As you well ought to know, this week marks the ten year anniversary of the Dreamcast, Sega's last (and some say best) videogame console. We'll be celebrating the little underdog's birthday all week, starting with this special Dreamcast-flavored edition of Games Time Forgot.

Zombie Revenge was one of the first Dreamcast games I ever loved. Blue Stinger was little too awful to truly get behind, and Chu Chu Rocket had a great commercial, but wasn't quite "next gen" enough for me to totally freak out over. Zombie Revenge was different. At the time, it was truly special. Back when it first came out, there were only a couple of "zombies games" on the market, and none of them allowed you to wander through a city with a friend and beat the crap out of zombies with your bare hands. Though the game didn't receive the best critical or public reception, many of its finer points have gone on to be used in multiple other games, like Dead Rising and Left 4 Dead.

Despite all of its trend setting traits, people really have forgotten Zombie Revenge (as the lack of Zombie Revenge sequels and remakes have proven). Hit the jump for my attempt at sharing my love for this maligned cult classic. 

Sneak peak- its got zombie monkeys. 

Every Wednesday, we profile a forgotten or underappreciated game for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

Time travel. Not only does it make for an interesting plot device in games, but it's also been quite popular as a game mechanic as of late. In 2008, Braid was critically acclaimed for its time rewind and fast forwarding functions, among other things. Before that, games such as Blinx the Time Sweeper and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time made good use of similar mechanics. When speaking of time travel in gaming, these are usually the only examples to come to mind.

It's obvious that the past two console generations have been a breeding ground for time travel-centric games. Some may be under the impression that recent technology has only just made such games possible; I was once under that  impression too. But as it turns out, that is not the case at all. Giving players the ability to bend time to their advantage is nothing new, it's only just becoming popular. There was a little known Braid-esque gaming experience all the way back in 1990: Catrap for the Game Boy.

I only recently picked up this game purely out of curiosity, with a bunch of other extremely cheap Game Boy games I didn't recognize the names of. As I tried each one, it was blatantly apparent that someone had traded in the worst, most obscure games in their collection. It was one horrible experience after the other.

Then I put Catrap into my GBA SP, not expecting much in return from it. When it turned out to be not only a great game, but also the granddaddy of the time travel mechanic, I was flabbergasted. Why was this piece of gaming history in a neglected case at my local GameStop?

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

Even though the format has long been defunct, a few Laserdisc games have transcended time. Well, okay, one has: Dragon's Lair. There are plenty of other games made on this format that time has forgotten, but I want to focus on one of them in particular because it took a deviation from the norm, and isn't recognized for it today. This game, called Thayer's Quest, was released in 1984, and was made by the same people behind Dragon's Lair and Space Ace (with the exception of Don Bluth). It was revolutionary for its time, not particularly in its substance (it took the well-tread route of being set in medieval times), but in the way it was made to be played.

Most Laserdisc games forced players to rely on quick reflexes and memorization. In order to not die, one needed to press the right button at a precise moment to move out of harm's way, attack, or basically make the "movie" move forward. Thayer's Quest, however, scrapped the normal formula in favor of making the player's successes based on the decisions they make over the course of the game.

It was the first Laserdisc "RPG" of sorts. It was less of an interactive movie and more of a full-fledged game, full of different places to go, people to talk to, and things to do. But it had its shortcomings. After all, it is a Game Time Forgot.

Every Wednesday, we profile a forgotten or underappreciated game for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

The last time I wrote a Games Time Forgot article, I highlighted Rambo, the most beautifully idiotic shooter I've ever played. This time around, I want to talk about 2 Spicy -- an arcade game equally idiotic in its narrative premise and style, but remarkably more intelligent and nuanced than Sega's other superviolent light gun game.

It's a cover-based shooter for people who hate cover-based shooters. It's a fighting game, except players use guns. It's a shooter, except you only fight one other person at a time. It's incredibly fast-paced, but also unusually strategic for a stand-up arcade game. 

It's 2 Spicy, and I'll try to explain why it's worth your time after the jump.

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

Super Ninja Boy was part of a series known as Super Chinese in Japan. Culture Brain released many entries of this series overseas, but only four of them made it to American shores. This one was the only one for the SNES, and while it is arguably one of the more well known Culture Brain games, it is still a wildly obscure one.

