The ‘90s were a decade full of weird video games and the ‘tude that fueled them. A lot of experimentation in games happened during this period, as no one really knew what the adventure game, platformer or first-person shooter genres would eventually become. The result was a creative landgrab to define what the next era of video games would look like, which made for some pretty good, bizarre mechanics, as well as a couple of hybrid projects that just tried to do a little of everything.
Some games, like Oddworld, added their own pacifist take to the platformer genre that had been set in stone by the previous console generation. Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead’s Revenge fed off the movies-to-games trend of the time, but tried to bring the popularity of Doom in line with a LucasArts adventure games. Meanwhile, games like Pepsiman and Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou were seemingly designed to see how much weird you can physically take. It was a hectic time in games, and everyone was trying everything.
This article might be a trip down memory lane for some. For others, it will likely be an eye-opening experience about how strange some games could get back in the day, and how much of that creativity and desire to experiment has resurfaced today. Maybe it’ll even inspire you to dredge up a Sega Dreamcast and try your hand at raising an aquatic monster in Seaman. Or… no?
20 You’d Think That He Had Better Things To Do
Did you know that Mega Man was once a competent soccer player? Mega Man Soccer proved as much. Released in Japan in 1994, the game sees longtime Mega Man antagonist Dr. Wiley attack a soccer field, at which point Dr. Light enlists Mega Man to clear out the robot menace… by just playing soccer.
From a story perspective, the plan is a failure. The game has no story mode beyond the intro cinematic, so technically Mega Man and the robots are just playing soccer for eternity. Not a bad way to go out, but a little anticlimactic.
Overall, the game received a lukewarm reception. It’s one weird twist on the soccer game genre was that each playable character had a way to temporarily disable an opponent. Other than that, though, it was a pretty stock standard soccer game with floaty controls.
19 Wait, What IS That??
Tongue of the Fatman isn’t quite Street Fighter. In fact, it’s nothing like Street Fighter, but it’s certainly trying to be. The game is about a very large man named Mondu who has created his own fighting tournament and filled the roster with mutants… because he wanted to. Beyond that, the plot doesn’t go much deeper. The game is notorious for its poor controls, muddy visuals and the fact that the first thing you see in the game is a close-up of the eponymous fat man grinning and rubbing the area above his abs.
I know, right?
It isn’t a very competent fighting game to start with. Your character is able to turn away from their opponent, which is a bizarre choice for a genre all about facing your foe head-on. The fact that your health carries over between matches means that the game’s shop is solely for restoring lost hit points.
18 Solving The Coke Vs. Pepsi Debate Once And For All
Few realize that the eternal argument about which is better, Coke or Pepsi, was actually solved back in the ‘90s with the release of Pepsiman, a Japanese 3D platformer in which the titular character, Pepsiman, is always on the move. Pepsiman is always running because he’s got one thing to do: Deliver the message about the refreshing taste of Pepsi to as many citizens of the world as possible.
Cutscenes play between each level, and they’re downright bizarre. Each one has an overweight American man somehow engaging with the Pepsi brand: buying a can from a vending machine, grabbing a Pepsi from a Pepsi-filled refrigerator and announcing the next stage (as he scratches himself), chugging a Pepsi and then yelling “Pepsi for TV game” as he aggressively shoves Lays potato chips in his mouth. Pepsiman might be a strange game, but it’s also too good for us.
17 This Game’s A Little Odd
Oddworld: Abe’s Odyssey was a weird game for the time. In fact, it’s still an incredibly weird game. Its eccentricities may not be immediately obvious, but consider the facts. First, you can’t outright kill anything in the game. Oddworld has a possession mechanic that allows the player character, Abe, to inhabit enemies and creatures. Once something is possessed, though, you can really tear up the town.
Second, Abe is a slave in a vast food processing plant, the business heads of which are planning to turn him and his Mudokon kin into the latest, great snack. Your goal is to guide Abe and his Mudokon buddies out of the plant without getting shot, ground up or plunged to their doom.
