PS1 Collecting: Ten Overlooked, Forgotten, and Inexpensive Titles Worth Adding to Your Library

If you love video games, Sony's first console has enough to keep you busy for the better part of a decade. With one of the lowest-cost entry points in retro gaming thanks to an abundant production run and the backwards compatibility of the PS2 which encouraged players to trade in to trade up, a library of over 1,200 games released in North America alone, and a veritable legion of identifiable brands like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil which persist to this day, the original PlayStation is a fabulous choice for gamers wanting their own piece of the classic gaming scene. Even better, most of the system's best games are also among the least expensive due to massive sales numbers and subsequent digital re-releases keeping the supply and demand curve in the gamers' favor. Run down any list of best PS1 games and you'll find very few of them commanding top dollar unless you're seeking sealed copies or specific editions that are harder to find (the black label first print of Final Fantasy VII will set you back far more than a Greatest Hits green label version, even though they're the exact same game).

So let's say you've been collecting for a while, and you've filled out your library with the must-haves. Where do you turn next? Well, that's where your old buddy Zorker comes in. This list contains great games that were overlooked at the time, or aren't talked about much today, and can be had very inexpensively. I'm going to cross multiple genres so hopefully there's something for everyone. With that, put on your collecting hats and follow me. We're going on an adventure!

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10) Fighting Force (1997, Core Design)

As one of the first 3D beat 'em ups, Fighting Force was the logical extension of games like Double Dragon, Final Fight, and Streets of Rage. Published by Eidos to considerable fanfare and magazine accolades in October of 1997, the game follows protagonists Mace, Hawk, Alana, and Smasher as they wage a one-or two-player-simultaneous war against a madman whose end-of-the-world prophecy failed to come true and who has thus decided to fulfill it himself. What is it with these crazed eschatologists and their obsession with the apocalypse anyway?

As far as mid-90's brawlers go, Fighting Force has much to recommend it. The four playable characters all have different moves along with different strength and speed factors, offering unique challenges and something for everybody. There are a slew of different stages, and several points where players can choose which stage they want to go to next, ensuring subsequent play-throughs maintain some surprises. Weapons are scattered all over the place, with players and enemies able to wield a variety of firearms, explosives, and melee weapons, ranging from the all-powerful rocket launcher and the horde-cutting shotgun to your standard fire axes and baseball bats down to makeshift items like traffic cones and railings yanked off the walls of elevators. Smasher, the biggest character in the game and best choice for a solo run if you lack in the friends department, can even chuck burnt-out vehicles and oversize car parts around.

The first game was followed up with an abysmal sequel on the PS1 and Dreamcast which decided to focus on Hawk exclusively. Poor reception to this sequel ended the franchise, but we can forget it ever existed. Today, Fighting Force is a forgotten classic rife with reboot potential which can be grabbed on the PSN in digital format for $5.99, while a physical copy can be scored for as little as $3-$5 depending mostly on whether or not you want the instruction manual and back case insert.

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9) Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996, Silicon Knights)

While subsequent entries in this series focused on a 3D action/adventure style of gameplay similar to Tomb Raider, this November '96 prologue to the series is a 2D isometric top-down style game in the vein of The Legend of Zelda or Diablo. The story is simple: Kain's a low-ranking noble in the land of Nosgoth who's attacked by a group of thugs after leaving the tavern. Laid low by the kidnappers and used by an infernal wizard for nefarious purposes, Kain has returned to life as a blood-sucking vampire hell-bent on revenging himself upon those who contributed to his critically anemic condition.

Part RPG, part adventure, this title suffers from both unintentionally hilarious voice acting and the sort of low-rent pre-rendered FMV that plagued even top-tier studios like Konami in the mid-90's. Despite these shortcomings, and a murderous difficulty curve at the start, Blood Omen really comes into its own after the first hour or so of play, and there's nothing else quite like it on the console. Kain's vampiric status bestows great power, but also comes with high costs like an inability to enter holy places and a massive hit point drain when exposed to sunlight (the game features a full day/night cycle) which forces the player to be extra careful for the first part of the game as they build up Kain's levels and abilities.