Way back when local videogame rental stores were still alive and kicking, Super Ninja Boy was one of those games that myself and many others picked up on a whim. My personal story with this game goes like so: when I got home with it and put it into my Super Nintendo, I realized that this was an RPG unlike any other I had ever played. Even though our time together was very short, I always kept a glimmer of this strange game in the back on my head.

When people discuss RPGs that are outside of the norm, Earthbound is usually the title to come up first. But Super Ninja Boy ought to be one that comes up too. It's not set in modern times like Earthbound is, but it has something else that makes it a completely different beast than its other RPG bretheren. But it is still very likely that you don't know of it, or have forgotten it exists. Why is this?

Every Wednesday, Destructoid highlights an overlooked game that shouldn't have been.

Rambo, the relatively recent SEGA arcade game, is the dumbest game I have ever played in my adult life.

I mean this in the most complimentary way possible.

There is a stunning honesty to Rambo; it is a game with absolutely no illusions. It is utterly devoid of pretentions, innovation, apology, or moral justification. It wishes to be a stupid, shallow, gratuitously violent male power fantasy, and absolutely nothing more. It is idiotic, yes; but it is brilliantly idiotic. 

Every single design choice, every one of the player's very limited actions in the game are conducive to one thought, one feeling, one emotion,  that overwhelms the player with alarming rapidity.

That thought? I have a huge penis. 

Hit the jump to see what I'm talking about.

[Also, yes, that is a picture of Segata Sanshiro promoting the game.]

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

If you are as big a Harry Potter fan as I am (impossible!), you already know by now that this week’s Game Times Forgot is obviously timed to fall in line with today’s release of the highly anticipated sixth film in J.K. Rowling’s beloved franchise (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince). In fact, you may have already seen the movie by the time you read this! (E-mail me at chad@destructoid.com if you ever want to discuss all things Horcruxes, Slughorn, and apparating.)

In a decision that was more inevitable than a Polyjuice Potion turning out foul-tasting, mega-company EA decided to cash in on the popularity of the Harry Potter series by creating licensed videogames to coincide with each of the films’ releases. So far six videogames have been published over the last eight years (not including the Quidditch spin-off). Of those, exactly one has been good.

That one is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (the second story in the series for all you in-the-dark Muggles out there). But not only is Chamber of Secrets without question the best game in the bunch, the 2002 GameCube/PlayStation 2/Xbox release could easily hold up as a quality action/adventure title even without comparing it to the other, less fortunate Harry Potter adaptations.

Hit the jump to find out what makes Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets better than a swig of butterbeer on a ... ah, sorry, I will try my best to put an end to these annoying Harry Potter puns. Just hit the jump to read about a really fun, totally overlooked game!

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

As an American, I feel a little weird writing this week's Games Time Forgot column on a game that has never made it over to the shores of the United States, but I'd really like to take this opportunity to talk about a Japanese game called Pulseman.

Here's the lowdown: Pulseman is a pretty well-loved platformer by those who have had the opportunity to play it. It was made late in the life of the Mega Drive by popular developer Game Freak, and released only in Japan. It is possibly the most beautiful game for the system, and it ain't half bad to play either.

What is this game? How do I know it's forgotten if I'm not Japanese? I probably don't, but you can read more about Pulseman and why I believe it qualifies past the jump anyway.

I only ever got to read a single issue of 2000AD, and I understood the stories within it about as well as one can understand four different narratives halfway through their story arcs, without any prior knowledge of the characters or situations. Other than that, though, I liked it.

I'm somewhat bummed that I never got to read any Rogue Trooper strips, because then I might have something more profound or intelligent to say about this week's forgotten game than "this is a pretty good but flawed game that should have received more attention than it did."

...Still, this is a pretty good but flawed game that should have received more attention than it did.

Despite some crappy level design and less-than-enthralling graphics, Rogue Trooper is a remarkably solid 3rd-person shooter that simply came out too late for its own good.

Hit the jump for the lowdown on this underrated kinda-classic.

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

I was never much of a PC gamer. I missed out on many of the games considered to be classics today, even all of the great point-and-click adventure games such as your Mysts and Monkey Islands that you all hold so near to your hearts. My family did not have a computer at home until around '96, and the few games that I had that weren't educational came packaged with that Packard Bell.

Ever the curious child, I went through the rather large stack of CDs one by one that summer. They were mostly cookbooks, encyclopedias, interactive stories, and Spider Man Cartoon Maker (which would also be great Games Time Forgot fodder, if only it were an actual game). Within the pack of colorful discs filled with software aimed towards younger children, there was a surprisingly dark-looking disc with a picture of a one eyed robot. I popped it in, expecting something like the others, and when it turned out to be what it was, it blew my mind. I had never played anything quite like it before, and as such, it left quite an impression on me. It's just a shame that I eventually forgot its name as time progressed.

