Net Ten: The Ten Best Underground Games (page2) Subscribe to this RSS feed

#5 Dofus - [ PS2 ]

This is also a browser-based game, but it's a turn-based tactical MMO with a colorful, friendly and strongly Japanese-influenced 2D art style. You have 12 different character classes to choose from, over 350 spells, player-versus-player combat, questing, tradecraft professions, guilds -- just about everything you might expect from a standard MMO. Subscriptions can be purchased in increments of one month, up to a year with a 20% discount, average out to a little under seven dollars a month, and they accept PayPal and several other payment options besides credit cards. Winner of the 2006 IGF Audience Award.

#5 Dofus
74% average
critic
score

#4 Dad n' Me - [ PS2 ]

Browser-based games, largely based on platform-independent Macromedia Flash, have also been making inroads into the gaming consciousness. Dad n' Me is a side scrolling, 2D beat-em-up where you play the bad guy instead of a hero. You'll go around beating up kids on a playground, pushing Boy Scouts into traffic, and other fun activities.

#4 Dad n' Me
67% average
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score

#3 Perplex City - [ PC ]

Alternate Reality Games are gradually becoming the adventure games of the new millennium, and Perplex City throws in a CCG (collectible card game) for good measure. You can play for free, during the course of which you'll browse through mysterious websites and blogs, send and receive emails, get phone calls, go on real-world scavenger hunts, and more. Oh, there's also a $200,000 reward at the end of this intriguing adventure, if you can solve all the clues.

#3 Perplex City
N/A average
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#2 Darwinia - [ PC ]

This game takes place in a virtual theme park, where its denizens, called Darwinians, will socialize, reproduce, a develop a culture. Unfortunately, their home is about to come under attack by a nasty computer virus, which is where you come in. This RTS/puzzle hybrid features very stylized, TRON-like visuals, and some intriguing theological overtones mixed in with intense combat and upgradeable units.

#2 Darwinia
88% average
critic
score

#1 Rule of Rose - [ PS2 ]

Set in 1930s England, Rule of Rose is a "psychological horror" game from Atlus and Sony, starring a little girl who gets sent to a very strange orphanage. There she encounters the Aristocracy of the Red Crayon, a group of children whom she must appease by hunting down items of value that are protected by gooey monsters hiding in the shadows. It features over 50 minutes of CG cutscenes, and its music was scored by Yutaka Minobe (Skies of Arcadia, Panzer Dragoon Saga). Look for it this fall -- if you dare!

#1 Rule of Rose
62% average
critic
score