Flashback (1993)

Flashback was a pretty big deal in its time. It had the rotoscoped animation that made Prince of Persia stand out so much, but with shooting instead of swordplay, and a story that was like every major sci-fi movie of the 80s thrown in a blender. Total Recall, The Terminator, The Running Man, They Live, Robocop, Alien... That kind of cinematic approach was still novel at the time.

Cinematic platformers aren't a well-appreciated genre now because their emphasis on weighty, fragile characters that require a more measured, patient approach to gameplay is off-putting to players that just want to jump in and go Super Mario everywhere. But if you can get down with the style, it can be rewarding to persevere through the game, although Flashback also has some ridiculously frustrating combat-heavy sections that seem to have been added mostly to stretch out the playing time because it would otherwise be fairly easy. It's certainly a game that's more about atmosphere than anything else.