Finally, the game has a dedicated fart button, in case you were unsure it was a product of the ’90s.
16 A First Foray Into Open World
Shenmue gets a bad rap, but, as one of the first open-world games to be released on consoles, it paved the way for much of what games have become today. Ostensibly about Ryo Hazuki’s quest for revenge after the murder of his father, the game was more about getting immersed in a small Japanese neighborhood with the occasional bout of fisticuffs.
The gameplay itself is incredibly odd. While Ryo is supposedly a martial arts master, all of the fights he finds himself in are timed to precise button presses. There’s also at least one unforgiving stealth sections and a prolonged period where you have to become a forklift operator.
Despite all Shenmue’s weirdness, the game endeared itself to a legion of fans and went on to get a sequel. A third game is currently in the works from series creator Yu Suzuki’s Ys Net.
15 The King Of Pop Does A Video Game
Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker might be the real hidden gem on this list. The premise sounds completely nuts–Michael Jackson must save children from the sinister Mr. Big by using an array of songs and musical acts–but the game is surprisingly good, fun and responsive. None of that changes how innately goofy it is, though.
While Moonwalker was released for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and Master System, it’s the arcade version you really want. The former versions are side-scrolling affairs respectable in their own right, but the arcade version is beat ‘em up with local multiplayer. Your ultimate ability is called Dance Magic, and when you trigger it every enemy on-screen starts to dance until they die.
If that doesn’t convince you, the game’s main collectable is Bubbles the chimpanzee, Jackson’s real-life pet monkey.
14 How Is Leonard Nimoy Involved In This?
Have you ever wanted to raise a fish creature with a human face from an egg, all while Leonard Nimoy narrates your struggles? If so, Seaman is the game for you. One of the few Sega Dreamcast games to utilize the system’s microphone accessory, Seaman challenges the player to raise a strange fish creature without any aid.
Raising Seaman was no small task. The game had a real-time clock that could tell when the player interacted with Seaman. Ignore Seaman for a whole day – that is, don’t feed him or talk to him – and he might die. If you were truly emphatic about your Seaman care, though, you could end up with a Frogman, an amphibious variation of the creature that would presumably lay more eggs and start the cycle over again. Yay?
13 This Plays Out Like A Horror Film
The ’90s was a great time for adventure games. Between the output from Sierra Entertainment and LucasArts, the genre enjoyed something of a golden age during this decade. Other games, like the FMV-focused Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh, were also released.
A Puzzle of Flesh casts the player as Curtis, an office drone who is tormented by supernatural creatures. Unfortunately, these creatures keep killing and tormenting Curtis’s co-workers. Suspicion naturally falls on Curtis, likely because he’s always acting weird. To clear his name, Curtis must venture into the bowels of his company’s expansive headquarters and uncover a dark and far-reaching conspiracy linked to an alternate dimension.
A story revolving around an adult club, gratuitous gross scenes and Hellraiser-like monsters never really comes together, and the eponymous Puzzle of the Flesh (which seemingly springs from the ether late in the game) is just as esoteric as the plot.
12 The Height Of Adventure Games
Harvester is perhaps one of the most notorious surrealist ‘90s adventure games. The game stars Steve, a man who finds himself thrown into the past to a town called Harvest. Steve doesn’t remember how he got there or anything about his life, so he naturally goes around asking people about Harvest. Each one of these interactions is infused with so, so much gory, jaded ‘90s attitude that the whole thing just kind of loops around to become an achievement in distilling the essence of a decade.
Steve eventually makes his way into the Lodge, the headquarters for the town’s Order of the Harvest Moon cult, in search of the woman to whom he is betrothed. Harvest’s dark nature is revealed to Steve. In an odd twist, there’s no good ending. Steve is doomed regardless of his choice. Sometimes the journey is the reward… right?