Long after the computer had died and the collection of software was lost, I had faint memories of playing The Journeyman Project, but I chalked it up to something made up by my imagination. I had to eventually rack my brain for the game's name myself, as I never came across any discussion of a game that sounded like the weird 3D time travel game that I had stumbled across in my youth. To my suprise, there were actually three of these games, making the series a overlooked trilogy among many.

Wait.

This game is not as boring as you think. Yes, it is a game about flying planes; no, it is not a World War II fighter. Yes, it is realistic, but no, it is not needlessly complicated and boring as hell.

Sky Odyssey is an incredibly simple, focused, flight game for the PlayStation 2 that is far more exciting and immersive than it really has any right to be. Though the controls are simple and easy to pick up, playing Sky Odyssey makes you feel like you're actually flying a plane. The act of getting a mid-air refuel is one of nail-biting intensity. Dropping off care packages from two thousand feet somehow becomes immersive and exhilarating.

There's no combat whatsoever in Sky Odyssey, and yet it is still one of the most immersive and entertaining flight-based games I've ever played.

Hit the jump as I attempt to describe what makes it so great.

[Image from here.]

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

It's always been a hobby of mine to visit videogame stores, without the intent of buying anything. I just go to browse through everything, and leave. It's a cheap form of entertainment, especially when you're a broke college student who has a fun enough time just getting out of the house.

Among the myriad of anime-style characters, sports figures and space marines, there was always one game cover in my local GameStop store that stood out the most to me. It depicted a line of strange looking 3D characters, with a smiling boy drawn in front of them. That little boy drew me in every single time, and what's more, the game never seemed to move from its place on the shelf. It was always facing outward to stare at me with those inky, beady eyes. It was cheap enough, but I never garnered the courage to take it home with me. Obviously, neither did any of the store's other patrons, and as far as I know, that copy of Chulip still sits in the GameStop I left behind when I moved to Arizona.

This week's Games Time Forgot tells the story of Chulip, a forgotten game that is just barely two years old. Why has this interesting looking game sat on the store shelves, untouched for so long? I've got some theories.

Every Wednesday, we highlight rarely-remembered but interesting games for our "Games Time Forgot" series.

Anthony Burch, whom I share this weekly article with, often tells me how he believes the Nintendo 64 is the ultimate home for forgotten games. At first, I didn't really think much of the remark. The N64 was the only console I owned during the 64-bit era, and I gave pretty much every game for the system a go at least once. For a long time, I just assumed that everyone had played all the same games as I did. But now that I really think about it, he may just be right.

The system does seem to have a lot more games that have been left to the past than most others. It's not that they're obscure per se, but they just don't turn up in conversation often anymore. It's not often that you hear someone proclaim that Buck Bumble is a great shooter, or recommend games like Iggy's Reckin' Balls or Tonic Trouble to anyone. There's just those few great N64 games -- Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie -- that still get any spotlight time.

Chameleon Twist is one of the best examples of what the abyss of forgotten games for the N64 contains. By some fluke, I picked up this game not long after it was released. While I was not completely dazzled by the game, I did enjoy it quite a lot, as children are want to do with mediocre things. But then I lost my entire childhood collection of games and consoles during a move to a new home around the year 2001. Without a physical copy of the game to remind me that it ever existed, all of my memories of Chameleon Twist escaped me, only to return just recently when reminded by the Destructoid community in some of my comments a while back.

This week, we'll take a look at this forgotten game, just one of many for the system.

Anyone who's ever listened to me wax poetic on RetroforceGo! about Shadowgate, the third title in the MacVenture series, already knows I have a hardcore love for anything with a point and click interface. Most people have heard of Shadowgate, as it was the most popular in this series. Slightly less well known is Deja Vu, originally released for the Mac in 1985 and then ported to the NES in 1990.

While Deja Vu follows the same general format as Shadowgate, the inspiration comes from forties era detective novels and noir sensibilities. It's also believed that Deja Vu may have directly inspired LucasArts in creating Maniac Mansion.Ah, point and click days, how I miss you!

Feeling intrigued, wondering if it's worth it to back in time and give this one a shot? Follow me past the jump, and I'll try to help you make your decision.