Best accidental find?

[danosaurus]

Micro Machines 64;
My mate bought me it for $10 in a second hand bin at Electronics Boutique.
It led to hundreds of hours of intense multiplayer when i was back in school. So many memories =]

 

[Sucker]

Tales of Symphonia. It was something I just picked up on a whim, and yet no other RPG (except maybe Baten Kaitos Origins) comes anywhere near close to it. Easily the best game I've ever played.

I have spent more time on that game than on Melee, and I have 289 trophies in Melee.

Actually wait, yeah! Same here! When I was 10 or so, my parents were in NY for the weekend and called me asking if I wanted anything. I remembered seeing an ad for some game called "Star Ocean" and was like "UHHHH I'LL TAKE THAT ONE FOR THE GAMECUBE" but of course, I demonstrated my vast knowledge of the game when they told me that the clerk said they don't make it for the gamecube. He recommended Tales of Symphonia, and me being..well...me, I told my parents to get that instead.

Such an excellent game/rpg. I loved how many paths the storyline went down.

 

[ThaBenMan]

I don't think I've ever just grabbed a random game - I'm too afraid that it'll suck and I just wasted money on it. I never buy a game without reading some reviews and getting some idea of what it's like.

 

[Irrok the Wide]

Actraiser

I have no Idea why I bought it. None of my friends had it. I never heard of it before. I just thought it was a action game where you were a slayer with a sword.

If you have a Wii and an ethernet connection, and, you like building old towns, Buy it RIGHT NOW!

Its made by ENIX

 

[JackofTrades]

Mine has to be

Elder scrolls III:Morrowind

my dad had his Xbox for about 3 weeks at the time and I was plenty tired of playing the only game we had Which was Rainbow Six 3, so cool and I was good at it so his friend lent us like 3 games, now I don't remember what the other 2 were but once I played Morrowind, I was hooked to it, I obsessed over it, I lived and breathed to play it, my dad and his friend could easily see that I LOVED the game and he gave it to me for free, but I lost the copy he gave me at a friend house and he moved shortly after (Coincidence?) so my other friend gave me his copy that was under his couch (Which is so scrached it lags) so when I get so cash I plan to go out and buy the game of the year edition...I was 11 when I first played it and I'm 15 now and I still play it so many memories and good times, Oblivion was good, really good, but not OMG good like Morrowind was for me...

 

[Vrikk]

Oh this one is so easy. I was at a friend's house playing a little bit of Morrowind as I waited for dinner to finish and I saw a copy of the Blade Runner game for the PC. I asked him if I could borrow it, and he said I could keep it since he never played it and hated the film. He had "received it as a gift from a clueless grandparents and couldn't resist", et cetera.

Anyway, I went home and had it sit on my shelf for a good month since I just knew it was going to suck. After all, the movie had been criticized a lot for being slow and hard to follow, so how could a game that I had never heard of be any better?

How wrong I was. Damn fine adventuring it is.

 

[Anarchemitis]

Burn the Rope [http://www.mazapan.se/games/BurnTheRope.php]. And another thing that is absoloutely wonderful I found, but not a video game nor a game, but machinima. Perfectly wonderful machinima. Chances are you've heard of Lit Fuse Films [http://litfusefilms.com/], or seen the Ballad of Black Mesa or Ignus Solus, their most popular works.

 

[Russian Redneck]

"Call of Duty" and its expansion pack, "United Offensive" for the PC. The reason I bought them was because they were supposedly more, to use a term, "realistic" than Medal of Honor. To this day I don't regret paying $30+ dollars those games. Also, that was the same year "Call of Duty 2" was released, but that's another story.

Another one is "Elite Beat Agents". I bought it used for about $25 not having any idea of what it was about. After thirty minutes, the game had successfully won me over and earned a special place in my heart.

 

[TheUBERspectre]

The original Jack & Daxter for the PS2. I had never heard of the game before and bought it one time while I was at Wal-Mart. Freaking sweet game. I think I got up to 99% completion before I got rid of my old PS2.

 

[Pingrash]

When I went to buy Pariah with a gift card it said on the shelf that it would cost me $60.
When the person at the register scanned it the price came up as $5.
HECK YES!!!!

