Top 5 Hidden Gems PS1 Games

We all know Sony Playstation is one of the best-selling consoles in fifth generation era completing with their rivals such as SEGA Saturn and Nintendo 64. It's one of the Sony's first game console made a first debut in year 1994-95 which are very known for amazing 32-bit graphics, ability to play music's CD, introducing memory cards designed for saving and loading the game files, innovative game controller including DualShock version and of course it has the best games library that made the PS1 a huge success such as Crash Bandicoot, Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, Gran Turismo, Ridge Racer, Time Crisis, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy VII and Metal Gear Soild.

Despite PS1 has well known games, I'm now focusing on the most obscure PS1 games that are not so popular, but it's considered to be must own PS1 games for collectors. The terms Hidden Gems is where the game is somewhat being undiscovered for long time due to weak sales or not many people have heard the game before, so there are quite impressive PS1 titles that plays really good and to give reason why these are worth picking up for your video game collection.

I'm now going to make my top 5 Hidden Gems PS1 Games.  

5 - Super Dropzone 

       

One of the sequel to Archer Maclean's 1984 original called Dropzone is a 2D shoot em ups game for SNES, PS1 and GBA. This game takes place in the surface of Jupiter's moon where human scientific research base is under attack by aliens. Your mission is to wipeout the aliens and rescue the scientists by returning them to the base. 

This game borrows a similarities from the Midway's arcade classics Defender for the arcade style gameplay which can be played on a horizontally side-scrolling game field and it also introducing added new weapon types and end-level bosses. The goal of the game is to to rescue the scientists to the base's dropzone, so the player must shoot the enemy aliens and catch the remaining falling scientists. This game has addicting gameplay with excellent weapons types and challenged waves of levels. The graphics has cool level design and arcade style animation that really suits the game's presentation. 

It may not be well known as the original game, but you can get this PS1 version for less than £5 up to £20, so I'm lucky I got this for £1.99 from Ebay. 

4 - Sanvein 

  

Another great arcade title for PS1 Sanvein (AKA Shooter Starfighter Sanvein) is a is a top-down shooter game which was developed by Success in 2000. This game involves the attempt to escape and destroy a giant corrupted space station called St. Schutz. You take control of Sanvein to battle with station's defense mechanisms. 

Your goal is to survive through the stages by wiping out many of the enemies and bosses within time limits, so the player has the options to select each floor they want to go. 

The player has three different elements for their ship's movement, normal and special attacks. It include Gluon that fire attack patterns in spread-shots while its uses special fired missiles, the Photon fired concentrated shots while its uses short-range laser blade and the Graviton fired the explosive bullets and special laid land mines. 

I was far impressed with the ideas of having to select any of different floors which adds the replay value of the game and I also liked choosing the choices of weapons and movements to suit the player's style. It has unique levels, cool boss battles, and decent gameplay controls. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're into with arcade genres then you should able to pick this game up for less than £5 before the game goes expensive later.      

3 - Apocalypse 

   

Imagine having badass 90's action star Bruce Willis in video game seems to be an awesome ideas for development teams to make, so they bought the amazing third-person shooter game for PS1 was Apocalypse which is a game that are not based on the movie. It was developed by Neversoft made their first original game before they launching their later popular franchise Tony Hawk series. The story starts off with evil scientist named The Reverend has created a powerful theocracy based on the idea of a apocalypse. He uses his expertise to create his demonic beings known as four powerful horsemen of the Apocalypse in order to take over the world. The one and only hero Trey Kincaid (voiced by Bruce Willis), who managed to escape from prison, has his mission to save the world by stopping The Reverend's devious machinations. 

This game has 11 single-player mission and it was played on third-person view with 3D multi-directional gameplay which is quite similar to classic twin-stick shooter such as Smash TV and Robotron allowing the player to shoot in 360 degrees directions. This game features awesome weapons type such as machine gun, laser gun, rocket launcher and flamethrower, and it has wicked platforming stages such as the first city of level 3 where you run down the streets, across the lava pits and running along the roofs of apartment buildings which giving the players a well challenged platforming shooter with amazing level designs. The story in the game is very well done with simple plot, impressive FMV cutscenes and fantastic voice performer from Bruce Willis thats adds the overall presentations. 

It's a shame that this game had become time forgotten, so is it the fans of Bruce Willis's films have never owned the game consoles or have they not heard the game before? I suggest you to go buy this underrated gems under £5 because it's by far one of the best shooter for PS1 system.  

2 - O.N.E

     

One man, One solution, One state of mind. This game is simply called O.N.E for PS1, which was developed by Take Two Interactive's teams Visuals Concepts are known for various of 2K's Sport titles. It is a 3D Run N Gun game that you take control of John Cain, who suffered with his memory loss, awakens on the floor of an apartment building with a gun in place of one arm and escapes the buildings from the attack of the police helicopter. His goal is to battle and evade from military and police forces in order to survive the attack. 

The game features 6 mission levels to complete and the gameplay style is somewhat pretty similar to 3D Run N Gun titles such as Contra: Legacy of War and Millennium Solider: Expandables. What I liked about the combat in the game is the speed of firing attack which depends on rage rate of character's health. For example, if you shoot many of the enemies without damaging the player then your character's health increases the rage power allowing player to fire rapidly and the more powerful you can damage the enemies easily which is really cool ideas for Run N Gun genres. It has epic action stages with intense environment and excellent boss battles that will satisfy your Run N Gun experience. 

It may be hard to find game on online store due to bizarre name title on the cover and the price is raised up to £10, so you can able to get this game from Ebay faster before it's runs out of copy.  

1 - Silent Bomber 

          

Silent Bomber is a top-down action game for PS1, which was developed by CyberConnect who are well known for their gaming franchises such as .hack (simply pronounced Dothack) series and Naruto Series. The story starts off with war criminal named Jutah Fate being drafted into a covert military operation by his home planet of Hornet. His mission is to destroy a space cruiser called Dante that is threatening the planet.

The game borrows the similar arcade style gameplay like Bomberman series where the player blows the enemy up by using bombs instead of shooting. It has 14 levels to complete the game and your player has ability to detonate and blow the enemy by stacking many of bombs on the ground or launching them with lock-on recticle which is pretty straightforward to play and what makes the game interesting is that you can able to collect E-Chips to upgrade your character's ability which increases the bomb capacity lets you stack more bombs, the reticle range that improves the targeting distance and shields protection level that keeps the character's health last long which is very unique and creative for the game's genres. The game is considered to be hardest PS1 game I ever played, but I still really enjoying 14 epic action levels and fantastic boss battles that are worth for challenge. I liked the overall graphics design which is looked pretty good for PS1 hardware, it does have wicked soundtrack that fits the action of the game and overall decent story with cinematic design and characters in the game. 

I wish the developers team should able to make another sequel to such amazing game that nobody has played before, so it will cost in between £7.50 to £10 at the online store. This is one of the most obscure PS1 titles that everyone should must own this game.       

           

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