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For the most part, it's extremely unlikely for you to have seen many weird old PC games featured here on 2Game. Our concern is usually to prepare feature articles and showcases on the latest and greatest flagship releases: stuff that's going to be well-known and well-played for years to come.
Today, we're doing something different. Down below, you're going to find our very first installment of the weird old PC games featurette: an all-new format where we'll go over some of the older, more experimental, and far weirded games we've got in store. Chances are, then, that you will not have heard about many of these. That's good: you're not here to read about stuff you've already seen dozens of times over.
Now, it's worth keeping in mind that, by design, this article is no seal of quality. Our primary focus is to offer you some games you probably haven't seen yet, and which you might want to look into after reading about them. That simple!
Without further ado, let's see what we've got in store for you this month.
Weird Old PC Games: March 2021
The Good Life
- Release Date: 2012
- Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
- Genre: strives to be a lifestyle sim, ended up being a taxi service sim
Not to be confused with The Good Life, which is 100% a completely different (and arguably more interesting) game, The Good Life is essentially a simulator of what it's like to live carelessly in the tropics. At least, that's the sales pitch, though there's a fair bit of excitement present, especially when the pirates armed with RPGs start showing up.
"After a long voyage," says the game's Steam page, "[the player character] and his striking girlfriend Michelle Joyce finally arrive at their destination, enjoying the beautiful sunrise, with a Boating Company of their own. Compared to the dull office life, this new life looks much better. Finally but suddenly, life is good!" Since the game came out back in 2012, none of the character models ever looked "striking". We were, however, nicely surprised with the quality of water shaders, and of the general visual appeal of the biome the protagonist finds himself in.
Disappointingly, there's not much to the business side of things in The Good Life. For the most part, this "tycoon" game is more than happy to let every aspect of your "business" go on in the background. It's really little more than a way for you to earn passive income.
Instead, the brunt of the gameplay relates to boating and stuff that's related to it. You'll end up driving NPCs around the island and competing with other local boating aficionados, and you'll also be able to fish, swim with the piranhas, and run from the aforementioned pirates.
There's not a lot to The Good Life, but it deserves to be lauded for its (nearly) decade-old graphics and for its attempt at doing something different. Not that it succeeds, since it eventually devolves into a wet version of Crazy Taxi, but the devs sure tried.
Try it out for its interesting premise and mostly competent (if limited) execution.
Moorhuhn: Crazy Chicken Tales
- Release Date: 2010
- Publisher: Libredia
- Genre: Moorhuhn
European gamers will surely have heard of Moorhun by now! This long-lived chicken-hunting shoot-em-up franchise was one of those default games everyone somehow had installed on their Windows XP machines. Like Minesweeper, except Minesweeper was a Microsoft-sanctioned game. No one ever really knew how or why they had one of the Moorhuhn games installed: they just had them.
Crazy Chicken Tales is different from what many of us had seen and played, however. This is a fully-fledged 3D platformer / action-adventure, but not a particularly long one, at that. Reviews claim that it's entirely possible to finish the game in a whopping two hours, but these two hours aren't all that exciting, either.
Instead, you'll get to go over all the familiar trappings of 3D platformers. Moorhuhn will collect coins, jump over rolling logs, and ride his friends to victory - among other things. It's noteworthy that our feathery avatar does come equipped with two unique weapons, each of which comes into play during certain sections of the game.
What makes Moorhun: Crazy Chicken Tales interesting in this day and age is that it's entirely generic. There's really no way we're ever getting anything similar to this again, and if you're nostalgic for the prototypical nail-bitingly difficult 3D platformer of yesteryear, this is probably the game you should consider.
Try it out if you're curious about Moorhuhn, or if you want to play something that makes a subset of gamers strangely nostalgic about the early 2000s.
Safety First!
- Release Date: 2016
- Publisher: Headup
- Genre: We just don't know
Safety First! is a bit of a mystery to us. It's either a competent puzzle game that's pretending to be a teenager's idea of comedy, or it's a teenager's idea of comedy that's justifying its existence with the thin veneer of a puzzler. Is it both?
