Do you know any obscure 2000s PC games?

Air Strike 2. A top-down shooter were you control a helicopter with a variety of weapons such as machine guns, lasers and flamethrowers.

20 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

IDKFA and the ATTE series, both by Aleksander Trojanowski, which was a series of Doom fan-games released in 2001 and 2002, which reused assets from Doom and Hexen among other games such as Witchaven, all using a custom engine. Release dates for these games are as follows:

 

IDKFA (video game) (June 2001)

ATTE (August 2001)

ATTE2 (September 2001)

ATTE3 (January 2002, unfinished)

Sadly, There isn't any gameplay footage or playthroughs of the ATTE series available on YouTube, because it is nearly difficult to get them playing on modern PCs on DOSBox, and even the forks DOSBox Staging and DOSBox-X doesn't play them nicely either.

 

Unless one wants to remake these in the actual Doom engine as a WAD file, these game are more obscure than they get.

Are on DoomWiki. I dedicated a thread to them:
 

Rat Hunter, an FPS by Secret Sign, released 2006.

Your character is supposed to be a journalist visiting dangerous places on various planets, encountering alien monsters, futuristic soldiers and cyborgs.

It's an okay old-schoolish FPS with by the numbers gameplay, sometimes feels a bit bland.

Developer Secret Sign released space shooter StarCalibur prior to that. I have no further information about them and don't even know if they were Russian or Ukrainian. Publisher was Russobit-M.

On 1/18/2023 at 6:53 AM, Yhe1 said:

Ubersoldier 1 and 2?

Ubersoldier is one of the better known Return to Castle Wolfenstein clones. Just because it isn't an AA title doesn't mean it's obscure.

On 1/20/2023 at 1:31 AM, Tetzlaff said:

Rat Hunter, an FPS by Secret Sign, released 2006.

 

Your character is supposed to be a journalist visiting dangerous places on various planets, encountering alien monsters, futuristic soldiers and cyborgs.

It's an okay old-schoolish FPS with by the numbers gameplay, sometimes feels a bit bland.

 

Developer Secret Sign released space shooter StarCalibur prior to that. I have no further information about them and don't even know if they were Russian or Ukrainian. Publisher was Russobit-M.

 

 

 

Ubersoldier is one of the better known Return to Castle Wolfenstein clones. Just because it isn't an AA title doesn't mean it's obscure.

Since we are talking russian stuff and Russobit-M, there is more. Russian homebrew devs were very active plagiarizing assets (The game Cube for instance was re-released as a paid game, Snake Pit) or terrible standalone mods (Fear: Dead Phantom). But they also did some interesting work regarding the Quake Engines. Especially Quake 2 was much loved, especially after it got open sourced. Various standalone games were made that provided similar visual florish as Doom 3, but through Quake 2. Others were standalone mods. A list:

• Operation Trondheim: Special Forces - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002
• Operation Trondheim 2: Red Alert - PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2002
• Operation Trondheim 3: Iron Cross -  PC - Quake 3 Engine - Standalone RTCW mod by Sheppard - 2003
• Soldier Of Empire/Soldier Of The Empire - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine (Quake2Evolved) (From Quake 2 Evolved) - Scifi FPS - Also known as  Soldat Imperii, Fragmaker, Russobit M, Games Factory Interactive - Visually has some Doom 3 visuals, stencil shadows, limited normal mapping, self shadows - Still requires only Pentium 2 400 and 32 MB VRAM. - Russobit-M published it
• Snake Pit - PC - 2004 - Cube Engine - Bilby Games Studio - Also known as Zmeinoe Gnezdo [Ru]
• Castle On Eczema - PC - 2005 - Quake 2 Evolved Engine - Also known as Exeter Castle, Medieval FPS but with Evolved UI - Zamok na Ehkze in Russian, Game Factory Interactive, Fragmaker - Russobit-M published it
• Lendlease - PC - 2004 - Quake 2 Max Engine - (Quake2Max Engine) - Developed by Fragmaker,  as were most of these, including Operation Trondheim, done by Sheppard - Visually at UT2003.  - Russobit-M published it
• Specnaz Antiterror - PC - 2004 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)
• Specnaz Antiterror: The Mission In The Balkans - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows)
• Specnaz Antiterror: Afghanistan - PC - 2005 - modified Quake 2 Engine (Stencil shadows and smoothing)

I can provide screenshots if needed.

