Any kind of game
EDIT: changed from suggested to mentioned and made the title more clear
This is a hard one because I generally try to play good games these days, and good games either get popularized through word of mouth or Youtubers make video essays about how they were misunderstood at the time. For me, this question is really asking “Hey what weird trash did you find back when you were 10 years old digging through the bargain bin for whatever you could trade two games you finished for.”
I think my big picks from the weird trash are The Urbz, which comes from back when they made Sims spinoff games instead of endless DLC, and Ty the Tasmanian Devil, which was a 3D platformer metroidvania that revolved around collecting increasingly elaborate boom-a-rangs. I definitely sunk the most hours into the Urbz, because nothing was more fun to a 10 year old than going around a virtual town flipping people off.
No One Lives Forever
To this day I have no idea why I bought it. And I bought it close to its release date. I would only do that if I had been absolutely obsessed for months with previews and stuff. But I remember none of that.
And still it ended up becoming one of my all time favourites.
Are you talking about 1 or 2? I always thought 2 was better and introduced a load of mechanics (to me at least) that are commonplace nowadays. This was the first FPS game I played where getting found during a stealth mission didn’t completely ruin everything. And the concept of unkillable enemies that you can only run from.
Definitely 1. The second one wasn’t bad. I mean, nothing beats a katana fight in trailer a flying through a tornado. But something about that game was always missing for me. I couldn’t lay my finger on it (apart from Cate’s actress changing). And I hate the endlessly respawning enemies.
Idk, I remember hide-and-go-seek being pretty sick as a kid. I don’t often see it mentioned.
Commander Keen might be one of the few old enough not to have been mentioned to me since the internet became well-known.
Also, Squarez.
Two very niche board games from the 70s: “Snit’s Revenge” “Lie, Cheat, and Steal”
And an old Avalon Hill wargame: “Wooden Ships and Iron Men”
Lie, Cheat, and Steal!!! We used to play that as kids! Excellent call.
Did you play the Mad magazine game where the objective was to lose all your money?