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[Aoi]

Black and White: Really cool concept, fun playing a god and training your creature, but the game was more of a proof of concept than a game. There were what, 5 stages?  And the strategy was practically nonexistent. The game played like a tutorial for a bigger game that didn't exist. Also the AI was wildly overblown, typical molyneux...

I think the best part about B&W was all the different ways it could break.

The first time I played it, my creature didn't survive the transition from the first world to the second world. I figured it was some kind of 'start over after the tutorial' kind of thing, so I just kept playing... up until the final world where you had to

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

sacrifice your creature

. Of course, since my creature wasn't there, the script broke and the game just kind of hung.

[Salmeuk]

I have a few, though they are newer and are probably not utterly unique but are certainly different and not easily, or accidentally, replicated.

The Painter's Playground

At first glance, looks like a shitty MSpaint program. However, you can 'buy' and 'sell' your virtual paintings as if they were real objects. You can trade in the public market, or hang your favs in the gallery for all to see. Some really impressive and beautiful things are still being created, though you might only log in every month or so, it's fun to keep track of different regular artists and see what weird shit has been made.

https://nextzenmechanics.itch.io/the-painters-playground

Anamesis

This one is a literary, psuedo random story adventure 'click the words and see what happens' kind of game. Interesting world and the systems are a bit obscure, so, unique and different. Lots of weird things can happen, including rivalries and sudden, absolute death.

https://anamnesisgame.blogspot.com/

There is a thread on this forum where the dev is pretty active, check it out!

Receiver / Receiver 2

Look up some videos on this one, it's super cool. It's an FPS with complex gun mechanics, unique and realistic to every firearm, paired with randomly generated apartment blocks and industrial warehouses. It's you and a gun vs. killer robots of various kinds. What I find most interesting is the goal of each level: find and listen to a variety of record tapes. Each tape is meant to be a sort of message from your cult, or your organization, that has helped you survive the droid apocalypse. Or at least survive the first wave. The narration is brilliant and the subjects are interesting and thought provoking, and there is a twist that I will not spoil but it stands out as one of the best experiences I have had in recent years. If you want to see interwoven narrative done right, albeit simply, look no further. The gunplay is intense and has you scrambling.

Middle Earth: Shadow of War

This one is .. the most generic of this list, however the nemesis mechanic is so. damn. amazing that it's still worth talking about all these years later. You can direct yourself to youtube if you still haven't heard about this game, but the just of it is that enemy troops are given their own stories and experience and levels. As you explore the world, you encounter these soldiers with random traits, in sometimes deadly combinations! My favorite element is that, should a lowly orc manage to finish you (the Hero of Tamriel, or whatever) off, they can be promoted and join the gang of head-honcho orcs.

What no one told me is that the game comes with a secondary, permadeath-enabled mode, complete with a completely alternate set of warriors and special artifacts, including a hang glider and a grappling hook. This is honestly the most fun I've had in a while - just trying to set a new high score on the toughest difficulty, knowing I have no second chances. You really come to rely on your bodyguards, which gain levels and skill alongside you as you bring them into battle. If they die, they die and you have to recruit a new one, which is expensive.

I will say, this game trashes LOTR and it's lore. Like much of the new media surrounding these stories, take what you can get, and skip the rest. Hollywood nonsense, including giant death worms and 'numenarian' technology makes for cheese.

[nenjin]

Didn't AC: Odyssey or one of the recent games recreate a really low end version of SoW's Nemesis system?

[Frumple]

Pretty sure Star Renegades had a nemesis type dealio going on, too, if you wanted something less... 3D. There's been varied efforts to do that kind of thing since Shadow released. Could swear I remember stuff like that before, too, just not as well implemented.

[Mephansteras]

Pretty sure Star Renegades had a nemesis type dealio going on, too, if you wanted something less... 3D. There's been varied efforts to do that kind of thing since Shadow released. Could swear I remember stuff like that before, too, just not as well implemented.

Star Renegades definitely does. Though until you get on higher difficulties you're unlikely to lose to non-bosses for it to matter too often.

[scriver]

Jagged Alliance 2 was probably the best TB tactical combat game what's been made and I've long longed for somebody to try and recreate that feel.

All the JA games since has been pale shadows so they don't count.

[Starver]

Well...actually I remembered a good one.

Black and White

Well, I'm sure there was a Black And White 2...


I've been wanting to post here for a while, but I'm still not confident I know how unique a game should have been to qualify. I've not seen (though don't doubt there is) anything as much combined first-/third-person-control as Activision's Battlezone (apart from direct updates/sequels) but does it technically get overlapped by the overhead-/creature-viewpoints of Dungeon Master(+sequel(s?)), being both essentially map-based resource management/tower-defence with different types of personification available/necessary?


Scribblenauts, though. If copied, at all, has it had a worthy non-sequel successor?

(Unfortunately, as not ever owning a Nintendo/other speciality games device of any kind (let alone a DS) my experience was merely far too much (and yet little!) time on it thanks to a long-suffering colleague and sneaked coffee-break time, so I may not have been in the catchment for future "This is our version of Scribblenauts^{(butdon'ttellthelawyers)}, out now on Microsega Xgear Portable!" marketing campaigns.)

[scriver]

Speaking of -nauts. Psychonauts was hardly unique mechanically but I really enjoyed the premise and the narrative and graphical design clashing between cartoonish and childish and complicated and mature-ish.

[scriver]

Oh, and shit, man. Do the STALKER games count, or should they get out of here?

[Robsoie]

The extremely good bonus (well DLC if you don't have the Redux release) mission of Metro Last Light , named "Kshatriya" had a lot of the STALKER feeling in it, though more in common with the atmosphere of the undergrounds/labs exploration than the land wandering part (as the mission has you exploring various urban located building and underground with only a small outdoor section).

[Scripten]

Metro Exodus, where I'm at roughly five hours in, feels a lot like STALKER-lite. There's also a VR-only game called Into the Radius which is STALKER but facegoggle-enabled; it's pretty good, if still very much in active development.

[Mephansteras]

Oh, and shit, man. Do the STALKER games count, or should they get out of here?

Apparently there is a Stalker 2 in development.

[scriver]

Oh, and shit, man. Do the STALKER games count, or should they get out of here?

Apparently there is a Stalker 2 in development.

Oh, thanks for the news, I thought STALKER had died entirely when the company went up in a blaze of bankruptcy and corruption or whatever it was that happened.

[Mephansteras]

I haven't followed the details too closely. But someone is trying to bring it back!

[nenjin]

I'm not sure you can count Stalker. "Open world" shooting games with lots of set pieces and loot to collect feel pretty common now. MAYBE the combination of a looter / shooter and ALIFE makes it unique, but only just. Tonally though, perhaps yeah, no game has managed to be as downright, hauntingly barren as the original Stalker.