Here's a really weird one:

Terminal Machine, release 2003, developer Cold Shock Studios, publisher Asylum Games (Germany), genre FPS.

This FPS only consists of three levels the size of an avarage Quake level. Visuals and even architectural style resemble Quake 2 with a dystopian vibe dominated by dark greys and green. The soundtrack of the first level sounds like a bootleg record from some artsy noise performance. Some ripped sounds from Quake 3 Arena are used for enemies and environment. Only 2 enemy types (?). The leveldesign of the first map is actually not bad, relatively open layout where you have to locate switches that eventually activate a teleporter to exit the level. Gameplay is terribly janky and bugged. Could'nt play following levels because game crashed.

Cover artwork and name should probably suggest a misleading connection to the Terminator franchise.

Youtube playthrough:

I couldn't find any info on the developer Cold Shock Studios, but Asylum Games seems to have specialised on low-budget video games.

@Redneckerz: Yeah, I remember encountering some of those Russian homebrew products in that time period. "Soldier Of Empire" looks interesting.

A couple of RTS from the 2000s that I played and got to know were these:

Metal Fatigue (2000), is a game developed by Zono and published by Psygnosis and Talonsoft. It is an RTS where we manage different factions, it was an innovative game for its time where there was air, ground and underground fighting. The game is compatible with Windows 10 on steam but they say it has problems with current resolutions.

The other RTS is Dark Reign 2, it is also a game where there are 2 factions, and it is a game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Activision. It was a pretty solid campaign game overall and was somewhat similar to WestWood's Command and Conquer.

I think both games would need a remake in the future with the current technology that is used since they are quite solid games in their own way, especially Metal Fatigue was very advanced for its time.

I hope I have brought back some forgotten memory of these video games or have added another game to your collection and have been helpful.

On 1/3/2023 at 7:00 PM, UltimateDecaf said:

But I remember one game that was a casual shareware, but it always gave me chills when I was a kid - AxySnake (2001).

 

The most eerie thing about it was the fact that bright levels were surrounded by the darkness with predator's eyes lurking for a prey, and when the time was close to running out and the sun was setting, the music changed and creatures from the dark started their hunt for a player...

 

The Gameplay of AxySnake (YouTube)

Holy SHIIIIT I remember playing that game as a little kid. The sound of the snake being eaten by the night predators haunted me for days!

LV-426, a remake of the Commodore 64 Aliens game.

On 1/25/2023 at 6:16 PM, JohnR60 said:

The other RTS is Dark Reign 2, it is also a game where there are 2 factions, and it is a game developed by Pandemic Studios and published by Activision. It was a pretty solid campaign game overall and was somewhat similar to WestWood's Command and Conquer.

 

I remember seeing full-page ads for Dark Reign 2 in PC gaming magazines in that time and thought it looked interesting. But I only occassionally played RTS so I missed that one. Looks good in that video, I like that dystopian scifi world they have there.

On 1/25/2023 at 10:16 AM, JohnR60 said:

I think both games would need a remake in the future with the current technology that is used since they are quite solid games in their own way, especially Metal Fatigue was very advanced for its time.

I hope I have brought back some forgotten memory of these video games or have added another game to your collection and have been helpful.

7 minutes ago, Tetzlaff said:

I remember seeing full-page ads for Dark Reign 2 in PC gaming magazines in that time and thought it looked interesting. But I only occassionally played RTS so I missed that one. Looks good in that video, I like that dystopian scifi world they have there.

