Top 5 obscure old-school Rare games (that everyone forgot about)
With Rare’s inbox likely filled with more name dropping than a Big Budget Hollywood Blockbuster, fans begging for the likes of Killer Instinct, Blast Corps. and even Battletoads go on unabated and undeterred from raking the pastures of nostalgia field over again. While the floodgates are left open and Community Manager, Leigh Loveday, is left with a rather detailed list of every Rare title from the last decade every time he checks his email, the voices that likely ring in his own mind at this point are set only to bring back the heaviest of hits. While this is entirely understandable as far as profit margins go, with a captive audience even rallying the return of Grabbed by the Ghoulies, it seems our duty to stick up for the most obscure hits in Rare’s library that garnered a single title never to be heard again. Perhaps if we’re successful, the memories of these forgotten fancies will trigger a comeback and we can have Loveday tear out his hair in big clumps. These are the Top 5 Obscure Old-School Rare Games (That Everyone Forgot About), a real who’s who of what’s that, really …
#5. TABOO: THE SIXTH SENSE – NES (1989)
Taboo: The Sixth Sense proclaimed itself as the Time Machine on Nintendo, in about as much sense that a fortune cookie can transcend space and time. It’s efforts instead were based on predicting the future via electronic tarot card set that would shuffle and then present its undiluted and ‘entirely accurate’ prediction to the player. While Taboo was eager to pluck uncertain events from the cosmos, it still needed you to tell it your name, date of birth and gender, which throws a wrench in the works of presenting itself as an all-wise and all-knowing oracle. Still, if the Apocalyptic Mayan 2012 conspiracy theories are anything to go by, then releasing its spiritual successor, Taboo II will have players swearing by its sage wisdom and practicing Wiccan in no time.
#4. DIGGER T. ROCK – NES (1990)
With a handle in the same vein as Fuel Pump Freddy the Gas Station Attendant, or Taste. E. Cookie the culinary master, the impressively titled Digger T. Rock belongs to a miniature miner that has his heart set on uncovering the fabled Lost City located deep underground. Armed with his trusty spade and miner’s cap, Digger T. explores underground labyrinths and catacombs while serving up Moles and Dinosaurs with a face full of shovel should they get in his way. The title is notoriously difficult, offering itself up as one of, if not the hardest title for the NES, which is further supplemented by a triumphant ending wherein the Lost City is found, only to have things go dark mid-discovery and leave everything on a cliff hanger. Digger II Rock, anyone?
#3. SUPER GLOVE BALL – NES (1990)
Making itself a precursor of Kinect before Kinect was even a glint in Bill Gates’ eye, Super Glove Ball took advantage of Nintendo’s Power Glove and its receivers to create arguably the first motion-sensing peripheral and by extension the first motion-sensing game, as Super Glove Ball came packaged with it as a launch title. The gameplay is quite literally balls to the wall, as you’re tasked with commandeering a repair android that looks suspiciously like a hand through a dimensional maze by bouncing energy balls off of the cubed surface. You’ll have to fend yourself against a plethora of space creatures that want nothing more than to munch on your balls as you clear the boards. Set in then-futuristic 2005, Super Glove Ball begs for a remake on Kinect.
#2. MONSTER MAX – GAME BOY (1995)
Akin to many of the stellar Ultimate hits on the ZX Spectrum, the critically acclaimed isometric perspective wasn’t lost on Monster Max; a rather rocking title for the original Game Boy that tasked the titular Monster Max with restoring all of the worlds music after it is deemed contraband by an insipid overlord named King Krond. Along the way to do battle with the King of Non-Pop, Monster Max is tasked with trouncing nine training levels at the monolithic Mega Hero Academy, which includes stacking rubber ducks into make-shift platforms, traversing an elaborate ice cube jetty and hitching rides atop Eyeball patrons. While the graphics are a little dated, the message is all too pertinent with the likes of Justin Bieber making us wishing to restore the music of yesteryear.
#1. X THE BALL – ARCADE (1993)
Venturing into the untold ventures of the Arcade world after a string of successful hits on the NES, X The Ball served as Rare’s first proverbial dipping of the toe to test out the waters. Unlike their would-be Arcade classics to come such as the still-highly acclaimed Killer Instinct and Battletoads quarter munchers, X The Ball took a different route, and instead tasked players with placing an X on the Arcade cabinet screen displaying a digitized football match (or soccer for the Americans) to judge where the football (ergo soccer ball) would find itself in a few seconds. While the Arcade game faded into obscurity, we wish the best to Mimo-Man, official mascot of X The Ball seen hugging the Rare logo at the top of the page.
Categories: Top 5 Lists
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