Does anyone remember Vexx? (doubles as a share your obscure games!)

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tac

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I vaguely remember playing this game when I was a kid (I had one of those halo 2 edition transparent XBox's as a hand me down from my brother.) and I feel like the game in general was pretty good but its just gone largely forgotten? Was this a gem or was it just not that good? Attached is a pic. I'd be interested in playing it again if theres any ROMs or pc ports I am unaware of.
 

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Dolfin

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I remember Vexx because it was advertised in one of those Gamecube game catalogs. It looked cool as a young'un who liked action platformers like Jak and Daxter, but I guess I never begged my parents for it. The screenshots they used did a good job of distracting me from his weird squirrel cheeks.

My childhood obscure game is Wetrix, an N64 puzzle game with a e s t h e t i c s.

The goal is to get a high score by using falling pieces to terraform a flat plane into a landscape that can hold lakes of water. The "drain" holds the water that flows off the map, and if it fills up, that's game over. You can evaporate lakes with fireballs to reduce the drain meter (the more water evaporated, the better), but you also want to keep wide and deep lakes for point multipliers. You also have to contend with bombs that blow holes in the map, ice cubes that freeze lakes, the danger of earthquakes flattening out your map if it gets too mountainous, and pieces just generally not appearing in the order you'd like them to á la Tetris.
I give the music and general aesthetic a huge amount of credit for sowing the seeds of vaporwave and Y2K/mid-2000s nostalgia in my brain.
 
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Doctor Dirck

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I played Vexx on a demo disc for xbox when I was a kid but was actually reading the wiki for it not long ago to see if I thought it might be a game worth playing right now. It's been maybe like 3 months since I read it but I remember thinking that game seemingly pulled inspiration from the weirdest places. It had like Egyptian architecture for the ancestor buildings, but then also had like Native American vibes from all this talk of ancient Astoni Warriors who were all killed and enslaved when their village was raided by these Shadowwraiths (among many other things of course). Again I haven't played the full game or played it as an adult but I'd consider trying it.

In a similar vein are games like Tak and the Power of Juju which I only played the second one, Dr. Muto, and Blinx the Timesweeper. All those games I enjoyed and were probably the slightest bit more popular than Vexx. The super popular platformers were all good too but I never considered until this post that most people probably hadn't heard of Vexx before.
gamecube.takandthepowerofjuju_US.16227868778258250.jpg

gc_drmuto.jpg

xbox-76_2_orig.jpg
 

Dolfin

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I played Vexx on a demo disc for xbox when I was a kid but was actually reading the wiki for it not long ago to see if I thought it might be a game worth playing right now. It's been maybe like 3 months since I read it but I remember thinking that game seemingly pulled inspiration from the weirdest places. It had like Egyptian architecture for the ancestor buildings, but then also had like Native American vibes from all this talk of ancient Astoni Warriors who were all killed and enslaved when their village was raided by these Shadowwraiths (among many other things of course). Again I haven't played the full game or played it as an adult but I'd consider trying it.

In a similar vein are games like Tak and the Power of Juju which I only played the second one, Dr. Muto, and Blinx the Timesweeper. All those games I enjoyed and were probably the slightest bit more popular than Vexx. The super popular platformers were all good too but I never considered until this post that most people probably hadn't heard of Vexx before.
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I picked up a copy of Blinx recently because I've always wanted to play it. How is it?
 
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Doctor Dirck

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I picked up a copy of Blinx recently because I've always wanted to play it. How is it?
It's a lot of fun. If you bought it I'm sure you know the basics so a step past that I think the soundtrack is one of the best for that generation of games, the gameplay was pretty unique, the collectibles sucked in that game both to get and the reward you got for collecting them (concept art), and it spawned a sequel that was even better. If it ran worth half-a-shit on the xbox emulator I'd have done a playthrough recently. It still has a really active community with a fan site and fans still making mods and recreations and stuff to this day. The first game was a lot of fun so if you enjoy it definitely play the second one because it's even better. The first one is just running through stages real linear and quick-like but the second game has an intricate story and mission-based gameplay.
 

Sketch Relics

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I remember seeing physical copies of the game and ads for it when I was a kid, I always thought it was trying too hard to be edgy and cool just from the designs, but in retrospect it radiates a lot of that early-mid 2000's AA character platformer style, like the stuff @Doctor Dirck posted. here's a few more to add to the list.
ps2_sphinx_and_the_cursed_mummy-110214.jpg

9ad11b8f-8434-4f96-a72f-86237e1274e7.jpg

4115255-the-hobbit-gamecube-front-cover.jpg

Azurik__37133.1652116466.jpg


There is one more I would like to add, but it's such a mid game that I'm having trouble actually finding it.
It was an original Xbox game with a femal protag that had orange/brown hair, I think she was a kitsune IIRC.
 
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tac

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I played Vexx on a demo disc for xbox when I was a kid but was actually reading the wiki for it not long ago to see if I thought it might be a game worth playing right now. It's been maybe like 3 months since I read it but I remember thinking that game seemingly pulled inspiration from the weirdest places. It had like Egyptian architecture for the ancestor buildings, but then also had like Native American vibes from all this talk of ancient Astoni Warriors who were all killed and enslaved when their village was raided by these Shadowwraiths (among many other things of course). Again I haven't played the full game or played it as an adult but I'd consider trying it.

In a similar vein are games like Tak and the Power of Juju which I only played the second one, Dr. Muto, and Blinx the Timesweeper. All those games I enjoyed and were probably the slightest bit more popular than Vexx. The super popular platformers were all good too but I never considered until this post that most people probably hadn't heard of Vexx before.
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I've heard of all of these except for Dr. Muto. What was that about?
 

Doctor Dirck

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I've heard of all of these except for Dr. Muto. What was that about?
You play as this scientist who was supposed to unveil his new machine that provides the world with unlimited clean energy but it malfunctions and blows up the world. You have to go to 4 different planets and collect human dna and human artifacts to make another machine to recreate the world. As you play you unlock different transformations and gadgets that help you get past obstacles. I remember two of transformations, one was a big ape that was for combat and breaking walls and debris, and another was this little spider thing that crawled on walls. Each transformation had something that made them really fucking annoying to play as that would get removed if you collected enough upgrade tokens for them across the worlds. Like the little spider thing wouldn't be able to attack for example but with the upgrade he could shoot acid now. The game you'll notice had a T rating which sort of surprises me now in retrospect because I thought for sure it was R rated. It's got a lot of adult comedy and cursing in it and stuff but I suppose it is a step down from something like say Conker's Bad Fur Day. The game was another one of those platformers that pushed going for 100% so you could collect say 70% of the stuff and beat the game but you needed to get 100% of the stuff to get the good ending.

Thinking more about these games makes me remember other ones too. Another PS2 game named Primal was trying to capitalize on the supernatural fantasy drama audience that you saw pop up in some media like True Blood, Underworld, and the 2005 Constantine. It was really bad I remember but maybe it's better now that I'm older than the target demographic instead of younger.
Primal - Box.jpg
 

Sketch Relics

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I loved the Hobbit game but I didn't understand it at all. After you beat the dragon and looted the heart of the mountain I just really liked that quest for some reason. I also liked the final fight in the battlefield. Sucks there was no final boss though.
You're doing better than me, I don't really remember anything about my playthrough despite beating it.
The only reason it's even a part of my consciousness is because this vid popped up a bit ago and I was like

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJndaDpohSY&t=1s

oh yea, I remember playing that.

I also found the game I was looking for
5572062-malice-xbox-front-cover.jpg

This nonsense, definitively not a kitsune.
 
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