For many gamers, the original PlayStation is still the best console ever made. Aside from delivering some of the most iconic and influential series ever created like Metal Gear Solid and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the PS1 was king in an era when the medium was growing towards becoming the juggernaut it is today.
The PlayStation was a place where studios could take risks and create unique experiences, even at the expense of a wide appeal. The PS1 was home to hundreds of such games, many of which remain hidden gems that represent their creator’s artistic visions even if they didn’t receive a lot of attention. These games have stayed in the minds of those who enjoyed them at the time, but more people should have the chance to play them through reboot, remasters or sequels.
Chaos Break
Released at the tail end of the PlayStation’s lifecycle in Japan and Europe, Chaos Break is a mashup of survival horror and 3D beat ’em up that was a console-only sequel to arcade game Chaos Heat. Players choose one of two members of the D.E.F. taskforce and are charged with infiltrating a biochemical facility where things have gone terribly wrong.
Chaos Break plays like a mixture of Metal Gear Solid and Resident Evil and delivers both melee and ranged options for its solid combat. Furthermore, its top-down perspective and great visual design make it a fun game to play even today. Original developer Taito should look into its back catalog and resurrect this unique mashup for modern players.
Crusader: No Remorse
Another top-down action game, 1997’s Crusader: No Remorse is a shooter set in a dystopian future. A tyrannical world government known as the WEC employs supersoldiers to enforce its iron will upon the population. As one of these soldiers, known only as The Captain, players must take on missions for the evil government before deciding to defect and join the rebellion.
Wildly ahead of its time, Crusader‘s gameplay is deep and challenging, allowing players to attack each mission in a variety of ways with a variety of futuristic equipment like heat-seeking spider mines and remote explosives. While a PC-only sequel, Crusader: No Regret was released in 1998, this was the last time players got a taste of this incredibly detailed world — and it wasn’t nearly enough. It is way past time for Electronic Arts, the series’ current owner, to resurrect this solid shooter once more.
Future Cop: L.A.P.D.
Dystopian future settings were a popular choice for the original PlayStation, and Future Cop: L.A.P.D. is a top-down mech shooter set in a crime-ridden Los Angeles. Players take to the streets in a bipedal mech and fight crime ranging from deranged terrorists to a rogue supercomputer in areas surrounding the massive sprawling cityscape.
Future Cop‘s gameplay is smooth and responsive, and the game even featured a unique split-screen cooperative mode where health bars for both players were intertwined, making one player death a failure for both. When it comes to mech action games, the legacy of this PlayStation classic cannot be ignored, as its influence can be seen in modern mech games like Brigador and Hawken. Future Cop is another EA-owned property that’s a worthy candidate for a brand new imagining of its futuristic world.
Incredible Crisis
Incredible Crisis starts off with a rather mundane premise: players follow four members of a Japanese family as they make their way home. However, what actually transpires is anything but mundane, as the family members prove to be some of the unluckiest people on the planet. Incredible Crisis is a hilarious collection of mini-games that has the family dodging traffic on a freeway, dancing in a classroom, running from giant boulders and even encountering UFOs.
Incredible Crisis was, in a way, a precursor to games like WarioWare, and its quick gameplay and hilarious mini-game scenarios are a delight to experience time and again. At the very least, this wacky ride deserves a remaster so that those who may have missed its hilarious hijinx will get to try this incredibly unique game.
Sled Storm
When it comes to unique racing games, there’s not much like 1999’s Sled Storm. Developed by Electronic Arts, this snowmobile-centric racing game delivered a robust upgrade system, a great soundtrack and absolutely thrilling racing action. Players could jump and trick the eight playable racers through a variety of modes and through tracks that featured a bevy of unique shortcuts and secrets.
Sled Storm proved to be a hard game to follow up, even for its own developers. EA released a sequel in 2002, but it missed the mark, feeling more like SSX and less like a realistic snowmobile racer. A true sequel to this classic could remind fans that you don’t need cars to make a great racing experience.
Licensing and intellectual property ownership is always a tricky situation when it comes to resurrecting old games, but that being said, anything is possible. Recent years have seen the return of long-dead series like MediEvil and the recently announced Dead Space remake. Time will tell if any of these great lesser-known games will make a triumphant return, but until then, fans who remember the glorious days of the original PlayStation will have to keep their memories alive.
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