Like Fighting Force above, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain is available via PSN for $5.99, while a physical copy will set you back around $10. Either way, it's worth a look and the #9 spot on this list.

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8) Zanac X Zanac (2001, Compile)

If you're a North American gamer but never heard of Zanac X Zanac, don't worry--you didn't overlook this one on store shelves, you were just born in the wrong country. This intense vertical-scrolling shoot 'em up (SHMUP) was a Japanese-only release which only the hardcore import crowd would have noticed. Despite the ease of porting a shooter (there's usually very little text to translate, and everybody knows the rule with this genre is to hit everything with lasers until it explodes), the US launch of the PS2 a year earlier convinced Sony's US division to focus less on PS1 tech and more on the "next generation" of their hardware. In this case, it wasn't a game overlooked by players, but rather a game forgotten by Sony themselves for over a decade.

The good news is that unless you absolutely must have a physical copy of the game, it couldn't be easier or less expensive to find thanks to a 2012 release on the PSN. For $5.99, you get two great games for one low price. That's right, Zanac X Zanac is a pair of sequels to the NES original both crammed on to a single CD. If you've exhausted your R-Type and Gradius resources but still want more, you could do worse than picking this one up for your modern-day systems. I normally wouldn't recommend a digital-only game on a list like this, but seriously, Zanac X Zanac is too good to overlook.

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7) Future Cop: L.A.P.D. (1998, Electronic Arts)

It's not an official part of the series, but those interested in a spiritual sequel to the massively popular "Strike" series (Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, etc...) in the 32-bit era need look no further than this long-forgotten title. Set in a futuristic 21st century where criminal gangs now control most of Los Angeles, Future Cop: L.A.P.D. casts either one or two players (trust me, you'll want a partner on this one) as members of the beleaguered police force assigned to patrol duty. Using an advanced hovercraft that can transform into a mechanized walker when air superiority isn't a priority, it's your job to trash terrorists, destroy drug dealers, cut down criminals, and restore law and order by any means necessary.

Just a few nights ago while talking with a friend, I lamented the death of EA's "Strike" franchise and wondered if there could be a reboot on the horizon. Then I remembered this game, and how much fun it is to level huge swaths of downtown while waging war on crime. If NARC and Starship Troopers had a baby, I'm pretty sure it would be Future Cop: L.A.P.D.. Another PSOne Classic, the digital version can be found on PSN for $5.99. Physical copies are starting to go up in price, but it's still possible to find them for around $10 if you look around enough.

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6) World's Scariest Police Chases (2001, Unique Development Studios)

If there's a trope codifier for the "hidden gem of all hidden gems", World's Scariest Police Chases is a strong candidate for the position. Published by Activision in May of 2001, this game had the misfortune to not only come out seven months after the PS2 hardware hit shelves, but also to be a licensed game based on the Fox reality television show of the same name. Now you look at that jewel case insert artwork and you apply what you know about licensed video games falling particularly afoul of Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap!") and you can tell from fifty feet away how bad this game sucks.

You'd also be more wrong than a four-sided triangle.

That's not to say World's Scariest Police Chases is the best game in the world, but the fact it works so damn hard to overcome its own typecasting is impressive as hell. This may be the single-most forgotten and overlooked game on this entire list, but my hope is that it doesn't stay that way for long. Offering up an alternative to a Grand Theft Auto life of crime, World's Scariest Police Chases puts the player behind the wheel of a variety of different cars, trucks, and other vehicles while forcing them to maintain adherence to police protocol. No pulling out your guns unless authorized, no causing excessive property damage like some kind of psychopath...this game is "good cop" to Future Cop: L.A.P.D.'s "bad cop", and it still manages to be fun!

