Games that surprised you

[IBlackKiteI]

Dawn of War II. I went it going "I know absolutely nothing about Warhammer 40k and I'm bad at RTS games." I came out "I'm still a bad RTS player but...FOR THE EMPEROR!!!"

Oh hell's yeah.

If it were made by any dev other than Relic than not only would it possibly suck, but it also wouldn't have that sort of, indoctrinative (is that a word?) effect that just gets inside your head and throws you into the 40k universe.
No other game has made me want to find as much info on the games setting as Dawn of War.

Anyways I'd say Halo Reach.

I was suprised when I found that the campaign mode was (to me) even worse than the other Halo's past CE, though I was also suprised by the fact that it's multiplayer is incredibly awesome, which is the reason I've been playing the absolute hell out of it as opposed to any other shooter I currently own.

Maybe they should've just done away with the campaign and focused entirely on the multiplayer?

 

[Kyrian007]

Over the years I've had a lot of those $10 bin finds. The latest would be "The Godfather: Blackhand Edition." It's pure catharsis, and a short little game easy to like.

 

[demotion1]

Neverwinter Nights 2. A friend recommended it and i tried it despite not liking rpg's much. This game singlehandedly changed that.

Honourable mentions: Europa Universalis 2, The Witcher

 

[Neverhoodian]

Dawn of War II. I went it going "I know absolutely nothing about Warhammer 40k and I'm bad at RTS games." I came out "I'm still a bad RTS player but...FOR THE EMPEROR!!!"

Sounds like what happened to me with the first Dawn of War game. It was a complete impulse buy, and I had no idea if I was going to like it or not. My reactions could probably be summed up with the following:

*watches intro*

Well that was...odd...Orcs with guns? What was that beefy walker thing? Were those soldiers using weaponized CHAINSAWS?!

*plays tutorial*

Whoa, these armored guys have awesome voices! It's like controlling an army of Darth Vaders!

*starts campaign*

Oh, these Orcs are called "Orks." Subtle. Wait, who are these soldiers-whoa! Did that officer just shoot one of his own men for being afraid?! That's a bit extreme! Oh now I see, those armored guys are like special troops or something. Okay, I can dig-wait, who was that shadowy figure? There's space elves too? They were manipulating the orks to fight-OH GOD WHAT-?! Daemons-blood-sacrifices-WHAT?!

*finishes campaign*

Purge the xenos! Burn the heretic! Glory to the God-Emperor of Mankind!

Not only did Dawn of War and its expansions turn out to be my favorite RTS game, but it also made me the Warhammer 40k fan I am today.

 

[Manji187]

Metro 2033. An interesting FPS for a change. Immersive atmosphere/ setting, new gameplay mechanic (mask/ timer).

 

[Barrios]

sounds crazy but I do enjoy simple online games like bubble popp =) this is the site http://www.gameduell.com/bubble-popp.html

 

[Ultress]

Scooby Doo Night of a Hundred Frights.

That shit was awesome, man.

This was one of my first PS2 games, asides from no camera control this game was best licensed Scooby Doo game to come out before P4.


OT:Wild Arms 3 picked it up for 5 dollars not expecting much and what I got was a great Wild west RPG with awesome sidequests,battles and characters.

 

[ExileNZ]

Unreal Tournament. I downloaded the demo after I got sick of playing the Quake 3 demo, and believe me I must've been pretty sick of it - as far as I was concerned, Unreal should have stayed single-player and porting it to multi was akin to sacrilege.

3 hours later it was half-past midnight and I had to admit I was kinda having fun.

Morpheus is, to this day, pretty much my favourite multiplayer level ever.
With the possible (POSSIBLE) exception of Mars Needs Women, from Marathon.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Magicka. Eufloria. Super Meat Boy. F1 2010. Puzzle Quest. Plants Vs. Zombies... To name a few. Had really low expectations, but they passed those with flying colors.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Magicka. Eufloria. Super Meat Boy. F1 2010. Puzzle Quest. Plants Vs. Zombies... To name a few. Had really low expectations, but they passed those with flying colors.

OH NO.

You had Puzzle Quest addiction!

That shit it hard to cure. Especially since they kept porting the game to everything on earth...It's TRUE video game crack.

OT:

I was shocked by Dragon Age: Origins.

I'd read about the game, and didn't really care. Then I saw it on shelves, released to little fanfare. Just popped up one day, y'know? I decided to pick it up, as Bioware hadn't let me down yet at that point.

It's quickly become my favorite Bioware game.

Even on my stupid, inferior console version.

 

[priestswearseatbelts]

double post please delete.. I had no idea the server grinds to a, near, halt. At this time of day.

