Have you ever loved something, only to realize it’s a commercial flop or just obscure? What’s something that deserves more light than it got?
Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, it was made by alumni of Interplay. The developers also made Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, which probably is why it gets overshadowed.
Anyways gameplay is effected by build, equipment, and even race because of course it is this is a game made by Fallout 2 devs. If that sounds interesting but not convincing go watch Mandaloregaming, Warlockracy, or Ssethtzeentach for better reasons, though if you aren’t familiar with any or all of the YouTubers I mentioned I ordered it by least to most batshit.
Also if any Eastern Europeans try to say “Oh this was a big game when I was in school” yes I’m aware I know about how your bootleggers charged by the disk resulting in everyone having Fallout 1, 2, and Arcanum. Sadly the game didnt do nearly as well here in the US in my experience.
Bryan Fuller’s TV opus, primarily Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies, although the first two seasons of Hannibal are really excellent writing and storytelling. All his work deals with death, but each has something slightly different to say about it.
Came here to talk about his show Wonder Falls. It only aired 3 episodes on Fox, but the whole season was released on DVD later. I think I’m one of thr few people who watched the live broadcast, because I was recovering from 2 surgeries for like a month, and had nothing to do. Led me to discover the whole Fullerverse.
I watched the broadcast, but even those who remember that it existed at all is a small club. It’s one of my all time favorites. If you haven’t already, look up the plans that they had for the future seasons of the series. There were fantastic ideas to develop the storyline that sadly will never be written.
Oooo! I’ll definitely look that up, I had no idea they got that far in development.
If I had a mouse for every time I’d seen Pushing Daisies mentioned on Lemmy, I’d probably have like hundreds of mice, because I’ve seen it mentioned twice and those things breed. It was absolutely excellent though and I was so gutted it never got another series. Maybe it was hit by a writers strike? Can’t remember how long ago it came out now.
Good news (from December):
“Absolutely,” [Bryan] Fuller told The Mary Sue recently about wanting to revisit Pushing Daisies. “We have a season three pitch, and the entire cast wants to come back, and we’re hoping we get to return to them. We just have to find somebody who wants to make it.”
Galavant. Two seasons on ABC in the mid 2010s.
A bawdy, over the top musical medieval themed fantasy series about a knight trying to get his wife back after she’s kidnaped and forced to marry an evil king.
Fantastic main cast and Weird Al in a recurring role as as the abott of an order of singing monks.
I don’t generally like musicals, but it’s so damned catchy and fun.
Freddy Got Fingered.
It’s a practical joke disguised as a movie.
Though it has found a cult following since release, I don’t think it’s appreciated enough for how hilarious it is.
Pretty much everything “Weird Al” Yankovic and his band have ever done.
They’ve gained more recognition in recent years, but most people don’t realize that his catalogue goes back to the mid-1970s. A lot of people are sleeping on his work, even today, because he’s categorized as a “novelty artist”.
The early stuff is rough, but from the mid-1980s on up is worth a listen even if you’re not a fan.
He was huge in 80s. Songs like Eat It and Like A Surgeon charted very well too.
Also, UHF is a comedic masterpiece.
I’ve come to appreciate that guy and how hard all of that actually is and should probably listen to more. He did a “Peter and the Wolf” back in ancient times that was seriously great, peerless listening for a kiddo I’d say.
Did you watch the silly biopic? Daniel Radcliffe? Can’t remember the name. I tried like 3 different times :( it was so over the top Weird Al that I couldn’t fault it for being flat out him AF, but I also just could not finish it lol.
My only other comment in this thread (so far) is singing the virtues of a movie called “Freddy Got Fingered”, so. Maybe it’s me lol.
I unabashedly love his first album. I Love Rocky Road, Another One Rides the Bus, Happy Birthday, Gotta Boogie: classics all!
That Weird Al doc is funny too.
The Quest For Glory series from Sierra. They ended up making 5 and you could import your character from the previous game with some save disks. You could pick between a fighter, a thief, or a magic user and grow from there. In the later games you could grow and be a paladin, a sorcerer (with a staff), or the lead to a thieves guild depending on your choices. In the last game you got to become a king and pick a love interest that you met from previous games. The 4th game had a hot vampire babe, so normally tried to marry her.
I played the first game a lot when I was younger, the 16 color EGA version with a command line interface. I got pretty good at typing and spelling as a kid because of that game. The version I had was “Hero’s Quest”, it’s the same game, but a board game company sued them over the name, so later releases are called “Quest for Glory”.
Yup! I loved typing in the first 2 games. The 3rd changed it to more point and click. What were those code phrases you could use for the debugging cheats? Eramus rooting tootin root beer and something about suck blue frog toad…idk it was awhile ago. Fun times.
I still remember being nervous about entering the brigands hideout the first time. That minotaur guy killed me a lot and getting through the jester was fun.
I remember “Hut of Brown, Now Sit Down”, and I remember finding the brigand camp and getting absolutely slaughtered the first few times. And there was a thing called an “Antwerp”, which I thought was funny later on when I found out Antwerp was a real place.
