The Best Cult Video Games Of All Time

gamespot.com:

There's nothing quite like playing through a fantastic game and feeling like you're in on a little secret. It could be a mostly-forgotten title of the past or a game that only gained acclaim and recognition a decade after launch, but there have been a whole bunch of fantastic cult video games over the years. Some are from famous studios that would go on to make wildly successful games, while others are from studios that fizzled before they got much of a chance. These are the best cult video games of all time.

For the list, we focused primarily on games that didn't receive sequels. For those that did, most sequels came years after the previous game, and it's for this reason that a few other «cult-hit» titles like Katamari Damacy and Shenmue were omitted.

Free Radical Design is best known for its TimeSplitters first-person shooter series, but the studio made another underappreciated gem that remains one of the cleverest games of all time: Second Sight. A psychological thriller starring an amnesiac with telekinesis, the game's non-linear storytelling hides plenty of twists, showing how the structure of a story can be just as important as its content. Though protagonist John Vattic is no slouch with a gun and can throw people like ragdolls, he's far from invincible, and Second Sight's unique mix of supernatural abilities and stealth make every encounter more tense.

Nier is an incredibly weird example of a cult video game, because it did eventually get a sequel that was immensely popular… seven years later. The original game--itself a spin-off of the first Drakengard--released to a lukewarm reception in 2010 and didn't sell very well. Its story was almost universally acclaimed for its dark, melancholy tone and brilliant