The most popular underrated underdog games

Zeitgeist — also known as Jupiter Strike in some markets — is a PlayStation-era space shooter that boldly says: "Let’s do Star Fox, but with less personality and ...

In Airball (1987), you don’t play a knight, a space marine, or a plumber - you play a literal ball of air. Trapped in an isometric nightmare of spikes, fans, and poison gas, ...

No guns. No glory. Just two invisible players navigating a weird Tron-like maze to steal each other’s flag. Capture the Flag is what you get when someone says “let&rsqu...

In Knight Games (1988, DOS), the Middle Ages meet joystick warfare. Think of it as a digital renaissance fair with fewer turkey legs and more sword clashing. You can joust, fence, ...

Before Madden became a household name, 1988 gave us this DOS football classic, where plays are drawn like cave paintings and players move like molasses in January. Yet, for its tim...

Terminal Velocity is all about speed, freedom, and blowing things up while flying at ridiculous velocities. The open environments give a sense of scale rarely seen at the time, and...

In Taipan for Windows, you’re not a hero, you’re a 19th-century capitalist trying to get rich trading tea, silk, and the occasional bit of opium in the South China Sea....

IVAN (Iter Vehemens ad Necem) is one of the strangest and deepest roguelikes ever created. Released in 2001, it combines brutal difficulty with extraordinary detail, from limb dama...

Epic Pinball is what happens when a small team says, “Sure, let’s make a pinball game,” and accidentally creates one of the most addictive shareware hits of the d...

Grand Slam Bridge is exactly what it says on the tin, which is both comforting and slightly intimidating if you are not already fluent in the mysterious language of card games. In ...

Monuments of Mars (1991) is one of those puzzle-platformers where patience is less a virtue and more a survival tool. You’re stranded on Mars, exploring alien ruins filled wi...

Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space is a science fiction roguelike game developed by Digital Eel. Originally released in 2005, it is the sequel to Strange Adventures in Infinite...

Stormlord is an abandoned DOS platform game set in a fantasy world, developed and published by Hewson Consultants in 1989 and designed by Raffaele Cecco. There was some controversy...

Zyclunt is a side-scrolling action game developed and published by Phantagram in 1995. The game is set in a dystopian future where incurable diseases and a rise in criminal activit...

In the late 80s, when gamebooks were trying to escape paper and sneak into floppy disks, GrailQuest shows up wearing Monty Python armor and refusing to be taken seriously. In Grail...

Aka Starglider 2 with an attitude, Revenge of Defender (or Defender of the Crown’s evil twin in name only) is a 3D space shooter where your main enemy is not the aliens&mdash...

International Moto X in 1996 brings motocross thrills to DOS with mud, speed, and the constant threat of spectacular wipeouts. The game balances arcade accessibility with enough ch...

Paganitzu is a classic puzzle-adventure game released in 1991 by Apogee Software. Set in an ancient pyramid, the game follows the exploits of its protagonist, Alabama Smith, who mu...

Time Bandit is a classic top-down arcade-style video game that was released in 1982 for various home computer systems, such as the Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, and others. It was dev...

Strife from 1996 is a first-person shooter game developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Velocity, based on the Doom engine. It's often remembered for being one of the ear...

Hill Street Blues translates the atmosphere of its source material into a game that emphasizes management and decision-making. It places you in a role where every choice matters, o...