 

[priestswearseatbelts]

Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain series. It changed gaming, to me, forever.

The story and, more importantly, how it is told. The twists and turns. The voice over talent. Games of this caliber are few, and far, between.


SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS


Beyond Good and Evil. For similar reasons.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Magicka. Eufloria. Super Meat Boy. F1 2010. Puzzle Quest. Plants Vs. Zombies... To name a few. Had really low expectations, but they passed those with flying colors.

OH NO.

You had Puzzle Quest addiction!

That shit it hard to cure. Especially since they kept porting the game to everything on earth...It's TRUE video game crack.

Haha, yeah.

I played it for about a week or two. Luckily the cure was found within the game; the level-scaling of enemies really diminished any feeling of progression and especially the feeling of getting more powerful[footnote]That's where loot-lover's games shine; in Diablo 2 / Titan Quest, for example, you'll every now and then face similar opponents and weaker ones to devastate, by using and admiring the power of that new skill and the magic sword-shaped herring you found moments before. Your character feels like it's growing more powerful.[/footnote]. Randomly spawning enemies on the roads grew constantly to make for more time-consuming and annoying opponents, and normal battles were often more like chores.

It probably would've been slightly less irritating up until the point when I stopped seeing any fun in it, if I had rushed through it. But that's never my style. And if a game makes you plow through it as quickly as possibly, when there's no apparent rush in itself, because of improving your character actually makes it weaker, in the sense of having progressively worse enemies; then it's doing something wrong.

There was plenty of other off-balances as well, like the unlocking mini-games of most difficult spells and overpowered spells. But I really did like the concept. And agree that it's very addictive to say the least. Huh, I guess they put those major faults in there, just to snap people out of its spell :S

 

[BENZOOKA]

Soul Reaver: Legacy of Kain series. It changed gaming, to me, forever.

The story and, more importantly, how it is told. The twists and turns. The voice over talent. Games of this caliber are few, and far, between.



Beyond Good and Evil. For similar reasons.

Fixed that for you. Quote to see the spoilering and embedding.

Welcome to the Escapist!

 

[Ihateregistering1]

For me, it was definitely X-Men Origins: Wolverine. This game had everything going against it; it was based on a movie and released to cash in on it, the movie sucked, and I figured since the movie was PG-13 you'd do nothing but fight robots in the game.

Man, was I wrong.

The game wasn't perfect, but it was a lot of fun, had amazing damage effects (watching Wolverine heal after being blasted to bits is still awesome) and gave Kratos a run for his money in the brutality department. Couple that with some awesome set piece battles and I still play it every once in a while to this day.

 

[Rayne870]

Dead Space, I was expecting the usual forgettable horror game that just throws zombies and grotesque things at me and I mow them down without really feeling a thing. But I was surprised with how much atmosphere was set up and how many times something actually did pop up and catch me off guard.

Mass Effect surprised me as well, I didn't buy it for a very long time and was leery of a new IP. When I did eventually cave I instantly became a super fan.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

The Darkness. My friend had told me about it, but we had different tastes in games, and I thought it looked cheap and would pretty mediocre.
I really enjoyed it. Interesting story, and there were lots of fun things to do in the game (like the achievement you get for kissing your girlfriend), and the action was fun. The sequences in Hell were excellent - and if there is a Hell, it would be like that. It wasn't spectacular in any profound way, but it came out as an all around really fun experience.

 

[priestswearseatbelts]

Fixed that for you. Quote to see the spoilering and embedding.

Welcome to the Escapist!

I wasn't intending to use the spoiler tags. The embedding, however, was an error. The syntax of the youtube tags is different on the escapist boards. No doubt that it is, purely, intended as a newbie trap. Since the rest of the interwebs use the standard tags.

Thanks for the help and the welcome.

 

[Apollo45]

Gotta agree with Borderlands. Bought it with my roommates because we were looking for a co-op game to play though, and it ended up being amazing.

Personally though, Minecraft really shocked me. I got it because it was $20 and a friend said it was well worth the money, plus I didn't have anything else to play at the time. Little did I know that it would turn out to be one of the most fun games I've bought, and just because I can do anything I want in it. I've been building random shit since Red Alert 1 (I'd keep from killing the AI just so I could construct my perfect base every game) and this just made doing it so much better.

 

[jawakiller]

Minecraft, of course, really shocked me. Im like "oh look at shitty graphics, what? No story? What the hell, that doesn't sound fun... Holy shit! This fucking awesome!"

Mount and Blade too. Same deal as minecraft but not as extreme.

And half-life. The first time I played that. Dang.