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.
Chinese Lore Podcast, not a singular piece but worth a mention.
The translations aren’t bad, it’s incredible value for free audiobook/translations.
Goodnight Punpun
It’s a manga so if you are in the west it’s already going to be obscure. It’s also pretty messed up so it might not be for everyone, but if you are able to stomach it and read it, man is it amazing. It has very little anime bs that a lot of anime/manga suffer from; it’s not a shonen, it’s aimed at an older audience. It is very well written. The art is amazing. I could go on, but I think it’s best enjoyed blind.
It’s 13 volumes, but you can binge it in a day (not recommended). It has a lot of dialog so a lot more reading than most manga.
If you are not sure about the manga, read the first chapter. I think it sets the tone well for the rest of the series.
Like a lot of great things, I wish I could read the manga again for the first time.
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.
FGF is the quintessential 2000s artistic expression film. It speaks to the unrepresented young middle class male psyche, the underachiever adrift in a sea of mediocrity, the futility and burden of male ego. It tells the viewer their own ordinary story in extraordinary words, speaking truth to those who so often refuse to listen. The point of the film is not to shock, disgust, or entertain, but to inquire of the audience, “I’m here. I exist. Do you?” And it refuses to relent until the answer is unequivocally “Yes!”
In this 73 page essay I will…
Ah jeez, this movie is so artfully dumb, I really love it. Was never even a Tom Green fan either, don’t think I’ve watched really anything else he’s done. I’ve seen this movie an embarrassing number of times lol.
One thing working (strongly) against it, I do think it’s one of those movies that require a few watches to really “get” the humor. I’ve struggled with how to phrase that, because the movies I find that to be true with, don’t stand out for sophistication haha.
But it’s almost like ya gotta force yourself to chew through the surface level dumb, to appreciate the true deep well of dumb that lies just beneath the surface. Gotta let your guard down and let it in.
I also just have a soft spot for (barely) lovable irreparable weirdos as characters. Great movie.
“We can live like kings. WE CAN LIVE LIKE KIIIIINGS”
Some parts of the movie are not for everyone, to be clear 😐 Many parts, for lots of different reasons.
Yeah, it’s got its moments.
But they all still work toward its overall goal of being a big fuck you to the studio that paid him to make that film.
But the scenes that are funny are funny.
“GORD! GORDY!”
I didn’t realize the story, can’t be arsed to go look for a good read on it, but you should elaborate! Info is better from real humans lol. But yeah this makes a lot of sense hahaha.
There are many scenes that make me belly laugh, or did many years ago before I overdid it like a drug. That scene you referenced, 💀 “WAP!”
I’m gonna need to watch it again, been a long time.
How does it compare to “Windy City Heat”?
I’m just glad I didn’t pay anything to see it. I made it until he started working at the sausage factory, as I recall. Stopped and deleted it. I guess I didn’t get it.
Daddy would you like some sausage?!
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”.
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.
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.
Pretty much everything “Weird Al” Yankovic and his band have ever done.
They’ve gained more recognition in recent years, but most people done 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.
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!
Flower (video game): https://youtu.be/0IS9sGGuvYo
Akira Kurosawa’s lesser known works. He’s most famous for films like Seven Samurai or Yojimbo, but his other films like The Bad Sleep Well are super amazing too. It’s a film noir movie with a strong anti-corporation message I bet would resonate with a lot of people here.
The Men Who Tread On The Tiger’s Tail is really good, especially so when you find out they were making it in the final year of WWII and a had a budget of like 50 bucks.
Even the propaganda movies like The Most Beautiful are good. You’re sort of shocked when you realize toward the end how involved you’re getting with their success.
I’ll check those out!
If you are a metalhead and haven’t listened to Xoth, specifically their Exogalactic album, you gotta get on that.
Yo, 2 tracks in and this fucking rips. Feels like Space Black Dahlia Murder kinda, lol, fuck yeah.
Hope they keep that urge to do the “prog” type stuff at bay, tho. No one needs to hear all your cool scales bro 👀
[Edit: they did keep that damnable urge at bay. No one masturbated via guitar. Just sick track after sick track, 'tis a true banger, from space, with death. The closer itself is exactly what the record was due, they really nailed it.]
Like Cthulhu party metal.
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.
If you’re post edu and wanting more solid structured yet casual learning, The Great Courses offer a fantastic selection of in-depth overviews. I’ve spent many hours in their world history, science, humanities and music courses.
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?
If you have played System Shock 2, it is along those lines.
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 pit down till it’s done.
Prey is a fun game, I recommend you give it a go.
The TV adaptation of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. The voice acting is incredible and it has the best soundtrack from any media in the last 10 years. It’s a solid show that had virtually no money so they made the most with abstract backgrounds and amazing writing. The show was always under threat of being cancelled and wrapped up so fucking well at the end of season 2 that it was clear the people behind the show knew Disney was stringing them along.
Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a reboot of TMNT that removes the bioscience and introduces Yokai/Yaogwai and magic. It’s the best writing TMNT has ever had across any iteration and is on-par with Futurama with delivering a poignant moment in a cartoon full of solid jokes. The turtles learn about their dads and what family means - it’s got family moments as strong as Stephen Universe. I cannot say enough good stuff about Rise.
Moon girl and devil dinosaur is a great show.
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.
