Hidden Gems of the Decade (Part 1)

Too many new titles manage to slip through the cracks in a market over saturated with sequels and gaming remakes, they quickly vanish into obscurity and are relegated to bargain bucket shame. Whether through bad or nonexistent marketing, being overshadowed by the hype of big name releases or just unfairly slated in reviews and ignored; many of these titles offered great gaming experiences, if you took a chance on an impulse buy or fished out a second hand copy somewhere down the line. This series of articles looks to bring some of the most obscure titles kicking and screaming into the light. Be warned, as some of these came from the turn of the century, where HD graphics were not yet standard and the glossy, 1080p finish of Forza 4 and Rage were a distant dream. These screenshots demonstrate how far graphics have come over the past ten years, but are liable to offend younger audiences!

The Bard’s Tale

The Bard’s Tale is a top down action-RPG created by Brian Fargo of Baldur’s Gate fame. With tongue-in-cheek adult humour and constant pokes at its own deliberately cliché-driven fantasy world, The Bard’s Tale was a great example of how great writing and characters can make a game stand head and shoulders above its competition, well, it should have been, if anyone had bought it! Unfortunately, its fan base was too limited and it never reached the lofty heights it deserved. The bard is a self obsessed scoundrel. His motivations are purely selfish; he’s cruel, callous, sarcastic, but hilarious. He is a great character, strangely likeable despite his many flaws, and his wealth, women and wine before honour mantra fits in well with the amoral outlook prevalent in the game. You often do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and the protagonist’s rude, dismissive attitude frequently gets him into trouble. He has two tones when interacting with NPCs, sarcastic, and VERY sarcastic, to the extent you want to reach into the screen and wring his neck yourself. This means any decision you make has the potential to come back and haunt you later, as being nice to anyone, whether peasants or armed knights, is clearly not in his repertoire.

It’s rare for a narrator to add a real comedy element to a game but InXile Entertainment has pulled it off in The Bard’s Tale. The narrator clearly hates the Bard and disagrees with basically every immoral decision he makes, which leads to hilarious, often fourth-wall breaking arguments between the two. The magic system was innovative for the time, with each spell summoning a different creature with its own abilities. These form the bulk of your offense as you otherwise run around trying your best not to die. The combat is insanely frustrating as you are constantly hounded by enemies, rarely getting the chance to reel a spell off before being swarmed again. This unfortunately made it the weakest aspect of the game and a major letdown overall, but really the only mar on an otherwise perfect package.

Pros

Hilarious character banter and tongue in cheek humour
Unique and original protagonist
Innovative magic system
Solid 20 hour campaign
Sleek inventory system

Cons

Frustrating, outdated combat system.

Deathrow

Intense violence, swearing, genetic freaks, killer robots and a Hannibal Lector lookalike, yes, Deathrow had it all and more. The game revolved around Blitz, an unconventional futuristic sport combining the best elements of hockey, Frisbee, and extreme violence. Matches could be won in a number of ways; legitimately, by scoring more than your opponent, reducing the opposition to a quivering, bloody mess unable to continue, or somewhere in-between, taking out their defence and top scorer before going nuts in the end zone. Ubisoft and SouthEnd Interactive released this little gem in 2002, enticing bloodthirsty gamers with promises of a frenetic sports experience with mature themes and over-the-top violence, and they delivered a solid title with a surprising amount of content. Unfortunately, it was massively overlooked and gathered dust on shelves due to an embarrassing lack of marketing, meaning many Xbox owners missed out on one of the most fun IP’s the console had to offer.

Deathrow’s gameplay was fast and highly addictive, an excellent blend of a sports title and beat ‘em up. First you chose your particular brand of miscreant, each with their own strengths and playing styles. All-rounder teams like the Blitzers, your classic jocks, and the Protectors, a high tech private militia unit, can alter their tactics on the fly while the burly Crushers and Demons excel in close quarters brutality with little teamwork or versatility. You then lead your team through a decent length career mode, upgraded your star players through training and less savoury performance enhancers, acquiring new players, trophies and scars along the way. Deathrow was also one of the first games to fully utilise the Xbox’s custom soundtrack, allowing you to play your own choice of music while curb stomping players and cracking skulls, all in the name of sports entertainment.