AGDI did a remake of Quest for Glory II, which was pretty good when I played it. A pity the entire series wasn’t redone like that.
certainly not an obscure videogame, but Prey (2017) is amazing, and for some reason it flopped. Also the DLC might be the best I’ve played, it’s a completely new kind of game
if you check the free epic games sometimes you might have it in your collection
Arkane studios make the best fucking games and they keep getting shafted and its not fair. At least they got their time in the sun with Dishonoured.
I came into this thread to mention Arx Fatalis but Prey is an even better game.
Different Arkane teams in different countries made Prey and Dishonored.
Prey was Arkane Austin, which was forced to make Redfall as a Live Service game to pump up the value of the companybefore being sold to Microsoft, leading over 70% of the Prey team to leave during the development.
Redfall flopped because Arkane Austin wasn’t a Live Service developer and they had zero interest in the game, and Microsoft closed the studio.
@Imhotep @Cantaloupe hmm. I have Prey in both Epic and Steam and never felt the urge to install it.
How does it actually play?
Think bioshock but less repetitive combat and more characters to engage with. Also the environment is so dynamic. I recommend turning off most of the UI hints.
It may be genuinely one of my favorite games of all time. Its one you pick up and don’t put down till it’s done.
Prey is a fun game, I recommend you give it a go.
If you have played System Shock 2, it is along those lines.
Cable Guy . Jim Carey is very scary and the end monologué about thé internet future was spot on.
Man, people can’t help but post stuff they like and is popular, not stuff that’s almost never talked about. Anyway…
The Irresponsible Captain Tyler is an old school anime most people slept on. It’s the sci-fi genera of “aliens are elves with big shoulder pads”, and Tyler is a bum, he decides he wants to join the military because it’s got free food and chicks dig guys in uniform, and then he accidentally starts an interstellar war with the aliens, accidentally becomes captain of a ship, and accidentally starts beating the crap out of the aliens without meaning to. The aliens think he’s a strategic genius, his bosses think he’s an idiot and are trying to get rid of him, and his crew can’t tell if he’s one or the other. The whole show has a lot of love put into it, each background character has it’s own name and voice actor, and the show is hilarious right off the bat till the end.
I also feel that Thief the Dark Project doesn’t get enough credit and attention. It was the first first person sneaker, has better stealth mechanics than even some modern games, and a great story and world building. I think maybe some sequels that weren’t as popular as the second one kinda made people drop the series but it was fantastic.
One of my favorite super hero movies to this day is the original kick ass. Beats the pants off any marvel movie by miles. Not exactly a flop but criminally underrated.
It’s interesting that Super with Rainn Wilson was developed pretty much in parallel considering how similar they are in concept. There are scenes in the office where Dwight is looking over paperwork, but in reality it’s just Rainn reading the script of Super.
Personally I found Kick-Ass to be a better overall film. Super had a lot of uncomfortable elements that just left a bad taste in my mouth.
My favorite band of all time is Guided by Voices. Started out in the 80s recording on four track cassettes and pressing 500 copies of the record playing local dive bars. In the early 90s front man Robert Pollard was done after 7 albums and no success outside their hometown so he wrote their final album Propeller.
Of course that made a bit of splash and got them shows in NYC where they kind of took off (at least in 90s indie rock circles). After that success Pollard kept on going until 2004 with a rotating cast of characters when he disbanded GBV for good. I unfortunately only heard about them around this time and missed out on seeing them live.
Well when I say for good it only lasted until 2010 when the “classic lineup” reunited. They toured playing all the old hits for a yrar or two, then started releasing new music and haven’t stopped.
Bob is utterly prolific and has over 100 albums to his name across various solo and side projects. I don’t click as well with most of the newer stuff but I appreciate it non the less.
Pick any of the albums from 1990-96 for some lofi rock masterpieces, or 1997-2004 for some higher fidelity power pop. The lyrics and song titles are all fairly obsurd on any of them. Bee Thousand is their classic album but I’d recommend Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. Its a bit more polished than the cassette hiss of earlier stuff but still not a full studio sound.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I remember liking teenage FBI
Metalocalypse. If you like metal music, animated shows and a bit of dark humor then this is the show for you.
Runner up: Aqua Team Hunger Force - if you like short stupid storylines and crude jokes.
And bonus: Squidbillies - if you like Aqua Teen Hunger Force but you want things the get even stupider.
The 10th Kingdom (2000). Great miniseries that mashes up fairy tales some modern twists. I really enjoyed all the characters, and the kind-of multiverse was cool.
Tremulous (2006). A first person shooter with first person builder elements. The human team depends on electricity for their various guns and turrets, the alien team can build anywhere and walk on the walls and ceilings, but are more limited to their claw’s melee range. There was no matchmaking so you just went to the same server all the time and made friends with the people there. It was cool.
Hm. There is a pair of Star Trek adventure games, called 25th Anniversary and Judgment Rites. They are essentially an extra season of TOS, and are quite good.
Chinese Lore Podcast, not a singular piece but worth a mention.
The translations aren’t bad, it’s incredible value for free audiobook/translations.
