Best and Worst Games You've Bought Without Knowing Anything About?

[Scarim Coral]

Best-Timesplitter 3
I was at a game shop when I saw it on display. I had some cash on me during that time and since I loved the second game I decided to buy (it was either this or Pokemon Collusion). It was a good game however it felt more or less the same as the second game (I tend to read the info of the game in advice but I bought this since I assume it would be the same game which I was right).

Worst- Di-Gata Defenders
It was christmas and I had a few money left which I saw the game at a cheap price. Since at that time I had been watching the show (I only got freeview kid channels where I saw it from) I thought I buy it to check it out. The game is pretty bad and short although I think it would of been better if the team had more funding for make it better.

 

[Chased]

Best: LoZ: The Wind Waker. Got a Target gift card and bought the game on a whim, ended up being one of my all time favorite games.

Worst: Can't think of anything right now, I usually always go out to buy something with a game already in mind.

 

[Heartcafe]

Best: Persona 4.
Believe it or not, I haven't heard of Shin Megami Tensi till I played that game. God. The best random grab I ever got. Atlus's story detail and character development beats even Bioware for me. I was so surprised. Since then, I've been tracking down other MegTen games and I've recently finished Digital Devil Saga and working on finishing the sequel. A meaningful story amplified by great gameplay. A mix I rarely see these days.

Worse: That last Spyro game (can't remember the name -_-)
Ugh. What made me believe that my childhood hero still exists after all the horrors Spyro has gone through. The game wasn't that bad but it was bland as hell. I have lost all hope after they announced Skylanders. They practically chewed his character model and spat it out.

 

[Iwata]

This happened this past week, actually. I went to buy a couple of games at our local GAME store, and a worker there strongly suggested "Shadows of the Damned", a game I knew nothing about. In fact, I only knew it existed from casually glancing at its cover a few days before.

It was a tough sell. I already had my games (Alice: Madness Returns and Transformers: Dark of the Moon) and didn't really feel like investing full price for a third game.

He asked me if I liked completely-Japanese games. I said that, well... no, I don't.

He asked me if I liked Bayonetta and Vanquish, and I said that I hated Bayonetta, and stopped playing Vanquish after about 15 minutes and still haven't picked it back up.

He asked me if I liked Resident Evil, and well, here he got a tenuous grip on my attention, because whaddaya know, I DO like Resident Evil (well, except RE5, anyway). He then started further elaborating on the game, about killing demons, black humour, awesome characters, etc.

I was still not convinced, so I left my games there and went to a cybercafé to check up on gameplay videos (I don't like buying a game if I don't even know how it plays). After about an hour of back-and-forth, I finally bought the game, and hey, I fucking LOVE IT! I think that was the only time I recently bought a game almost completely in the dark about it, and I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised, to say the least.

(un)fortunately, I can't think of any bad examples, though.

 

[jacobythehedgehog]

BEST

Panzer Dragon (Saturn)- The game was amazing I was shocked how fun the game was
Hunted: The Demon's Forge- I bought this game out of an impulse buy, and it was amazing Love it
Elder Scrolls IV: oblivion- I was so shocked how amazing this game was and for only $20.00(canadian)
Sonic Colours- Sonic games have go so downhill in the media, I didnt even know this game exsisted, Shame on you media

Worst

Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands- I got it cause of the name prince of persia, but the game was really bad

 

[vivalahelvig]

The worst would have to be Mafia, the first one. It had the worst racing stage ive ever played, it had horrid melee combat that you had to go through, and the part when you sneak into that big mansion of some government guy, i stopped playing because it was so shit and unbearable.

Not sure about the best though...

 

[Catfood220]

Best games I have brought without any prior knowledge would have to be de Blob on the Wii because it looked fun and it was. And Beyond Good and Evil when it came out for the Gamecube because it advertised itself on the back of the case as being like Legend Of Zelda.

The worst game I brought without any prior knowledge, that easily has to be Daikatana.

 

[Adamc-mh]

Best- Monster Hunter freedom: So glad I picked it up just on a whim, played all of them so far can't wait till the PS3 release of the last PsP one.
Best- Dynasty Warriors 3: So much mindless fun, the pleasure of killing 1000 peasant soldiers, I've only played 5 and I've ordered Six just for some nostalgia.
Best- Oblivion: Got it for free off of my friend definitely the one of the best Rpg I've ever played, can't wait for Skyrim.
Best- Minecraft: My friends were all playing it, and I checked it out, limitless fun, everyone should at least check it out.
Worst- Prince Of Persia Two Thrones: I hated it soo much, probably because I was shit at it and also because I hated the Prince.
Worst- Halo Three: I played this due to playing Reach, which I really liked, however it just seemed to me like a generic Fps with absolutely nothing interesting
Worst- Fable Three: Picked it up due to the amount of praise it was getting but I hated it, it just kept unimersing me through the mediocre humor and the fighting wasn't even that good

 

[infohippie]

The best game I've bought without knowing anything about it would have to be TES 4 Oblivion. I went to buy Bioshock, and it was available in a double pack with Oblivion for the same price as just buying one of the games on it's own. So I got the double pack, and ended up getting hundreds of hours of great gameplay out of it.
The worst was probably Lost Planet: Extreme Condition. I was completely out of games I hadn't played over and over, so I picked this up when I saw it, and it turned out to be so amazingly bad. It looks like it was a bit of a crappy game in the first place, plus it was really, really badly ported to PC, to the point where it was pretty much unplayable without a console controller - which I do not have and don't ever intend to get.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Geez. I haven't bought I game I knew NOTHING about since the PS2/PS1.

-

Best:

Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time

Loved everything, even the ending. Especially the combat, too.

-

Worst:

Uhhh....crap. I got nothing. I liked pretty much everything before I was a jaded asshole gamer with "standards" and "research before you buy".

 

[Omnific One]

Best: Mass Effect
Worst: Timeshift/Lost Planet

These were some of my first games when I got my 360.

 

[Anti Nudist Cupcake]

Best: Kotor 2
Worst: The orange box, not due to it being bad, but due to the drm preventing me from playing it.