[CP5670]

Have you played any games that can only be described as weird? I'm talking about games that were not necessarily good or bad, but simply bizarre. Here are some I can think of:

Inca: The mother of all weird games. This review describes it well. The gameplay is part space sim, part FPS and part adventure.

Toxic Ravine: Another strange game where you flew a blimp and had to drop bombs on a lot of random looking crap and then drop apples and elevators on swarms of little guys. This actually had a rather detailed plot although the gameplay had nothing to do with it.

Chex Quest: This was a Doom TC that came in Chex cereal boxes in the mid 90s. You're a piece of cereal who has to blow up some slimy guys, and the pickups consist of various breakfast related items. Surprisingly good and creative. Apparently it still has a large fanbase.

I kind of miss these types of games actually. They made no sense at all but had a certain originality to them. There were tons of them in the early 90s, but I haven't seen any in years.

[Dark Hunter]

Chex Quest! I remember that! At the end of the game there was an ad for Chex Quest 2, but I guess I came to that a little late, because when I called they said they were done with that!

Man, that game was fun... Silly, wierd, and you're a cereal piece, but fun all the same.
Interesting that the fan base is that large...

[CP5670]

CQ2 is available on Underdogs and many other sites. It's basically a pack of five additional levels, but they're quite good. Both games run perfectly in Dosbox 0.7x with the dynamic core.

[karajorma]

I'll see all your weird games and raise you one Captain Blood. (And no I don't mean the XBox game).

Flying round the galaxy to talk to aliens, disintegrate your clones and have sex with naked purple women. Doesn't get stranger than that.

[Roanoke]

I'll see all your weird games and raise you one Captain Blood. (And no I don't mean the XBox game).

Flying round the galaxy to talk to aliens, disintegrate your clones and have sex with naked purple women. Doesn't get stranger than that.

That game sounds like it had some pretty decent elements:

"Other unique facets of the game play of Captain Blood included changes in the player interface as the game progressed; as time wore on, the character's health deteriorated. This was represented in-game via an increasing amount of shaking of the mouse cursor, making the game more and more difficult to control. Disintegrating a clone would temporarily relieve the symptoms."

Imagine EA doing that ?

[JGZinv]

I happened to play ChexQuest as well back in the day...
Still have the disc for that matter.

[karajorma]

That game sounds like it had some pretty decent elements:

"Other unique facets of the game play of Captain Blood included changes in the player interface as the game progressed; as time wore on, the character's health deteriorated. This was represented in-game via an increasing amount of shaking of the mouse cursor, making the game more and more difficult to control. Disintegrating a clone would temporarily relieve the symptoms."

Imagine EA doing that ?

I can't imagine anyone doing it these days. It was the sort of game that could only be made back when computer games meant nothing more than a few months work for a coder (and a graphics artist if you had money to burn).

These days games take so long to make and require such a large team that you can't take a punt on a weird idea that might actually work. There are few companies these days who would look at the game and say "So let me get this straight, you fly around the galaxy but don't really fight anything. And the whole heart of the game is talking to aliens via a button pushing interface and persuading them to give you information? Okay, We'll give it a try."

Even in France.

[CP5670]

Someone posted this on another forum I go to. I would try it out but I don't want to reinstall HL2 right now.

[Kosh]

Does flipside know about flipside?

[IPAndrews]

Pulirula for the win. A fairly standard sideways scrolling zap the bad guys game but with the most insane visuals I've ever seen. Ensure you play the Japanese ROM set with the featuring the famous door between the giant woman's legs. Weird Dreams actually tried to be weird but it's postitively sedate compated to PuLiRuLa.

[Roanoke]

That game sounds like it had some pretty decent elements:

"Other unique facets of the game play of Captain Blood included changes in the player interface as the game progressed; as time wore on, the character's health deteriorated. This was represented in-game via an increasing amount of shaking of the mouse cursor, making the game more and more difficult to control. Disintegrating a clone would temporarily relieve the symptoms."

Imagine EA doing that ?

I can't imagine anyone doing it these days. It was the sort of game that could only be made back when computer games meant nothing more than a few months work for a coder (and a graphics artist if you had money to burn).

These days games take so long to make and require such a large team that you can't take a punt on a weird idea that might actually work. There are few companies these days who would look at the game and say "So let me get this straight, you fly around the galaxy but don't really fight anything. And the whole heart of the game is talking to aliens via a button pushing interface and persuading them to give you information? Okay, We'll give it a try."

Even in France.

maybe it'll make it into the next Harry Potter game....

[Mongoose]

I feel like I should throw Tomba! and its sequel into the mix.  Strange pink-haired boy with penchant for meat fights evil pigs by jumping on them and biting them.  Oh, and did I mention that he apparently stores his inventory items in his stomach?  And all of this is set in a 2D-platformer-meets-adventure-meets-RPG gameplay style.  Both of these games, particularly the first, were an immense amount of fun; I still break them out and replay them every year or so.

[Mobius]

Ah, Tombi(someone changed the name since "tomba" is Italian for "tomb", quite scary for that game).

I can't play them anymore...I lost Tombi 1 and Tombi 2 is ruined...the CD is in very bad conditions

[Dark RevenantX]

Weird Worlds is a weird game...

[Flipside]

Does flipside know about flipside?

The only gaming Flipside I knew about were the guys who produced Cataclysm.

As for Captain Blood, the communication system in that was both incredibly original and bloody frustrating, it was one of the reasons I never finished it, you could never get the locations of any of the damn clones

[karajorma]

I managed to find one of them every time. The best I ever did was to find two of them in one game.

[brandx0]

Ah, Tombi(someone changed the name since "tomba" is Italian for "tomb", quite scary for that game).

That's pretty interesting, I work at a restaurant and we have an italian pasta dish called the tomato basil capellini, but to shorten it we just call it the tomba

[MarsNeedsWomen]

I had a game called ClayFighter 63 1/3 which had some weird characters like a cyborg rabbit, a sumo wrestler santa claus, and Earthworm Jim (who had his share of weird games).  There was also Space Station Silicon Valley  which was pretty damn weird. In it you had to prevent the titular space station from crashing into Earth. You accomplished this by taking over the bodies of dead animals, cause in your true form you were nothing but a computer chip which died if it stayed out of a body for too long. It was buggy as hell and it was freaking hard, but it was also very comedic. Here's a video of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO1cBHBerUY 

[IPAndrews]

  which was pretty damn weird. In it you had to prevent the titular space station from crashing into Earth. You accomplished this by taking over the bodies of dead animals, cause in your true form you were nothing but a computer chip which died if it stayed out of a body for too long.

You know. That doesn't sound anything at all like Paradroid. Also if Clay Fighter is in there then there has to be a case for Neo Geo fighter Waku Waku 7 with one of it's character's being a bee lady and another being a little boy clinging to the back of an enormous 400lb stuffed bunny toy.

[MarsNeedsWomen]

I never heard of Paradroid, but I now that I looked it up, the games are suspiciously similar. Lawsuit