Games Which *Weren't* Well Reviewed/Liked...But You Liked Anyway.

[BarbaricGoose]

Halo: ODST, baby.

It wasn't really poorly reviewed, but as I recall most people thought it was one of the worse Halos. I, however, thought it was one of the most atmospheric and enjoyable shooters I've played. The story was interesting, and a new perspective on the Halo universe, and it had an amazing score--which is saying something for a Halo game, since they've had all great music.

...I wanna play it again.

Honorable mention to Heavy Rain. I recall it getting generally good reviews, but people on this forum seem to really fucking hate it. Guess it's just one of this forum's kinks, like how every now & then we'll get a month that's nothing but threads about sexism.

 

[Chris Umstadter]

Kane and Lynch, either one. I feel like this is one of most misunderstood pair of games here, because it's like playing Bad Lieutenant. Everyone who complains that the characters are unlikable and the stories are always downers that are populated with repugnant people doing terrible things... that's the point. You're not supposed to like them, you're not supposed to identify with them, they are career criminals- broken, sad, lonely people who hurt everyone that they care about. But I think that's where an element of interactivity serves to contradict the bleak nihilism that both games seem to revel in and make the story such an interesting character study- people seem to want protagonists that they can still feel good about, even though they don't do anything different from Kane and Lynch- in GTA, you murder hundreds of guys, in the Kane and Lynch series, you murder hundreds of guys. I can respect both of the K&L games because they strip the veneer of "WHEEEEEEEEE kill hookers and fire rocket launchers at police helicopters" hyper-violent escapism that populates a lot of AAA gaming these days. Mechanically, they had their problems, but as stories about how career criminals and hyper-violence (no different from many games), they had the stones to portray the world that low to mid level career criminals occupy- rough, jagged, brutal, and paved with broken lives.

 

[DeimosMasque]

Deapool, WET, RE5, RE6 and Mass Effect 3 (Yes, even the ending)

Deapool was considered average at best, but I honestly found it to be a really fun game that kept me entertained up until the end. My only complaints was a SINGLE bullshit boss fight and somewhat repetitive set of mook enemies. To me this was one of the best comic video games based on a single character.

WET was also average at best but I found the game a lot of fun and loved the bullet time and arena battles. I found myself replaying the game over and over again trying to does though arena battles better than the last. The soundtrack was also kick ass! Instant death quicktime events was bullshit.

Resident Evil 5&6 where both HUGE departures from the normal series but I really enjoyed both of them. Especially fun to play couch co-op (which is sort of necessary considering the bad companion AI.) Yeah they were departure to the survival horror aspects but let's all be honest, those were dead after Resident Evil 4. I saw a set of decent stories and some good characterization and it kept me in the games.

Mass Effect 3. Yeah I loved this game, while critically acclaimed, let's face it... it's the biggest one. The game that was supposedly sucked despite good reviews. While yeah I was mad about the Prothean being a $10 download... I actually like the original ending. Yeah it was just a color palette swap but the ending made me think and made me want to discuss. While I didn't hate the new endings, I do feel like it tore away the discussion to much in the name of "keeping the fans happy."

 

[Nikolaz72]

Divinity Dragon Commander. I enjoyed it more than its generally average reviews <_<.

Might and Magic IX. Don't get wrong, it's a disaster- but with the fanpatches I still genuinly enjoyed it, it seems as if it was indeed a product of the people who made the Might and Magic 6 through 8, and those hold a special place in my heart.

Empire Total War. My dear lord was this game not well recieved, it was the Rome2 total war of its day. But I enjoy it far better than Napoleon or indeed Rome 2, though Shogun 2 is better quality I have even spent more time on that than Shogun 2. I just really like the period, and it's still an epic scaled game.

 

[DOOM GUY]

Hyperdimension Neptunia series - Not the best games out there (especially the first one) but I absolutely love them, the characters are very funny and awesome, and the story, though not necessarily great, is very neat.

Naughty Bear - Heard a lot of bad things about this, and yeah, it does have some issues, especially when it comes to the camera, but it's just really fun, and the concept is totally awesome, I mean, come on, how does a teddy bear going on a violent rampage against the other teddies not sound cool?