Actually, the source code for Dark Reign 2 was leaked by a former Pandemic Studios developer in 2011.

21 hours ago, Tetzlaff said:

I remember seeing full-page ads for Dark Reign 2 in PC gaming magazines in that time and thought it looked interesting. But I only occassionally played RTS so I missed that one. Looks good in that video, I like that dystopian scifi world they have there.

The first Dark Reign (1997) was praised by contemporary reviewers as a highly innovative RTS, along with Total Annihilation. In fact, it pioneered some features which later became de rigeur of the genre, such as unit queuing or different unit line of sight depending on terrain elevation. It also had a quite configurable advanced unit AI. I only played the demo, or, rather, I installed and launched it, looked at one mission and then switched to something else altogether.

Dark Reign 2 transitioned to full 3D. I also played only the demo, but I liked it, although I'm not generally into "early" 3D RTS games, I prefer some good 2D spritework. But it did not make me want to play the full game.

Back to the topic of obscure games. Sometime in 2006 I got my hands on a magazine coverdisk from two years prior, and, being somewhat bored and without fast Internet connection, I proceeded to install and try out everything playable that I could find on it (including a pretty lengthy demo of Sacred). Anyway, I found two space sim games that looked very similar (and fairly nice, although the graphics were more on a simple side), coming from the same developer. Both had a lengthy tutorial with voiced-over instructions that I didn't have the patience to sit through, so I fiddled around with the controls and then moved back to the Sacred demo.

And I guess I'd never remember what these games were called if it weren't for the fact that much later, after 2010, when I started to actively look for free and "liberated" (commercial-made-freeware) games, I rediscovered them because StarWraith 3D Games liberated their old titles. From what I can tell, this is a one-man team that basically keeps refining its space combat sim game, but the series has an interesting history. The first instalment was a fairly straightforward story of a space war with two opposing factions. You got mission objectives, equipped your fighter and went off blasting the other side's ships in space. Star Wraith 2 did this again, more polished and improved, but also added the "Mercenary mode" where the player would take contracts and earn money to repair, outfit and upgrade the ship (something that would be provided for free in the campaign mode). Ultimately, this sandbox mercenary mode later became the foundation of the current series by the same developer, Evochron and Arvoch. However, before that there would be two more Star Wraith titles (now freeware) with linear campaigns, one of which, Star Wraith 3, I "accidentally" completed while playing the game to take screenshots for MobyGames.

The games are actually quite playable and nice, even though the visuals are fairly simple. There are almost no YouTube videos showing gameplay, I was only able to find this one of Riftspace (the first stand-alone mercenary mode game without the linear campaign, using the same - or slightly improved - version of the Star Wraith IV engine):

I liked the Dr. Lunatic games back in the day

Supreme with Cheese is apparently available for free now. Going back and playing it again there's definitely some really tedious levels in there, but the game's sense of humor and diversity of enemies and scenarios makes for a good time

My other favorite was Speedy Eggbert, which I must've made like 60 levels for as a kid. I hope they're still around somewhere.

10 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

I liked the Dr. Lunatic games back in the day

 

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Supreme with Cheese is apparently available for free now. Going back and playing it again there's definitely some really tedious levels in there, but the game's sense of humor and diversity of enemies and scenarios makes for a good time

 

My other favorite was Speedy Eggbert, which I must've made like 60 levels for as a kid. I hope they're still around somewhere.

 

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I remember seeing Eggbert CD's at Walmart all the time, right next to Lemmings and Crazy Machines (I think that's the title? The one where you build contraptions to solve puzzles). Never got a chance to get down with Speedy. I had forgotten about that 3D Lemmings game until just now though. Maybe that's slightly obscure on its own, even if the franchise itself isn't. My Walmart still carries $10 casual games like  card game collections and Bejeweled.

