What are the most beautiful and unusual games you've played? (any system)

[ed21x]

Electroplankton comes to mind in terms of being really artsy.

The FMV's in final fantasy 7 was the first time i was truely touched by beauty within a game.

Okami

if the new Grand Turismo looks as good as the screens, I would say that realism captures the beauty of racing very well

 

[Elcs]

The first King's Bounty game actually came out before Heroes. I also recently learned it was the same lead designer and studio behind both games, of course the modern ones are no longer done by the same people.

Indeed but HoMM (2 or 3) made the genre and it has become the benchmark for the entire genre.

The modern King's Bounty games should be lauded alongside HoMM, the games closest in their genre.

 

[Magusigne]

OMG! Great game. You can get the open source version, the Ur Quan masters, for free online, too.

I wonder if anyone mentioned the game Ninja Golf, yet. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_Golf

See Sig. And Avatar.

tehee. I am a fanboi for sure.

 

[Albatross]

http://www.arcengames.com/aiwar_features.php
"AI War is an entirely unique large-scale RTS with aspects of TBS, tower defense, and grand strategy. It features single or cooperative play with as many as 8 humans against a pair of powerful, intelligent AIs."

Just downloaded the demo but I hear only good words;supposedly has amazing AI,also it`s indie.

 

[biostud]

If it's any system, why is this in PC gaming?


9)Warhammer 40k: Dark Omen. It was so unusual... There is still nothing else like it even now.

That would be Warhammer: Dark Omen

(sans the 40K)

Incredible game, you can only wonder why they don't make more games like that.

 

[Imp]

Devil May Cry 4 - Just the music and art style alone. Not too weird, just a world where weird monsters wander the streets when you're on your way to "church".

 

[Sho'Nuff]

If it's any system, why is this in PC gaming?

3)EVE Online. Truly a beautiful game, and incredibly unique. There is simply nothing else like it.

In the MMO world, sure. But the X3 series (esp Terran conflict) is quite similar in graphics and gameplay style as Eve.

 

[Golgatha]

Blazblue series of fighters. Hand drawn anime at 60FPS is gorgeous. I think some of the environments in the God of War series of games are pretty epic too.

 

[AFurryReptile]

Nobody mentioned LittleBigPlanet?

I also thought Braid was really unique; very poetic.

 

[ivan2]

flower

 

[Kev]

Uncharted 2. At times I didn't even want to play the game, just sit there and take in the graphics and art.

 

[Martimus]

Minecraft is both ugly and uniquely beautiful at the same time. You go into it and see the 8-bit looking blocks eevrywhere and think it is ugly, but then you see the wonderously beautiful things people build with them and it becomes beautiful. just check out the colleseum on the AT server and you will see what I mean (along with many other buildings on the AT server). With the lighting, it can be even more beautiful at night.

 

[El Guaraguao]

mystical ninja 64.

 

[VashHT]

I was going to say ico and sotc, but since you already have those id add limbo and braid to that list. Limbo is a cool game and very unique I think it fits what you're looking for.

 

[Atreus21]

11)Jupiter: The Moon Incident. Try it. You'll see what I mean.

I assume you meant Nexus: the Jupiter Incident. Game was freaking amazing, and freaking hard.

4)Imperium Gallactica II. Back when it came out, it was... well.. I was simply speechless. Were did my summer vacation go back then? I still cannot fully comprehend it.

The game was a lot of fun. Fun Fact: Did you know that Nexus was the spiritual successor to Imperium Galactica II? It was originally supposed to be a direct sequel, but it was not to be.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I really enjoyed PS2 legend of Legeia tons on mini games, interesting locations cool looking battles. I think the most epic was EQ1 I found it amazing that a friend could say meet him at the Faydar gates at 8pm and he was there. I also liked how traveling long distance was difficult or taking the boat somewhere.

 

[Jessestephens]

Braid and Trine are both recent visual standouts to me and both feature some great retro platformer fun that has been underrepresented on the pc for a while now. Bioshock and Half-Life 2 (with episodes) are still great visually and quite fun to me. I am currently starting to play through Bioshock 2. I dig it so far.

 

[yepp]

Ico
Okami
Shadow of the Colossus
Soul Bubble
Pikmin
Viewtiful Joe

 

[Ancalagon44]

Beautiful and unusual....

Well I'd probably vote Baldurs Gate II, back when I first played it. I knew nothing about D&D, so the entire system, and game world, were completely new. For instance, things like just how powerful dragons are (I'm still amazed I beat both Firkraag and the Shadow Dragon, both on easiest but still), mind flayers, umber hulks, the underdark, other planes, the planar sphere, etc etc. So much was new to me, really awesome experience. Difficult to get into but impossible to put down. Still play it actually.

Other than that, Plants vs Zombies would go in the unusual category, and that was awesome fun.

 

[yepp]

World of Goo is another one.

 

[marmasatt]

FarCry

 

[I4AT]

Metal Slug, even though it's pretty old, is still the king of sprite based games. There are more frames of animation in a character's idle state than some games will use in entire sequences. What's even more impressive is the fact that they were able to squeeze all of that out of the 16mhz Neo Geo. I'd love to see what those guys could do with more modern hardware.

Legend of Mana is also a stand out sprite based game, not a lot going for it in terms of animation, but I blame that on the relatively underpowered PS1. The character and level designs were excellent though, everything was incredibly detailed.

Locoroco and Patapon had some pretty original styles as well. Odin Sphere and Muramasa were pretty good too, really colorful and well illustrated, but the animations were really stiff.

 

[ImpulsE69]

This. Probably the best game I have played in a long, long time.

Also, The Void. It's a VERY strange game but the graphics are intriguing and the story and game play are completely unique of anything else out there. Contains nudity (though done in a very tasteful way), so not for when kids are around.

There's been many over the years, but yes, The Void is the most recent that to me fits the criteria.

 

[Zenoth]

The original Starfox on the SNES, it was the first time I actually owned and played from start to finish a "polygon game" (as I called them back then), ever, it was unusual and beautiful as well, it had a superb, very memorable sound track, great levels design (for the time anyway), great action, a decent story (again, for the time) and, well, basically everything about it just blew me away, what's even better is that I had never heard nor read about it until that rainy day when I went to the local games store to rent it, it was probably out since a few months already and I had missed the fuzz around it's initial release days, so it was available quite regularly, so out of curiosity I rented it, and about a month later I bought it (well, my mother did).

Those were the days...

 

[dud]

Off the top of my head:


Homeworld

World of Goo