Ah.. games and lists. The bane of my life.
I'll list some of my underdogs. Games you might not know, but are excellent.
Su-27 Flanker: (v.1.5 i believe was the best one)
1996 russian flight sim. Very accurate, and cool, only 1 aircraft. You can program whole battle-environments with SAMs and ships, and strike groups. Fly over Crimea and have relatively realistic dogfights.. Or just set up scenarios. Very very cool game with crappy graphics.
Also check out Flanker 2.0, bit bug-ridden but much better gfx, more units etc.
Il2 Sturmovik series
Hands down best wwII combat flight sim I know about. Also russian developer. My favourite aircraft was the FW-190. It models how bullets ricochets inside aircraft, if there is a hole in the radiator etc. You can manually work on the engine control with a shot-up plane.. Also has a huge amount of flyable aircraft and... It's also mp-online!
Panzer General 1994
Great great strategy game. Very simple, with a bit daunting graphics because at first glance all the units look the same. Anyway, if you feel like winning the war for einstein this is it. (Civ 5 stole the whole tactic system, and was released, what a month ago? 17y later..)
Transport Tycoon/Openttd
Online train and transport network building. Becomes boring after you built your first 12 track station, some huge junctions, getting supplies from all over the map on your interconnected transport network. (Some people go on with creating supercomplex junctions, regulating pulses of trains etc, but that's for the extreme nerds..)
I'd really like to hear about more great, deep and unknown games though!
I care about games, and find them extremely interesting to study. There are so many, I guess even unexplored possibilities as a new medium. They are even very hard to describe, dunno if there is even existing terms for defining what they are as they encompass art, storytelling, puzzles, reactions, films, interactivity and competition. I'm studying film and even that is extremely complex and difficult material as it encompasses most of the other mediums. Well games encompasses film again, and multi player games encompasses single player games..
Game-designers are the Artists of the future. (Hear that chadz? Know where your responsibility are!)
Anyway.. cRPG is the new shit for me. Much more complex mechanics than 99% of shooters, demands quicker reactions, judgement and knowledge, and after banner balance, opens up for teamplay on a new level, even mimicking historical strategies. And it gives me kicks. No game since.. I dunno, has given me that.
See for me the good thing is not the graphics or if things are "historical" by nature. I care much more if the game somehow simulates a battlefield with it's advantages and con's, teamplay and tactics. Trying to balance between that and internal game-balance. (Reason for my change-cav post)
