Do you know any obscure 2000s PC games?

Stair Dismount, a game where your objective is to inflict as much damage as possible to a ragdoll character by pushing him down the stairs. There seems to be a whole series of Dismount games to my surprise. I was aware of Truck Dismount already.

Kiekko.tk is an internet browser game where you can play Ice Hockey in an online multiplayer.

There's more I recall but unfortunately I can't find any gameplay footage.

46 minutes ago, Sonikkumania said:

Stair Dismount, a game where your objective is to inflict as much damage as possible to a ragdoll character by pushing him down the stairs. There seems to be a whole series of Dismount games to my surprise. I was aware of Truck Dismount already.

 

I remember that the company that now owns Stair Dismount made some other games like Turbo Dismount and a remake of Stair Dismount for mobile, both of which I played a ton of before I ever knew the original existed. The original Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount are on their website for free, which is pretty cool for game preservation and just allowing people to play the classic game. The original developer of Stair Dismount also has a website where you can download both the original Stair Dismount and Truck Dismount, as well as Sauna Dismount, a ton of custom maps for different versions of the game, and a level editor which was discontinued in 2004.

I recently remembered Chrome, a mid as fuck 2003 Polish FPS game that stars John St John literally just doing a knock off Duke Nukem voice for the entire thing:

Interesting that the engine, funny enough called "Chrome Engine", actually powers quite a few games (standouts being Dead Island and most Call of Juarez games).

I haven't gotten round to playing it yet but I'll be honest I haven't met or talked to a single person who has ever played Chrome 1 or 2, I knew of Chrome for a while but genuinely never looked too deep into it. Apparently Chrome, according to Wikipedia, has the lofty title of: 

Quote

...the first action game developed in Poland to get a major international release and receive "average" reviews beyond the country's borders,[citation needed] according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.

So, uh yeah, well done for that hotly contested (and apparently unconfirmed) title.

Some more obscure games involved in legal disputes according to MobyGames.

ACid ARena (AKA ACid ARena Turbo) - a 2002 FPS game build on the Quake III Arena but it originally bundled that game's assets illegally until the game's engine was open source in 2005, which means that a standalone version could likely exist without Q3A's assets.

Streets of Rage Remake - a 2003 fan game based on the beat em up brawler series.

Garfield: Attack of the Mutant Lasagna - a 2004 freeware fan game powered by the AGS adventure game engine that was taken down four days after release by the request of Garfield owner PAWS Inc.

Plasma Pong - a Pong fan game released in 2006.

GridWars 2: a static shooter inspired by Geometry Wars released in 2006.

Limbo of the Lost - a point and click adventure game released in 2007 in Europe, and 2008 in North America. It originally started off as an Atari ST game in the early 1990s before switching to an Amiga game in 1995 before being scrapped. The final version of the game was powered by the Wintermute engine which was used in a couple of indie point and click adventure games. Upon its release, many sources have pointed out that alot of assets in this game were ripped off from other commercial games, which lead to the publishers and distributors to pull the game off sale.

Stoneloops! of Jurassica - a clone of Puzz Loop released in 2008.

Wanted to get these games out of the way.

• Neighbors from Hell, a game released in 2003 where you play pranks on your neighbor for a TV show. It was recently remastered along with its sequel as Neighbors Back from Hell.
• Astro Avenger 2, a top-down space shooter released in 2008.

On 3/24/2023 at 7:09 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

stars knock off John St John literally just doing the Duke Nukem voice for the entire thing:

Wow that is uncanny. Sounds virtually identical.

8 minutes ago, Panzermann11 said:

Neighbors from Hell, a game released in 2003 where you play pranks on your neighbour for a TV show. It was recently remastered along with its sequel as Neighbors Back from Hell.

Was this one that obscure tho? I know personally a bunch of people who played it back in the days.

6 hours ago, taufan99 said:

Was this one that obscure tho? I know personally a bunch of people who played it back in the days.

I'm not sure, exactly. I found the game on my old computer when I was a kid, so I wouldn't have heard about it if I didn't.

On 3/24/2023 at 1:09 AM, mrthejoshmon said:

Interesting that the engine, funny enough called "Chrome Engine", actually powers quite a few games (standouts being Dead Island and most Call of Juarez games).

Don't forget Dying Light!

Witchaven, a mediocre Doom-like that uses the Duke Nukem 3D engine.

Gore, another mediocre FPS.

Will Rock, a Serious Sam-like with an antique mythology theme.

On 1/5/2023 at 1:17 AM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Nitro Family - a South Korean FPS game developed by Delphieye Entertainment in 2004 that runs on the same engine as Serious Sam First and Second Encounter.

Yep, I also own this one.

13 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

.

 

Streets of Rage Remake - a 2003 fan game based on the beat em up brawler series.

.

Is it so old?

Played it a few Years ago, it is pretty good, has unlockable Stuff, is very adjustable and just pure Fun.

Can recommend it to everyone.

The Title is also a bit misleading, as it is more of a Mix of all three Games

21 hours ago, Murdoch said:

 

Wow that is uncanny. Sounds virtually identical.