11 In Case You’ve Ever Wanted To Play As A Grandma
Sometimes it feels like a game’s development goes on a little too long, like there was probably a good stopping point somewhere along the way, but the developers just… kept coming up with new ideas. That’s Armed and Delirious in a nutshell. The game has a lot of seeming superfluous story in a time when long, CGI cutscenes were tough and expensive to make. Perhaps because Armed and Delirious was hording them all. More isn’t always better, though, as much of the game’s story makes absolutely zero sense.
You play as a grandma whose house gets sucked away by an evil space rabbit hellbent on stealing your cookbook. You’ve got to traipse through space to save your family (which the game takes great pains to establish as a bunch of jerks) and, more importantly, your precious recipes.
10 An Identity Crisis
Video games based on movies are a rarity these days, but at one point Hollywood and the games industry were thick as thieves–and they had the unrelenting output to prove it. Bloodwings: Pumpkinhead’s Revenge is one of those games. Based on the second movie in the Pumpkinhead film franchise, Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings, the game has the player take on the role of the Keeper of the Spirits, whose job it is to tame Pumpkinhead’s spirit in the Netherworld.
The game itself is so strange because it’s a hybrid of so many things. Partially a Doom clone, the game also has some puzzle solving and FMV elements. The endings are also completely out of this world. The good end sees Pumpkinhead do a little jig after you give him his favorite toy. In the bad ending, Pumpkinhead flips you off. Gnarly.
9 Really, The Whole FMV Thing Was Weird
It adventure games are the weird fruit that never stops giving, then Tender Loving Care might be the genre’s cornucopia. This FMV game starts with Dr. Turner, played by John Hurt, advising a grief-stricken couple, Michael and Allison Overton, to hire a live-in nurse to care for Allison when she’s left shell-shocked by the death of her daughter.
The game spirals out of control from there. The nurse, Katherine Randolph, is actually fairly good at getting Allison to come out of her shell. Michael isn’t having any of it, though, and the game quickly becomes a psychological tug-of-war between Michael and Katherine for Allison’s affection. Bizarre character choices, gratuitous (and uncomfortable) unclothed scenes and the game’s occasional attempts to psychologically profile the player lead to multiple endings that each come out of left field.
8 From The Guy Who Brought You Heavy Rain…
Omikron: The Nomad Soul starts with one of the game’s characters breaking the fourth wall and begging you to inhabit his body so that you can help him solve a series of murders. Whoa, heavy right out of the gate.
You agree, naturally, and set off for the city of Omikron in search of a serial killer. Along the way you meet David Bowie (he voices two characters) and his wife Iman, as well as a supercomputer world government name Ix. You eventually catch the serial killer–a demon–and go on to challenge a secret cabal of shapeshifters at the highest echelon of the government.
The game was conceived by David Cage, who went on to create the company Quantic Dream, which released games like Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. Cage has always dreamed big, and Omikron is no exception.
7 Who Greenlit This?
We might be living in the golden age of indie games, but the movement has had a pretty long lead-up to get to this point. Back in the late ‘90s, the Net Yaroze was one of the few ways hobbyists and developer hopefuls could get their hands on the same tools being used at big companies. A Net Yaroze is a consumer-focused development kit for the PlayStation video game system. Of course, a lot of strange stuff came out of the early PS1 indie scene.
Clone is one such bizarre game. Imagine a never-ending corridor filled with gross, translucent clones that all just kind of mewl at you. Naturally, you have to do the right thing and mow down these monstrosities, a la Doom. And that’s Clone. It’s simple, but impressive that it was put together by someone using such limited resources.
6 Would You Trust Shaq To Rescue You?
If I were trapped in another dimension by a wizard mummy, I certainly wouldn’t turn away Shaquille O’Neal if he came to my rescue. Shaq Fu imagines just such a scenario. The game starts with basketball superstar Shaq stopping off in a dojo while he’s on his way to a game in Japan. Shaq is then transported to the Second World dimension to save a boy named Nesu from an evil mummy.
