Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) published and developed by Norwegian video game development company Funcom. Released in June 2001, the game was the first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, instancing, free trials, and in-game advertising. The game's ongoing storyline revolves around the fictional desert planet Rubi-Ka, wherein a valuable mineral known as Notum is found. Players assume the role of a new colonist to Rubi-Ka. With no specific objective to win Anarchy Online, the player advances the game through the improvement of a character's skills over time. After more than 20 years, Anarchy Online has become one of the oldest surviving games in the genre.
Joust is an action game developed by Williams Electronics and released in arcades in 1982. While not the first two-player cooperative video game, Joust's success and polished implementation popularized the concept. Players assume the role of knights armed with lances and mounted on large birds, who must fly around the screen and defeat enemy knights riding buzzards.
Master of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction strategy game in which the player leads one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing technology, exploring and colonizing star systems.
Comix Zone is a 1995 beat 'em up video game developed and published by Sega for the Genesis. It is set within the panels of a comic book with dialogue rendered within talk bubbles and sprites, and backgrounds possessing the bright colors and dynamic drawing style of superhero comics. This style is in previous video games, for example Ocean Software's Batman: The Caped Crusader in 1988, but Comix Zone stretched the idea to such an extent that Sega applied for and was granted a patent for a "videogame system for creating a simulated comic book game".
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by LucasArts. It is the sequel to BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and was released for the Xbox on December 6, 2004, for Microsoft Windows on February 8, 2005, for OS X and Linux on July 21, 2015, for Android and iOS on December 18, 2020 and for Nintendo Switch on June 8, 2022. Like its predecessor, it is set in the Star Wars universe 4,000 years before the events of the film Episode I: The Phantom Menace and is based on the d20 System developed by Wizards of the Coast.
Fantasy Zone is a 1986 arcade video game by Sega, and the first game in the Fantasy Zone series. It was later ported to a wide variety of consoles, including the Master System. The player controls a sentient spaceship named Opa-Opa who fights an enemy invasion in the titular group of planets. The game contains a number of features atypical of the traditional scrolling shooter. The main character, Opa-Opa, is sometimes referred to as Sega's first mascot character.
Universal Combat is the second video game series by the developer 3000AD and is the successor of the Battlecruiser series of games.
Incoming is a 3D shooter video game developed and published by Rage Software. The game was first released for Microsoft Windows in mid-1998, and was followed by a Dreamcast version, which was released in Japan on December 17, 1998, in Europe on October 14, 1999, and in North America on September 15, 1999. Set in the near-future of 2009, the game primarily revolves around controlling vehicles and turrets to fight alien invaders of Earth in one of the campaign modes, the arcade mode, and with or against another player. Some levels include brief real-time strategy segments.
Fire Pro Wrestling is a professional wrestling video game series originating from Japan, started in 1989 by Human Entertainment, and currently developed and owned by Spike Chunsoft. The series is distinguished by its grappling system, which is primarily based on timed button presses and strategy. Another signature feature of the series is its Edit mode, a character creation feature with many options to customize appearances, wrestling moves and character artificial intelligence behavior.
Star Control 3 is a 1996 action-adventure game developed by Legend Entertainment and published by Accolade. The third installment in the Star Control trilogy, the game was released for MS-DOS in 1996 and Mac OS in 1998. The story takes place after Star Control II, beginning with a disaster that disrupts superluminal travel through hyperspace. This leads the player to investigate a new quadrant of space, joined by allied aliens from the previous games.
The Spirit Engine is a side-scrolling role-playing video game created by Mark Pay for Natomic Studios, with a soundtrack composed by Josh Whelchel. It was released on December 26, 2003 for Windows. The game is freeware, and was inspired by 16-bit console role-playing games. It was followed by a sequel, The Spirit Engine 2, in 2008.
Nicklas Nygren, better known as Nifflas, is an independent Swedish video game developer. He is known for his freeware Knytt series along with another freeware game, Within a Deep Forest. He has lived in Umeå, Sweden, and Copenhagen, Denmark.
Iji is a freeware 2008 video game featuring platform and shooting elements, developed by Daniel Remar using Game Maker over a period of four years. In the game, the player controls Iji Kataiser, a young woman enhanced with nanotechnology, as she navigates a research facility on modern day Earth in the wake of an invasion by the Tasen, an alien species. Awakening after an aerial bombardment, Iji finds herself enhanced with nanotechnology and, learning of the Tasen and their invasion, resolves to convince the aliens' leader to retreat from the planet, guided by her brother Dan via the complex's loudspeaker system. Iji was generally well received. Reviews praised the replay value, the player's ability to guide Iji on different moral paths, and that it was created by a single developer.
Shobon no Action, also known as Cat Mario, is a Japanese freeware platform game released in February 2007. The game features frustrating elements which has made it subject to internet video game commentary, such as ostensibly innocuous objects that kill the character in ways unforeseeable to the player. Though the game is a parody of Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo Entertainment System, it adds elements from other Mario games such as Super Mario World.
Flotilla is a 2010 turn-based strategy space combat video game developed by Brendon Chung's studio, Blendo Games. The game was released in March 2010 on Steam for Microsoft Windows and on Xbox Live Indie Games for the Xbox 360. Flotilla was designed with Microsoft's XNA tools, and its development was influenced by animals as well as board games such as Axis and Allies and Arkham Horror. The game takes the player in an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy.
Knytt Underground is an adventure-platform video game developed by Green Hill Games and Nifflas' Games and published by Ripstone for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. It is the second sequel to Nifflas' previous game Knytt. The game offers two playable characters, nonlinear gameplay, multiple endings, and a large number of side-quests and secrets.
Grow Home is an adventure platform video game developed by Ubisoft Reflections and published by Ubisoft. It was released for Microsoft Windows on February 4, 2015, and for PlayStation 4 on September 1, 2015. The game follows a robot named B.U.D., who is tasked with growing a plant that will oxygenate its home planet. Players explore an open world, moving B.U.D. and individually using each of its arms to climb and interact with objects.
A Fistful of Gun: For a Few Gun More is a 2015 top-down shooter game developed by FarmerGnome and published by Devolver Digital. The game features eleven playable characters with differing weapons, attributes, and control schemes. Players engage in procedurally generated fights, clearing a wave of enemies before progressing. Power-ups and handicaps affect the player character's abilities, such as movement and shooting speed. Horses allow a character to move faster and endure one additional enemy shot. The game features a single-player story mode and multiplayer modes for cooperative and player-versus-player battles.
Knytt Stories is a 2007 indie adventure video game and platformer developed and published by Swedish developer Nifflas. The sequel to Knytt and part of the Knytt trilogy, it was released for Windows in August 2007, and was ported to Nintendo DS by Rodrigo Roman in 2010 as the open source homebrew software Knytt Stories DS with the support of the original developer. The game's initial scenario, "The Machine", follows the protagonist Juni as she attempts to stop a machine from sucking the life out of the world. An official expansion the same year added more sets of levels. It also contains a full level editor, allowing for fans to create and release their own downloadable levels. The game received widespread critical praise for its engaging gameplay and graphics. It received a sequel, Knytt Underground, in 2012.
Within a Deep Forest is an indie platformer developed and published by Nifflas. It was released as freeware in 2006 for Windows, and is a spiritual sequel to his previous games, #Modarchive Story and #Modarchive Story 2. The main character is an intelligent ball that is trying to stop the mad scientist Dr. Cliché from destroying the world. The game was praised by critics for its gameplay, as well as its minimalist graphics and sound.