Final Fantasy XIII - It reviewed well enough, but as you probably know, most user reviews gave it pretty low scores, and it's probably the most disliked Final Fantasy game. I can see why people dislike it, and it certainly is flawed, but I still thought it was pretty decent.

Resident Evil 6 - Not horror at all, but I had fun with it.

 

[Kyrian007]

Unless the review is written by Yhatzee, no it doesn't happen to me. Except for Yhatzee I seem to be harder on most games than reviewers. The closest I get to "liked a game with bad reviews" maybe Metroid: Other M.

But not really. I still found it to be the worst of the series so far, but mainly because of the regenerating health, badly executed and pointless first person "investigation" sequences, and the wasted potential for a "prime series style" scanner making a good "mystery" sequence out of the whole wasted "deleter" thread that went nowhere. The story droned on a bit, true; but if I can stand Metal Gear Solid series then Other M was a cakewalk. "Oh my goodness, the voice acting is bad..." again gee, If I can't get past bad voice acting it'd be hard to like MOST games. And finally "they totally got Samus wrong." To which the answer is no, if you think that you are a crybaby whining that the way they went with the character wasn't what YOU imagined Samus to be.

But even so, it doesn't really qualify because of a variety of other issues with it I still didn't "like" the game. For me, most of the time the reviewers get it right. If anything they are too nice and need to be harsher, like actually giving games a 1 or 2 rating out of 10 as opposed to "didn't like it" earning a 7.

And as far as popularity... what the gaming public as a whole likes is a hell of a lot less critical than I am. I can't stand MMO's or MMS' or MOBA's, they're all crap. I hated Borderlands until I played Borderlands 2, when I thought "wow, the first one wasn't this terrible, maybe it wasn't so bad after all."

So to answer the topic's question... no that doesn't happen to me much. Maybe with Rogue Trip, can't remember how well it was recieved though.

 

[feeback06]

Dragon Age 2. Aside from the review here on the Escapist, Dragon Age 2 was, for the most part, panned across the board, but I loved the game. I understand the criticisms: Criminally overused dungeons, boring city, a huge step back in terms of scale from Origins, and I get them, but the game was still pretty fun. I felt that there was a huge improvement to combat, especially in terms of animations, the companions were a bunch of fun, especially Varric and Isabella, and despite the step back in terms of scale, the story was still a blast, especially acts 2 and 3 of the game. Could there have been improvements? Hell yes, but the game was enjoyable.

This is pretty much my exact answer. I loved how involved the combat felt and I enjoyed the cast far better then the group in Origins.

 

[Casual Shinji]

God, nothing really. I guess I'm pretty well represented be most reviews out there.

Maybe Dragon's Dogma, but then I'm fully aware of the problems this game has, and understand many people's unwillingness to see past that.

I'm sure there's plenty of games I like that aren't that popular, but I can't think of any titles that didn't have at least a handful positive reviews.

 

[Jeezy56]

It's got to be Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket Powered Battle Cars (SARPBC), an indie game by Psyonix for the PS3. As far as I know it didn't get any decent reviews, but the reason for that is that you need to spend a while in the game for it to become fun rather than just frustratingly difficult. SARPBC is a car football (soccer) game where the cars have rockets so you are able to fly around to hit the ball when it's up high and requires a lot of skill and I think most reviewers didn't give it the time because you can sink hours and hours into it once you pass the threshold of understanding the techniques - especially split screen with some friends and beer. However the game always suffered a bit because it didn't have dedicated servers so lag was always a problem online.

But the game gathered a small if extremely loyal fan base and the devs are making a sequel - more just a graphical update with extra features and dedicated servers - for the PC and probably PS4 a bit later. The alpha test finished a month ago and I sunk a couple of hundred hours into it already, so looking forward to the final version! I think SARPBC is REALLY cheap on PSN if you want to check it out.

 

[small]

Ive seen empire total war and alpha protocol mentioned and i agree with both of those. alpha protocol is still bugging and has some bad gameplay elements but damn its my favourite RPG and empire well its epic in scope and a personal scope

my own contribution would be two worlds.. it has the single worst voice acting ive heard in a game with a fake medieval thing going on (forsooth tis a truly shitty choice) crappy main quest that just sort of ends when you dont expect it. that said its an open world game thats damn stable, a brilliant way to handle loot you find to improve your weapons, etc and an interesting way of creating different spells

 

[veloper]

How many of these "poorly" reviewed games here have generally received really harsh criticism?