The game isn’t a funny riff on Shaq or a satirical take on basketball culture or anything. It’s pretty earnest. O’Neal even lent his likeness to the game sprite and box art, which has him in a semi-imposing, almost-Karate pose. While Shaq Fu was a fighting game, a beat ’em up sequel, called Shaq Fu: A Legend Reborn, is currently in the works.
5 Living The American Dream
Maybe don’t take any of the advice proffered in Total Distortion if you want to make it big in the music industry. The game is largely a fever dream about a music video entrepreneur who wants to make good music videos, acquire fame and make lots of money (actually, those are pretty admirable goals). Also, there’s an alien artifact that can transport people to alternate Earths that have different forms of pop culture conjured from the dreams of young people. You on board yet?
If not, the game is full of fun, humorous quirks, like a charming little song that plays whenever you die. The song is called “You Are Dead.” There’s also a minigame you get to play when you sleep in-game. If you win the minigame you get to dream and you gain some critical Mental Energy. Lose the minigame and you get a nightmare. Just like, uh… real life?
4 This All Seems A Little Trippy
Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls Of Tong Nou is the kind of game you won’t forget–if you can remember a single thing that transpired during a play session. The game is technically a point-and-click adventure game, but it’s more aptly described as Osamu Sato’s fever dream.
Basically, you play as a guy named Rin who has to travel to the island called Tong-Nou (actually just a picture of Osamu Sato’s face that has been turned green) to retrieve his stolen soul. All of this information is conveyed to you in a matter of moments after a multi-minute, trippy, we-had-too-much-fun-with-the-Morph-tool cutscene plays.
The game gets even more nonsensical from there. You can die from being force-fed, live forever (an outcome that triggers a never-ending slideshow of every scene in the game) or catch a venereal disease from an inanimate object.
3 Made Out Of Clay
Claymation in video games isn’t really a thing anymore, but back in the ‘90s the medium was still nascent enough that developers were throwing anything at the wall to see what stuck. The result, thankfully, is that games like The Neverhood got made.
The Neverhood puts you in control of Klaymen, a literal clay man who is trying to save the Neverhood, an expansive, surreal, flat clay world floating in space, along with Willie Trombone, one of the Neverhood’s few other denizens. Klaymen and Willie are trying to save the Neverhood from Klogg, the game’s duplicitous antagonist, who wants to rule The Neverhood.
Like most adventure games at the time, The Neverhood’s gameplay was largely focused on solving heavily convoluted puzzles, though the reward was usually worth it. The game’s Claymation cutscenes are some of the strangest and humorous videos every included in a video game.
2 This Seems More Relevant Than Ever
Obsidian is a surprisingly cool adventure game about a pair of scientists who go camping in the woods after they successfully launch a satellite designed to combat global warming. The satellite is semi-autonomous, and has an artificial intelligence baked into its programming to help with complex scenarios. Note to future scientists: do not put a thinking computer in orbit around the Earth–it never ends well.
That’s certainly the case in Obsidian. Like any good and proper artificial intelligence, the satellite starts wondering about how useful all these little human things running around really are. That’s where the big questions come in. The satellite was built to prevent global warming, but the main factor in global warming is humans. So, you know, what if we just got rid of that disease, rather than just treating the symptoms?
1 Cyborgs And Flutes And Raptors, Oh My!
There’s a lot going on in BioForge, but the game is largely about coming to terms with becoming a cyborg. Set in the deep future, the conflict in BioForge is best explained as an ideological difference between two factions: The Reticulum and the Mondites. The Reticulum is the main political player; basically, the universal empire. The Mondites, on the other hand, just want to turn people into robots–and they do!
A mad scientist named Dr. Mastaba kidnaps you well before the game begins and grafts numerous gross cybernetic implants onto your body in hopes of turning you into a super-assassin. You escape, and, being an adventure game and all, you’ve got to solve various puzzles in the game world to win your freedom. You’ve also always got a flute in your inventory, and at one point a raptor tries to eat you. So, yeah, an odd one.