I notice my error.

I meant to say knock off Duke Nukem. It literally is John St John but I accidentally got rid of half the sentence when writing.

Folklore was a pretty fun PS3 game that pretty quickly fell into obscurity.

15 hours ago, ducon said:

Witchaven, a mediocre Doom-like that uses the Duke Nukem 3D engine.

What? Witchaven was a 90's game.

Anyway, anyone remember the Gunner sidescroller series by KNPMaster? I speficially mean the 3rd in the series:

This was good shit. Shame that the 4th entry never made it past the demo stage.

1 hour ago, mrthejoshmon said:

I notice my error.

 

I meant to say knock off Duke Nukem. It literally is John St John but I accidentally got rid of half the sentence when writing.

Haha, that explains it. I was thinking "that can't be a knock off, surely!" But Google searches didn't seem to confirm one way or the other.

1 hour ago, Sonikkumania said:

What? Witchaven was a 90's game.

Yes, I forgot that part of the thread title.

1 hour ago, Sonikkumania said:

Anyway, anyone remember the Gunner sidescroller series by KNPMaster? I speficially mean the 3rd in the series:

That MIDI rendition of Stage 1 from Truxton II got my attention alone.

Evolva

...no idea whether this game is actually obscure or not though.

CS2d, an aerial perspective Counter Strike in case you have played the FPS version to death. 

On 3/23/2023 at 7:09 PM, mrthejoshmon said:

I recently remembered Chrome...

I really enjoyed Chrome. I don't think it was that obscure around here (Germany), as well as the other Eastern European FPS from that time, like Chaser, Kreed and so on. Maybe they had more marketing and distribution in Europe than in the US?

Chrome had many relatively open outdoor maps, you could use vehicles, use stealth tactics if you wanted. In some missions stealth was obligatory, when you had to infiltrade a base. It had an inventory system and you could loot the bodies of fallen enemies, or search crates:

This added some inventory management and made exploring your environment rewarding. I always like that.

For me Chrome was the better Unreal 2 (2003). I hated Unreal 2 for it's shallowness and extremely restrictive, linear game design. Chrome had a similar premise like Unreal 2: You were a mercenary with an attractive crew mate in a little spaceship, taking missions on different planets. It wasn't as visually impressive as Unreal 2 but the gameplay was more fun.

5 hours ago, Tetzlaff said:

 

I really enjoyed Chrome. I don't think it was that obscure around here (Germany), as well as the other Eastern European FPS from that time, like Chaser, Kreed and so on. Maybe they had more marketing and distribution in Europe than in the US?

 

Chrome had many relatively open outdoor maps, you could use vehicles, use stealth tactics if you wanted. In some missions stealth was obligatory, when you had to infiltrade a base. It had an inventory system and you could loot the bodies of fallen enemies, or search crates:

This added some inventory management and made exploring your environment rewarding. I always like that.

 

For me Chrome was the better Unreal 2 (2003). I hated Unreal 2 for it's shallowness and extremely restrictive, linear game design. Chrome had a similar premise like Unreal 2: You were a mercenary with an attractive crew mate in a little spaceship, taking missions on different planets. It wasn't as visually impressive as Unreal 2 but the gameplay was more fun.

I'm not sure how America faired, I'm English so technically I was European at the time, there was a lot of European games most English people never actually got exposed to like Kreed and Chaser (and for instance I have yet to meet someone who has played Gothic and I had never heard of it till a few years ago just as an example, and I play a lot of games). I only found out about Chaser through a GOG promotion, Kreed was a Civie thing.

Hell, the only reason I found about Chrome was because there are posters of it in Dead Island.

Now, having played Unreal 2 going off of what you just said I am figuring that I might just give it a go, from what I've seen it looks like seeing the game doesn't do it justice as much as playing it would.

Now onto a couple of LEGO games made between 2001 and 2004, before the current licensed property-based LEGO games came along.

Lego Island 2: The Brickster's Revenge - the sequel to the first Lego Island game released in 2001, developed by Silicon Dreams Studio. It's rather rushed due to the load times, hashed together story, linear gameplay and voice acting that appears to had been done by the developers themselves.

Island Xtreme Stunts - a sequel to Lego Island 2 released in 2002 which was a cross over with two short lived LEGO theme sets, that being Island Xtreme Stunts and Studios. It was developed by Silicon Dreams Studio and was their last game before the developer closed.

Football Mania (also known as Soccer Mania outside of Europe) - a Lego Soccer sports game also developed by Silicon Dreams Studio and released in 2002.

Lego Racers 2 - the sequel to Lego Racers released in 2001, which was developed by Attention to Detail. The game offers the player has more freedom as they can race or drive freely and talk to NPCs. This game is not widely remembered as the first game due to being developed by a different studio.

Drome Racers - the third Lego racing game released in 2002 and developed by Attention to Detail.

Bionicle - a 2003 Platform game developed by Argonaut Games.

Bionicle Heroes - a 2006 third person shooter developed by Traveller's Tales, which is the developer responsible for every LEGO game developed since 2005, with the exception of a few developed by their sister studio TT Fusion.