The PC version of Alpha Protocol for example, has a score of 72% on metacritic which means most reviewers still said it was decent to good.
I still think that is a little generous even.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Probably my second favorite game in its series, but many fans hated it with a passion.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney

Probably my second favorite game in its series, but many fans hated it with a passion.

I think that was because, at that time, Apollo really didn't have much of a character arc. He was perceived as just a Phoenix wright wannabe, I suppose. Dual Destinies, though, really brought out the character that Apollo is. I liked him a hell of a lot more, that's for sure.

OT: Wild ARMs 1. It wasn't that it wasn't reviewed or received poorly, it's that it came out at roughly the same time Final Fantasy 7 did...and got completely overshadowed by it. IMO, Wild ARMs 1 had the better story and better music. Hell, Wild ARMs 1 intro alone outshines anything I ever heard before in gaming. I consider it a BLASPHEMY to skip that intro, it is that beautiful.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

The 3rd Birthday. I wasn't actually sure how well it was received so I checked Metacritic. 71 metascore but only 5.9 user score.

It's a 3rd person shooter with lock on. It's a sequel that has nothing to do with the previous instalments (including characters that have had complete personality overhauls). It has a story that starts of interesting but ends up getting really stupid. Despite all that, I liked it.

Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded. Yes the story was pretty much inconsequential, but the gameplay was so damn fun. What's more they actually experimented a bit. A sidescrolling level, a dungeon with turn based combat, a space harrier style rail shooter. These all might seem like gimmicks but they were all done well and never overstayed their welcome. The command system was based off Birth By Sleep (which I love) and levelling up your character had a surprising amount of flexibility. Kind of like in 358/2 Days but not shit. Overall I had a lot of fun with it.

 

[xPixelatedx]

Metroid Other M was alright.

Not the best Metroid game, but certainly not the worse like so many say. The story and characters were terrible, thankfully thats the last thing I care about. I found the actual game part of this videogame to be far more enjoyable then most the Prime games. It was everything I thought it would be, a slightly easier Ninja gaiden with a Metroid skin. It has a huge selection of enemies and bosses, and fighting them was actually enjoyable, unlike the slow, cumbersome combat of the prime games which is just slow paced FPS stuff.

When I remember playing Super Metroid, I remember the combat being frantic and when Metroid first made it's way to 3D I wanted that to be translated to. So far Other M is the only 3D metroid that feels like I am controlling Samus, and not a giant mech underwater.

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

hm... the following PS3 games: Bioshock 2, Dragon Age 2, X-men Destiny,Hyperdimension Neptunia Victory, Bleach Soul Resurreccion, Spider-man Web of Shadows,Dragon Ball Burst Limit, Red Faction Armageddon... and on Gamecube: Robotech Battle Cry, Teen Titans, Batman Vengeance.. oh and C-12 Final Resistance on PS1

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Out of all of the 3D Sonic games, I've only beaten 2 to 100%: Sonic Adventure and, Sonic the Hedgehog on the 360. Of those two, I felt more satisfied beating Sonic 06. There's also Final Fantasy X which I think people would call the best of the bad Final Fantasy games but I genuinely enjoyed my time with it. I loved the battle system, I liked the characters, I liked the plot and, I liked the world. I didn't like that it was so linear but hey, they give you an Airship at the end and it's not like any other Final Fantasy was truly open...I don't remember going right to Casa del Soul from Midgar or, going right to Treno from the Dark Forest or whatever.

 

[Daft Ada]

I had quite a few Wii games that were largely ignored by other gamers. Stuff like Little King's Story, Zack & Wiki, Fragile Dreams, and Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World. I also loved Final Fantasy Crystal Bearers which got panned by critics. Reviews were pretty harsh on Red Steel too, and I found it really enjoyable once I got my head around the controls, and the awful first level.

More recently, Final Fantasy 13-2 really resonated with me, even though I found XIII boring as hell, the sequel really grabbed me. Might have been down to the monster training.