://steem.atari.st/index.htm and the rom there: http://www.planetemu.net/?section=roms&dat=364&action=showrom&id=486303

Do use save states because the game crashes occasionally. Your main goal is to get more coordinates so you can find more aliens so you can eventually find the Numbers (your clones). The start planet is randomly chosen from four, if you feel you're stuck you can always try a fresh start. Do keep in mind the game's not used friendly at all. It's all about being lost in an alien world.