Mainly by putting you behind the wheels of a school bus and even a full-fledged tank in some levels, but hey, you had so much fun causing chaos around the city in other, more popular games that maybe it's time to atone for your sins and bring some order this time. While not available on PSN, a physical copy will set you back all of about $2-3, which is an absolutely insane value-to-price ratio, especially if you have a friend ride along as your passenger to handle the gunplay when the criminals start shooting back. Assuming you have friends. Unlike @blewitt, who has no one. ;)

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5) Colony Wars (1997, Psygnosis)

Nobody, but nobody, pushed PS1 polygons like Psygnosis. Colony Wars, released the same time as Fighting Force in the US, is a space shooter in the vein of the classic DOS-era Wing Commander and Star Wars: X-Wing titles. Players take to the cockpits of everything from small scout vessels to slow-moving bombers, and sent out on everything from search-and-destroy operations to escort missions and base defense emergencies. The game is story-driven to the extent that failing a mission (without dying, obviously) isn't necessarily the end of the world, it just may put you on a different branching path towards a different outcome for the harried and overworked rebellion.

Colony Wars was a big deal back in the day, with Psygnosis releasing two fantastic sequels (Colony Wars: Vengeance in 1998, and Colony Wars III: Red Sun in 2000) for the PlayStation, but after that the property vanished without a trace. Psygnosis themselves had their US operations swallowed up by Sony, where they became first-party developer 989 Studios, while UK operations were purchased by Eidos Interactive. The point is, somebody out there owns the rights to this property, and if they ever work out who, a Colony Wars reboot could make a huge splash in an under-represented genre today. Until that time though, a physical copy of the game will only set you back around $5, which isn't bad for a series nobody talks about today.

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4) Disruptor (1996, Insomniac Games)

Brought to life by the same development house behind the PS3 killer app Resistance: Fall of Man, Disruptor is a similar first-person shooter set in a futuristic sci-fi setting that tries to be as close to Doom as possible without actually being Doom. Since it was released very early in the PS1's lifetime, Disruptor doesn't have the same polish as later games and its Sega CD-era FMVs with live-action actors suffer from a syndrome I can only refer to as 'gloriously awful'. That said, it's still a solid corridor-based shooter that knows it'll never match its peers for sheer action and mayhem, so instead it goes all-out on the story and, in the process, Insomniac birthed something adequately charming.

Make no mistake, if you're going to buy one FPS for your PS1 console and money is no object, by all means go after the Custom PlayStation Edition of Doom, Hammerhead Studios' shockingly good port of Quake II, or Final Doom with its obscene difficulty spike. On the other hand, since you've already picked up the cream of the PS1 crop, it's safe to assume you already have one or all of these titles in your collection. That's why I'm hearkening back to this long-forgotten example of Doom cloning done right, which can teleport itself to your hoard for under $10.

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3) WarGames: DEFCON 1 (1998, Interactive Studios)

Action/strategy hybrids on the PS1 are a limited breed, especially if you're looking for only the really solid titles. Naturally there's Command & Conquer and its various off-shoots and sequels, but calling the C&C series "overlooked" is like calling a Toyota Tundra "a car". There's no evidence upon which to stake your claim, and you look like an idiot, so just don't do it.

WarGames: DEFCON 1 is similar to World's Scariest Police Chases in that it's a licensed title which isn't just decent, it's actually good. It situates itself as a sequel to the 1983 film with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy, but since this is a military strategy/sim, you won't find David or any of his friends anywhere on the disc. What you will find is strikingly solid mission-based gameplay which allows you to hop from unit to unit and command them in real-time against the AI, while the rest of your units follow the orders that you set for them. The orders are pretty basic fare (patrol this area, stand guard, move to my position, etc...), and the computer does an OK job of listening even if the AI does occasionally get stuck on a building or in a choke point.

WarGames is different from your standard Warcraft or C&C fare in that there's nothing in the way of resource management or unit production. You begin the map with all the units you're allotted, and if one blows up then it's gone for good. Luckily the same is true for the other side, so blowing up their tanks and APCs makes your life easier once you know they can't come around and flank you. There are sixteen different missions in the game, but you can play the missions from either NORAD or WOPR's point of view, so there are technically 32 crammed in there. You're also fighting against a timer though it isn't as bad as it sounds. Every mission starts at DEFCON 5 status and counts down slowly to DEFCON 1. Once DEFCON 1 is reached, the other side launches a nuke and it's back to the title screen (with the CPU asking if you'd prefer a simple game of chess instead, because WOPR's wang is larger than yours). You can stave off a nuke by destroying enemy buildings and materiel, which seems completely counter-intuitive--I'd assume wiping out a bunch of enemy mechs and hovercraft would bring us closer to armageddon, not further--but work with me here.