Pros

Solid career mode and team customisation.
Fun, fast paced gameplay.
Custom soundtrack.
Large amount of content (players, teams, bonus stages etc)
Mature audiences need only apply.

Cons

Overly simplified combat.
Custom soundtrack tends to drown out in-game sound effects.

Gladius

Gladius is a tactical RPG released by LucasArts and Activision back in 2003. Heavy on the tactics and light on the RPG, Gladius focused on in-depth, strategic gameplay, allowing you to recruit, train and arm your own school of gladiators then take them across competitions in four regions. Imperia boasts Roman ingenuity and grand coliseums, Nordargh is a northern winter-wonderland infested with wolves and bears, while the Windward Steppes comprises
of vast grasslands with a focus on archers and guerrilla tactics, and lastly the Southern Expanse is vast, hot and barren, an Egyptian desert populated by huge beetles, scorpions and sorcery. You can choose to either start as Valen, an imperial legionnaire or Ursula, a Nordic warrior. Your decision will affect the early game defining which pool of gladiators you can choose from, the selection is vast, varying from your rank and file legionnaires and centurions, to the more exotic, with necromancers, skeletal knights, monstrous insects and Minotaurs. Each gladiator has its own strengths and weaknesses, making the creation of solid, well-rounded school critical, involving lots of trial and
error, customisation and upgrades.

The game utilised a rock, paper, scissors system; heavy troops bully medium, as medium do to light, while light troops dance around the heavier guys, whittling away their health. Gameplay is in-depth and hugely addictive; the bulk of the game consists of leading your school through a wide range of events, from king of the hill and death matches to gruelling survival tournaments. Character customisation is surprisingly detailed, with each of your gladiator’s appearances changing depending on their weapons and armour. The talent and skill trees are extensive and further customisation allows you to edit the appearances of your gladiators how you see fit. The story is near enough nonexistent, however, apart from the opening and conclusion there is little substance, but that hardly matters to the exclusive fan base who happily sunk 60+ hours into Gladius’s addictive, turn based combat.

Pros

Huge amount of character development and customisation.
Two massive 40+ hour campaigns.
Large amount of troop types and game modes offers plenty of replay value.

Cons

Uninteresting storyline.
Combat gets repetitive eventually.

The Suffering

Before Linc and Scofield broke out of Fox River and showed us prison wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, there was The Suffering. This first/third person shooter plunged Torque, a convict sentenced to life for butchering his family, into a hellish psychological horror. The Suffering is brutal and relentless, enemies are abominations modelled on methods of execution, from behemoths with automatic weapons courtesy of a firing line protruding from their shoulders, to twisted critters holding toxic syringes, and will do everything in their power to rip Torque limb from limb. The most gruesome and numerous enemies however, are the ‘slayers,’ they are the embodiment of decapitation, with the appearance of an emaciated black metal fan who’s affixed blades to every appendage for shits and giggles. Anybody who managed to soldier through the appalling opening, a mess of wooden voice acting and dodgy dialogue, would be rewarded with a game which struck a great balance between all out psychological horror, tense, gruesome backdrops and great run and gun combat.

You are frequently visited by the spirit of one of the prisons most infamous former residents, Dr. Killjoy, who resembles Jeffrey Combs from the Re-Animator series. He’s there to berate and taunt you and give Torque the occasional pointer to help unlock his potential – the ability to transform into a hideous man-beast capable of going
toe-to-toe with even the biggest baddy. The Suffering brought a breath of fresh air to a genre overcrowded with
mediocrity and cheap scares; the game was an adrenaline fix in a dark, twisted world created by developers who clearly have a passion for horror.