Your best blind buy?

[Starman]

Kind of hard to do in the internet age, granted, but did you guys ever pick up any games back in the day on a whim?

For me it was definitely Metal Gear: Solid. As a kid I'd played the NES version of Metal Gear, along with the not really canon sequel Snake's Revenge, and when I saw Metal Gear: Solid at K-Mart, it was a total shock, but I picked it up immediately. Best blind buy ever.

 

[DrakeEB2]

River City Ransom, bought it at a local CVS type drug store back in 89. I saw it in the bargain bin for like $10. We played it to death grinding money to get the best stat boost food and items.

 

[Starman]

River City Ransom, bought it at a local CVS type drug store back in 89. I saw it in the bargain bin for like $10. We played it to death grinding money to get the best stat boost food and items.

Damn. I don’t think any of our drug stores ever even had NES games. What a fucking score.

 

[Jose Beehive]

KOTOR, just assumed it was gonna be a random mediocre Star Wars game , didn't expect to complete it over 10 times.

 

[HereticBD]

Truly blind?

Probably some "Wakeboarding" game that came out like 20 years ago. It was cool. It was like Tony Hawk mixed with "Wave Racer". It was really fun, and I just grabbed it blind with a bunch of other games, when I hadn't yet figured out what a job was for other than giving me money to spend on bullshit.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

I'm GearSolidMetal, and I approve this OP.

 

[GtehMVP]

Hotel Dusk, Nintendo DS.

It's a visual novel with a hard boiled detective theme using that hand drawn "Take on me" style for the characters. You play the game with the DS held like a book. Instead of just dialogue, you also move around the 3D environment using the stylus.

One of my fav things to do for road trips is to buy a new game to play on a portable device. I normally do a bit of research prior, and I'm sure I bought another game I knew something about, but I went in totally blind for this.

One night when everyone went out for dinner, I had to stay in and play it, could barely put it down.

 

[Lovestorm]

Morrowind

I was looking for a game that would keep me occupied for a while and it turns out i chose wisely. Probably about 6 months i played it on Xbox and it then got me into PC gaming due to how good the mods for it looked.

I've really never lost myself in a game quite like this one.

 

[Bornstarch]

King's Field II

Got it for Christmas from my sister back in like 1997. I was pissed when I saw it, but then I played it and ended up one of the greatest games I ever played. From the same people that made the Souls games and Elden Ring.

 

[mb23100]

Picked this up in the bargain bin in Blockbuster. Took it home and with zero expectations having never heard of it and it blew my mind.

 

[TheTickG]

X-COM: UFO Defense out of some KB Toy Store five dollar bin.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

Lifelong Nintendo and later Playstation guy.... Finally got a 360 in 2009 and picked up Fable 2 from the bargain bin... Hands down Top 3-5 single player games I've played.

 

[sleepwalk]

Probably a bunch of things I downloaded on XBox.

The Cave is a game about this collection of weirdos where you could choose which one to navigate the puzzles and get to the other side and attain an eternal reward. A lot of weird twists.

Firewatch was a neat interactive narrative where the only real change based on your choices is your relationship with a woman on the other end of a radio.

Blacksad: Under the Skin is based on a Spanish comic book about anthropomorphic animals (including the titular private investigator) in an alternate 1950s New York City. It's similar to the Telltale games of which I'm a big fan.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

Dungeon Keeper and the first Diablo. My Dad bought them for me towards the end of summer holidays in 1997 and 1998, respectively. This was before I had the internet and I didn’t really buy gaming magazines like PC Gamer or Computer Gaming World (though my best friend occasionally did) so I had literally no clue what Dungeon Keeper was at all, and as for Diablo I had heard about it but knew basically nothing. Coincidentally both games have similar box art, just a big red demon’s face.

Come to think of it I’m a bit surprised my Dad indulged my requests that he buy them for me given I was only 12 and 13 at the time.

Anyway, loved both games, and they were two of the last games I played on our old Pentium PC (100 MHz processor, 16 megabytes of ram, 1 gb hard drive) before my Dad got a Pentium II for Christmas 1998. Went in truly blind as I basically just picked them up off the shelves of obscure computer stores and said “please Dad”.

 

[WhiteMousse]

Prey. Perhaps the most underrated game of all time

 

[supermurph]

Saw this at Circuit City for like $10 clearance. I didn't know anyone even made a kickboxing game at the time. Got home and couldn't stop playing. Took it to my buddy's house, and we played it the whole weekend. Thinking about it, I'd play it right now if I still had my PS2 and games. So much fun.

 

[My Spot]

Saw this at Circuit City for like $10 clearance. I didn't know anyone even made a kickboxing game at the time. Got home and couldn't stop playing. Took it to my buddy's house, and we played it the whole weekend. Thinking about it, I'd play it right now if I still had my PS2 and games. So much fun.

There was also a fun little K1 game on PS1.

 

[Law Talkin’ Guy]

Prey. Perhaps the most underrated game of all time

Which one? 2006 or 2017?

 

[supermurph]

There was also a fun little K1 game on PS1.

I didn't know that either. I missed a lot of the PS1 era. I had one, but didn't have too much time to play back then.

 

[The Clark]

Fire Pro Wrestling on Game Boy Advance. Thought it looked neat for a handheld wrestling game, but I was totally blown away by the quality and sheer amount of content. The roster had almost every wrestler I had ever heard of, and if you weren't satisfied, it had the most in-depth Create A Wrestler system I had seen at that time. It had quite a few MMA fighters, too, with knock off Pride ring (Blade) and even an octagon, complete with an MMA match type. Probably my favorite feature was the "Audience Match" mode, where your goal wasn't just to win, but to put on the best possible match. Different styles had different requirements to get a good score. An amazing game, especially for a handheld game of that era.