Galidor: Defenders of the Outer Dimension - an action adventure game that was actually never initially released by its developer Asylum Entertainment. Its unfinished PC version was found out of unknown circumstances, and was unofficially released in 2004 and 2008 by Focus Multimedia and ValuSoft in Europe and North America respectively.

Wanted to get these lesser known LEGO games out of the way.

On 3/25/2023 at 9:43 PM, Azuris said:

Is it so old?

Played it a few Years ago, it is pretty good, has unlockable Stuff, is very adjustable and just pure Fun.

Yes, yes it is, but it's been updated several times (and IIRC it went through a C&D at some point as well), so you probably played a much more recent version.

On 3/25/2023 at 8:13 PM, ducon said:

Will Rock, a Serious Sam-like with an antique mythology theme.

One of my favourite games. I don't think it was really obscure back in 2003 when it came out, but IIRC some critics bashed it too much, undeservedly, for being a Serious Sam knockoff, so it kinda fell into obscurity. I'd love to see it updated or at least being on sale with what community patches there are, but the only thing that sort of took after this game is God Mode, a third-person co-op arena shooter based around vaguely the same concepts (but with far less charm compared to the original thing).

I've read that the devs of Will Rock had an onboard expert on Classical Antiquity architecture, and a lot of levels are built around or inspired by actual places, like the first two levels have recognizable landmarks from Petra in Jordan.

BTW, when I first played the demo of Will Rock (and fell in love with the game, although before I'd been a very staunch true 3D skeptic playing Doom and Build engine FPS games mostly -- don't laugh), and even later when I obtained the full game, I had not played Serious Sam in any form, although I was vaguely familiar of its existence. It is only much later that I got around to try the Serious Sam demos (in chronological order, starting with the famous samtest.zip), I don't know how I missed the thing, I've always been into Ancient Egypt, probably even more than into Ancient Greece and Rome. Will Rock is a lot more forgiving than Sam though, there aren't any nasty traps like grab +10 health potion and get a bunch of rocketeers in your face.

On 3/25/2023 at 7:13 PM, ducon said:

Will Rock, a Serious Sam-like with an antique mythology theme.

I played Will Rock! It was pretty great and it had an awesome soundtrack! Although - whenever someone talks about the soundtrack - they usually only talk about the "Twisted Sister" song that's in the game or the "In The Hall of The Mountain King" track, which is a shame because all the original music that's in the game is really good! I recommend that you check out the soundtrack, if you haven't!

Alchemist Wizard - a 2.5d platformer with 3D models and graphics developed by Dekovir Entertainment and released in 2002, where you play as a wizard while collecting insects as ingredients for your spells to take out the enemies.

On 3/28/2023 at 2:03 AM, Ar_e_en said:

It was pretty great and it had an awesome soundtrack!

Yup, I've always loved exactly the songs that you've linked to. In fact, the demo version -- I first played the demo -- had one of these in the main menu instead of I Wanna Rock.

Doom 6666 - a weird low-effort Doom fan game that was released in the early-to-mid 2000s (circa 2003), which is almost unplayable due to the mouse aim, and dreadful enemy behaviors. It is often hailed by many as one of the worst Doom fan games ever made.

This fan game was remade twice, first as a Half-Life mod and then as a GZDoom mod, both made by kurtis2221.

Severance: Blade of Darkness was damn cool, I loved playing it back in the 2000s and even though it has been re-released on Steam a couple of years ago, it seems that not a lot of people know about it still. The Black Heart is a fighting game made on the M.U.G.E.N. engine that also not a lot of people know about that's pretty interesting.

I just can't stop thinking about Quest for the Code (2002). It's a weird, educational FMV game designed for kids who have asthma. Perplexingly, it has one of the most star-studded lineups of any game I've ever seen: Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Kelsey Grammer, Glenn Close, Funkmaster Flex, Diane Sawyer, Jeff Goldblum, Minnie Driver, Shaq, Gwyneth Paltrow, and...Norman Schwarzkopf...

I grew up on an eGames disk with around 300 games from the mid 90s to early 2000s, so I know a quite a few obscure 2000s games from it. However two specific ones have always been the most interesting to me:

BuzzingCars (aka Wild Wheels for the eGames version): A crazy racing game from 2002 by Epsitec, the same people behind Speedy Eggbert/Blupi (which I've seen multiple people mention earlier in this thread). This one is even more obscure than that. You carry out various missions with your large remote controlled car, such as blasting water at robots that are annoying their neighbors with their music, or preventing robots from being tortured and killed by the bean-shaped green alien badguys. It's a very cool game.

Warkanoid (aka Jetball for the eGames version): An Arkanoid clone from 2000 by Kraisoft, and the coolest one ever made. It has a super cool techno theme with cool graphics, cool levels, it's just really cool. But the best thing about this game is it has the best game soundtrack ever made, period. Nothing tops it. Nothing. It has 2 sequels, Warkanoid II with a nature theme and Warkanoid III with a storybook theme. They also have great soundtracks, especially the former.