 

[MRMIdAS2k]

Comix Zone.
Touch Detective.
Hotel Dusk.

 

[poleboy]

I'll have to go with Morrowind too, since it's one of the rare games I bought more or less on a whim, and it turned out to be awesome. Phoenix Wright was a pleasant surprise as well.

Worst random purchase: Gunman Chronicles. How can you **** up a game that was made with the HL engine AND which had dinosaurs!? Epic fail indeed.

 

[darkheath]

Wow. I'm new to this site... but it's extremely encouraging to see so many Elder Scrolls fans here.

Morrowind blew me away as well.. but I can't say that I was surprised by it as I was reading up on it until release. What really bothered me though was that GTAIII was getting so many accolades at the time for being a "wide open" world to explore, but by Morrowind standards... it was extremely limited and linear. No one was singing the praises of Morrowind's ACTUAL wide open, go-anywhere, do-anything world while GTAIII was picking up award after award for "supposedly" having that exact feature. GTAIII was a decent game (and ironically, I'm enjoying GTAIV right now), but it was no where near the "sandbox" game that Morrowind was.

I knew that ANYWHERE that I could see in the Morrowind game... I could go there. AND I could go into any building or structure I saw. That alone blew me away. Not to mention all of the books there were to read. There were some nights when I didn't feel like hacking and slashing things up and I would just go through my inventory and read books that I had picked up along the way.

Oblivion is also great (I'm about half way through it) and I will pick up Fallout 3 the day it comes out. There are two companies I will buy games from without waiting for reviews. Bethesda and BioWare.

 

[Emmitt_Nervend]

Star wars Demolition was a surprisingly fun game.

 

[FluffX]

Definately DragonQuest VIII.
Just plodding through Game, when I see it on the shelves.
"Ooh, neat cover art."
"Ooh, neat backstory."
And on the car journey back.
"Ooh, neat manuel."
And while playing it.
"Ooh, neat Mouse-thing."
"Ooh, neat combat"
"Ooh, neat[Insert anything in the game]"
So glad I bought it.

 

[Melaisis]

Everyday Shooter, took a gamble with Shadow of the Colossus (it paid off) and Half Life 2 (had heard almost nothing about it when it came out). I was also the first out of my group of friends to pick up on Audiosurf when it was brought out on Steam, and the first to complete the wonder which is Portal - when everyone else was playing Episode 2.

 

[TheMadDoctorsCat]

Warcraft. Picked it up thinking, "Well this looks interesting..." Five years and two sequels later, I still couldn't get enough of Azeroth. Haven't played WoW yet though (I still want a social life, thanks.)

 

[L4Y Duke]

Let's see...

Red Faction - I'm an admin for a site that deals in game downloads, with the Red Faction section being arguably the most popular of the lot, even outdoing our Unreal Tournament sections. Well, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I'd bought RFII earlier, and I just wanted to see what the deal was. Oh boy, did I find out big time.

Wild Arms - Rented it once alongside a copy of the first Grand Theft Auto. Ended up playing Wild Arms more than GTA. Recently bought me an ex-rental copy that still works somewhat, aside from some longer loading times.

Suikoden - Had no idea what I was getting into when I first rented it, even to this day I find it to be one of the best RPGs ever made in the history of everything. That includes modern RPGs like Oblivion.

 

[neems]

Oh this one is so easy. I was at a friend's house playing a little bit of Morrowind as I waited for dinner to finish and I saw a copy of the Blade Runner game for the PC. I asked him if I could borrow it, and he said I could keep it since he never played it and hated the film. He had "received it as a gift from a clueless grandparents and couldn't resist", et cetera.

Anyway, I went home and had it sit on my shelf for a good month since I just knew it was going to suck. After all, the movie had been criticized a lot for being slow and hard to follow, so how could a game that I had never heard of be any better?

How wrong I was. Damn fine adventuring it is.

Uh, what?

Blade Runner is one of the finest sci-fi movies ever made - and at the time it was made, the game was extremely well known, particularly with reference to the photograph scanner.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Time Splitters 2: Picked it up randomly with some extra trade in cash, holy hell was I suprised.