Here's one for you: any of you guys ever own any of the Phantom EFX slot machine games? I loved those. I spent a lot of money on DLC machines somewhere around 2008ish. It was a genre of its own. I like to call it "Atmospheric Gambling". The machines were all unique and detailed and each one had a different minigame you could trigger. They had really nice music.

39 minutes ago, Stupid Bunny said:

My other favorite was Speedy Eggbert, which I must've made like 60 levels for as a kid. I hope they're still around somewhere.

All the Blupi/Eggbert games are freeware now:

https://www.blupi.org/

I never played the one you mention, but recently tried Blupimania (the older game for DOS), and I must say it's a really excellent puzzle game for children and grown-ups alike (higher difficulty levels are quite challenging).

On 1/26/2023 at 11:47 PM, MS-06FZ Zaku II Kai said:

Holy SHIIIIT I remember playing that game as a little kid. The sound of the snake being eaten by the night predators haunted me for days!

What are the chances? I just randomly opened your profile after browsing aimlessly through my inbox and re-reading your message from 2021, and the first post I saw is this. I read "the sound of the snake being eaten by the night predators" and immediately knew what game you're talking about. AxySnake... I love it so much. Curiously enough, AxySoft actually still sells it for $10. I went ahead and bought it a couple of years back for nostalgia's sake, even though the full version is not really much better than the shareware.

Old ugly 2000 games... low-effort, but with none of the freemium venom of modern low-effort games. What a lovely era that was.

Fun AxySnake fact: there's a "non-violent mode" in the options menu, but the creepy music still remains, and the snake just shrieks in fear and runs away aimlessly when the night comes. Not exactly less scary.

The Rage, a 3D beat 'em up by FluidGames. My brother downloaded the demo from somewhere in 2002 and me and my friend used to play it through a few times by taking turns. You could beat up cars till they explode and pick up firearms, including a bazooka right at the beginning. The enemy knockout sounds were ridiculous, particularly the mohawk punk's which we imitated. The first boss was a fat trucker man who could combo break with a burping sound and the second boss was a bazooka-wielding Guile look-alike riding a helicopter.

Nomen est omen...

Obscura: The Shadow Blade, released 2005, developed by Sarbakan (Canada)

I only played the demo of this Action-Adventure. It's set in 16th century Venice and has a slightly cartoon-like visual style, a bit reminiscent of anime but not quite. Eerie music and dream-like environments. As far as I remember it featured some very basic Hack&Slay gameplay.

Dark Salvation (2009), an FPS made on the Quake III engine.

On 2/11/2023 at 10:37 PM, Artman2004 said:

Dark Salvation (2009)

I think that one was freeware at some point, or am I mixing things up now?

On 2/11/2023 at 8:37 PM, Artman2004 said:

Dark Salvation (2009), an FPS made on the Quake III engine.

This is an interesting game. Mangled Eye Studios team leader Kiltron was level designer at Ritual Entertainment, but he was also active in the Quake3/Doom3 modding scene. The Quake 2: Lost Marine mod for Doom 3 was another project of him.

Dark Salvation feels like a SP Quake 3 Arena game with a juvenile gothic twist. It has some cool looking hellish environments and monsters. An annoying point were the potentially deadly platforming elements in the game. It's very unforgiving because (due to it's Q3A roots) there is practically no saving system in the game - you only can save at the start of each level, so you have to start all over when you fall into lava or into a death pit. Which happened more often to me than death through an enemies hand...

There was some real-life tragedy connected to the game. The girl who modelled for and voiced the game's supernatural goth girl protagonist died in a car accident just before Dark Salvation was released.

On 1/17/2023 at 1:52 PM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

IDKFA and the ATTE series, both by Aleksander Trojanowski, which was a series of Doom fan-games released in 2001 and 2002, which reused assets from Doom and Hexen among other games such as Witchaven, all using a custom engine. Release dates for these games are as follows:

 

IDKFA (video game) (June 2001)

ATTE (August 2001)

ATTE2 (September 2001)

ATTE3 (January 2002, unfinished)

Sadly, There isn't any gameplay footage or playthroughs of the ATTE series available on YouTube, because it is nearly difficult to get them playing on modern PCs on DOSBox, and even the forks DOSBox Staging and DOSBox-X doesn't play them nicely either.