While not available on the PSN, a physical copy will only put you back about six bucks, allowing you to buy a whole mess of Tic-Tac-Toe boards with all the money you've saved. The only way to win may be not to play, but if you deny yourself a go at WarGames, you're missing out on a criminally-underrated military sim.

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2) Darkstone (2001, Delphine Software)

Despite what their ads might claim, nobody's going to confuse Darkstone as being superior to the game it's obviously ripping off. Released initially on the PC in 1999, the PS1 port of Darkstone didn't land until after the release of Diablo II which no doubt stole pretty much all of this game's thunder. But while you can find a copy of Diablo for the PlayStation, you may not be willing to pay the asking rate--$50+ isn't exactly "your soul", but for the retro gamer on a budget it may actually be worth more than that, especially if you're @blewitt and have already traded your soul for the ability to make money in the business of selling comic books.

So yeah, Darkstone's a complete "me too" wanna-be of the isometric action RPG genre. The thing is, it's actually way better than you'd expect it to be. This is doubly weird considering a brand new copy on release day would set you back the princely sum of $10. How good could a PS1 game be for only ten stupid dollars? It can be Darkstone good, that's how.

Featuring 8 different characters representing the four standard archetypes (male and female versions each of Fighter, Cleric, Thief, and Mage), a slew of randomly-selected quests taking place on procedurally-generated maps, a ton of items all with random magical potential, and tons of skills and spells, no two games of Darkstone are ever alike. It's basic hack-and-slash dungeon crawling, with frequent trips back to town to sell your loot and buy new gear so you can get further along, but unlike the first Diablo which confines itself to a single dungeon, Darkstone features an expansive overworld as well as an underworld. Darkstone also features some stuff that makes it decidedly more Rogue-like than Diablo, with the requirement to regularly eat food, a stat for tracking character age, and the ability to find and equip cursed items which will plague you until you fork over the 20,000 gold required to take them off. There's also no 2-player option, which adds to the difficulty since there's no one to watch your back.

Darkstone arrived and vanished from the cultural lexicon practically overnight, but the good news is you don't even need to pay $10 for the chance to play it. $3-4 is more what you're looking to spend today, and at that price it's well worth slotting into your home library.

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1) Hello Kitty's Cube Frenzy (1999, Culture Publishers)

After you've stopped Mr. Domino, lobotomized Intelligent Qube, pummeled Puzzle Bobble, and thrashed Tetris, where does one go for excitement and mental stimulation? Would you believe the arms of Sanrio's adorable "Hello Kitty" property with this licensed puzzler which, for some reason, snuck into North America while we were all melting down about the Y2K bug? You should--this is absolutely the least child-safe made-for-children game on the platform, because giving this to kids and expecting them to get past the first level is tantamount to a war crime.

That said, if you're looking for a rip-your-hair-out cute-a-thon that will both shatter your sanity and have you thinking, "Just one more time," you need Hello Kitty's Cube Frenzy in your life, and you need it now. The challenge in the game comes not just from the enemies, but the need to focus on areas all over the screen and plot moves well ahead of time while remembering that Kitty never friggin' stops moving. You can speed her up, you can slow her down, but nothing short of colliding with a bad guy or ending the level will get her off her energy-drink-fueled walk-a-thon.

That's the bad news. The good news is, if you just read all that and thought, "IT MUST BE MINE!", you can acquire your very own stress enhancer for about two bucks today. While this type of game has probably made its resurgence as part of an app store somewhere, I'm not familiar with it. Thankfully with the PS1 version you don't need to worry about microtransactions, waiting for lives to regenerate, or any other 21st-century bullshit devs think puzzle games need today. There's just you, Kitty, and your sanity which she's using as a scratching post.

Good luck!

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Keeping in mind I'm going for both overlooked and inexpensive, what did I miss for this list? Leave your suggestions, arguments, personal abuse, and inhumanly long fart videos in the comments below. I promise to address most of them. ;)