Either way, Safety First! is a QWOP sort of thing, where you need to control the legs/feet of your avatar as they go commando and "repair" some "cables" with their "Magical Yellow Repair Liquid." Having written down that sentence, our proverbial ribs hurt from all the poking that Safety First! has done.
We won't lie: it's a reasonably interesting game, though calling it 'fun' is a bit of a stretch. If you're of the Flash gaming generation, we reckon you'll get a kick out of giving Safety First! a whirl, that's for sure.
There's a whole bunch of content to go through, too. A purported 69 (seriously?) levels stretched across several uniquely-themed campaigns, as well as three different game modes to try each level in. According to the game's Steam page, we'll "tell [our] grandkids about it someday," and somehow, we're sort of sure we will.
Try it out if you're eager to spray Magical Yellow Repair Liquid out of your character's nozzle.
Konung 2
- Release Date: 2004
- Publisher: 1C Entertainment
- Genre: Fantasy ARPG
A classic ARPG set in the fantastical lands of Scandinavian mythology, Konung is one of those franchises that most gamers missed back in the day. It's also remarkably weird, in that it mixes and melds classic ARPG tropes with running entire villages and towns, and micromanaging their growth over weeks and months of progress.
That's right: Konung 2 is a killer combo of city-building and RPG, and it's not too dissimilar from the likes of Baldur's Gate. Of course, its 2004 release date does set it apart, since we did have reasonably advanced 3D visuals and UI/UX. Remember: the original Far Cry came out in 2004, too, while Konung 2 wouldn't look out of place as a 1999 release.
We'll be straight: Konung 2 has got plenty of charm, but this apparent pro is more than made up with the con of its lackluster interface and generally clumsy gameplay. This is definitely not for everyone, but we firmly believe that fans of CRPGs, and specifically old CRPGs may have a thing or two to say about Konung.
Konung 3 did come out, of course, and it did feature full 3D graphics, but some of the series' trademark weirdness got lost along the way. So, really, if you want a truly competent game, get Konung 3. Otherwise, if you're in it for the weirdness, Konung 2 should be your first choice.
Try it out if you want to play a classic fantasy RPG that you probably missed back in the day. It's also genuinely a good game.
The Cows Are Watching
- Release Date: 2016
- Publisher: SilentFuture
- Genre: First-Person Cow-Tipper
We don't get it. Why would you tip a cow over when it's asleep? According to sources, cow tipping was never really a thing, but it sure did become a ridiculously established meme by now. Either way, meme or no meme, The Cows Are Watching is definitely a thing, and it's a game that's all about cow tipping.
The Cows Are Watching is a first-person stealth game. We think. It's got VR functionality, too, where you can sneak up on poor, unsuspecting bovines and... tip them over. In the middle of the night. You monster. There's a guard dog that's going to chase after you, at least, so karma is at work even in this particular rendition of the afterlife. We're really not sure what else to say about The Cows Are Watching, honestly. It's got decent reviews on Steam, weirdest of all. What is it that we're missing here?
We'll conclude with a quote on cow tipping from Ed Zotti: "The feasibility of cow tipping could be quickly determined experimentally," he said. "But the scientific community has been unaccountably lethargic in this respect, and the matter awaits its Madame Curie." Then again... we are arguing about the feasibility of tipping a cow over on a website that's dedicated to discussing video games, so perhaps we should just go with the flow. We suspect that these are some very light bovines.
Try it out if you're into tipping cows, we suppose. Poor animals.
Wrap-Up!
Well, that about does it for your monthly dose of abject weirdness. Some of the games above are good, some of them are bad. All of them are just a tiny bit off in this way or the other, however. As we said before, there's no guarantee of quality if you decide to splurge on some of the above, but you sure are in for a hell of a ride, we can promise you that much.
If you enjoy this sort of content, do let us know so that we keep producing it! After all, modern games are all well and good, but the simple truth of the matter is that they're generally well-built and amusing. This wasn't always the case, and we'd be more than happy to talk about some of the historical outliers in the coming weeks and months.
Get in the Game ! 
