Jericho, Oddworld, Okami, The Sentinel
JerichoMany might consider Jericho to be a strange entry in this particular list. However, the elaborate storyline of this supernatural-horror themed first person shooter was totally lost on me. I didn’t understand a word of it.
Time-travelling, where one minute I'm in the Crusades period and the next I'm in the age of the Sumerian Empire, magical Black Ops soldiers, jumping in between seven different characters -Barker's incoherent, complex and detailed universe was far too much for my brain to handle.
A very strange game that could have been great, but ended up being too clever for its own good.
Click for larger imageOddworld (all of them!)
The Oddworld games and its bizarre characters surely make it for one of the strangest yet enjoyable videogames in gaming history. The fictional universe of this platform puzzle adventure series is rightly called Oddworld and very odd it is too, with the farting and burping Abe the Mudokon slave working at the Rupture Farms meat processing factory and starting off the first of 6 Oddworld titles by rescuing his fellow slaves through Bird Portals.
Since that first outing we’ve seen characters confined to wheelchairs and even dressed as a cowboy.
The Abe games are one example of where the word ‘weird’ doesn’t necessarily mean bad.
Okami - PS2
The Japanese role-playing game fits more into the category of surreal than weird, but it did manage to give me a feeling that I've never experienced before with a videogame. The 'weirdness' of Okami is down to the way the game makes you feel as though you're walking through the pages of a book.
Its artistry is spellbinding, creating a beautifully unique atmosphere. It's a strange experience, that once experienced will never be forgotten.
The Sentinel - PC, Commodore 64, Spectrum and others
The oldest entry in this list is The Sentinel.Cast your minds back to 1986 to the surreal puzzle experience of controlling a telepathic robot around surreal pixelated environments, such as checkerboard plateaus, whilst absorbing metallic trees across hundreds of levels and dozens of weird environments.
There was an equally superb sequel in 1998 called Sentinel Returns which was released for PC and PlayStation and had an equally strange but brilliant soundtrack. There's also been a number of clones. Personally, I'll remember the original one. It was my alternative to the acid trip at the age of 12.
Other games that I find weird are: Animal Crossing - I just don't understand the point. I spend most of my time in that game planting flowers and trying to pay off my mortgage. Weirdly addictive, when it really shouldn't be.
50 Cent Bulletproof - A real guy puts his persona into a videogame and he obviously wants people to think he's hard. Bull. I found the whole game cringe-worthy and couldn't really understand why someone would want to portray themselves as a killer. He's not hard, yeah so he got caught once for reckless driving. Big deal weirdo.
Let us know which games you find weird, in the HEXUS forums .