 

Unless one wants to remake these in the actual Doom engine as a WAD file, these games are more obscure than they get.

If you want to see it running better in Staging or X, you could open issues on their respective github repositories:

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/issues

https://github.com/joncampbell123/dosbox-x/issues

Obscure? 2000s or near? Look at Bowlda Dash by Prism Leisure Corporation.
It's like somebody took Boulder Dash and added a layer of uncanniness and a thick smog of uncertainty to it.
 

That looks familiar... but not because I played it! I had my own 2000's Boulder Dash clone to entertain myself with.

I loved the inaccessible decorative areas outside the level. Really made it feel like a big thriving world... okay, maybe not. But it was a cool addition.

1 hour ago, Scypek2 said:

I loved the inaccessible decorative areas outside the level. Really made it feel like a big thriving world.

Both this and the torches in walls make me think of... Prince of Persia (1989)?

First 2 are Turrican fangames (I urge you to play Hurrican, it's actually really good)

Second is some weird little game I happened upon.

Third is a weird Splatterhouse fangame I played a lot when I was a kid.

Last one is the comically janky Friday the 13th fangame, which I also played a lot.

Special Force 2: Tale Of The Truthful Pledge

A Shamelessly Comercialized FC1 Mod, SF2-TOTTP Is Based On The 2006 South Lebanon War, Between Israel And Hezbollah From The Perspective Of A Hezbollah Guerilla, It's As Obscure As Can get, The Only Download I Could Find Was Broken.

A couple of 3D Groove games made between 2000 to 2008, mainly made for web browsers some of them had standalone PC versions as well. These are as follows:

3D Marble Demo

9MM: Beer Bottle Shootout

AlienX (not to be confused with the Doom compilation PWAD AliensX)

Death From Above

High Roller

Nothin' But Net

Outpost X Demo

Piscean

Real Pool 2

Showdown: The Gunfighting Game

SkyRacer: Impulse

Star Battalion

Tank Wars

Tank Wars Multiplayer

Apparently, both the 12th and 14th titles mentioned are lost media, while 5th game has been partially found according to the Lost Media Wiki article.

Starsiege (1999) by Sierra

Had loads of fun playing it online when I was a kid. I was barely able to read the game text, so I seldom ever knew what I was really doing. I would just click things and figure it out as I went. 
 

Was a really fun game. Never caught-on due to the broken multiplayer metagame. Then, the sequel, Starsiege: Tribes, ditched the mech idea and the whole IP died forever. 
 

Some people still play! I forget which version is required, but I believe the playerbase released their own patches to fix the broken meta. Will have to look into it again later. 

Vyruz: Destruction of the Untel Empire: Windows, 2001, Studio Chili Con Valley (^^), Isometric Shooter.  

This is quite a fun action game if you like products in the vein of "Futurecop: LAPD". The music, some sort of Synthwave, was memorable. The composer's name was "Antoine Le Clainche". Judging from the title, I thought this was a Russian game. Actually it seems it was French.  

A few notes: 

- this game is not available digitally, it's not available neither on Steam/GOG/GamersGate, 

- you can choose your language in the options which suprisingly also changes the player call-outs in-game or when going into the Option Menu (French, English), 

- This was one of these games that had several version for it's demo (v.014 and v.015), 

- the Studio changed it's name at some point. "Chili Con Valley" became "C2V". And believe or not, their site is still up: 

Chili Con Valley (Official Site)  / Vyruz (Official Site)

Here's a gameplay vid of Vyruz Destruction: Vyruz: Destruction of the Untel Empire (Youtube)

Sidrial, a Quake 3 total conversion only available as a demo.