Games you love that nobody ever talks about

[aozgolo]

Not sure how I could forget these, but Tomba! and Tomba! 2 are some VERY excellent games worth playing. Tomba! is by far one of my favorite side-scrolling RPGs, the action and control is just perfect, so fluid and precise, and the world is a joy to explore and have fun in. It has a very interesting and quirky atmosphere that doesn't feel laden with conventional tropes.

Tomba 2 I thought didn't look as good as Tomba! with it's 3D art replacing the standard 2D sprites but I still found the game very enjoyable. Lots of puzzle solving, quests, and action. They are both amazingly fun games and I couldn't recommend them more to try!

(Tomba! is on the PSN very cheap!)

 

[Ender910_v1legacy]

I don't really hear anyone talk about Men of War or Red Orchestra 2 on here. Or much of anywhere else really, aside from gaming communities centered around those games. Nor have I heard/read anyone breathe a word about Battle for Middle Earth 2 in years.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

Nox is easily one of the top 10 games ever made. The gameplay is one of the best and most open I have ever played. The graphics were fantastic for the time, and have aged quite well. The skill curve was high. The multiplayer was literally one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had or likely will have. Diablo 2 is such garbage by comparison, I have no idea how it even competed let alone 'won.'

 

[aozgolo]

Nox is easily one of the top 10 games ever made. The gameplay is one of the best and most open I have ever played. The graphics were fantastic for the time, and have aged quite well. The skill curve was high. The multiplayer was literally one of the best gaming experiences I have ever had or likely will have. Diablo 2 is such garbage by comparison, I have no idea how it even competed let alone 'won.'

Nox's only weakpoint I felt was it's story, being rather lackluster and uninteresting but I was quite surprised by the depth the gameplay offered, and the fact that your class choice actually gave you three different experiences (still the same world but you went through the quest in a different pace with different objectives).

 

[Rip Van Rabbit]

I don't hear a gosh darn thing about Second Sight!

Sure, the aiming controls were a little wonky and it's a little painful to look at today. But besides for a few bumps and bruises, it's been awhile since I've played a game with such a captivating story, interesting little notes to read, conversations to overhear and a generally satisfying ending. Which still left me wanting more.

It still has a fond place in my heart.

Special mention goes to:

- Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee + Exodus
- Battle for Middle Earth II
- Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2

 

[laserclocks]

I have NEVER heard ANYONE mention Metal Arms:Glitch in the System before (other than myself), but it is a fantastic game. It was on the Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube and it's a hell of fun, but nobody bought it for some reason, so nobody remembers it.

 

[Signa]

People have a knack (myself included) for forgetting about No One Lives Forever and its sequel. I swear that game was ahead of the curve in so many ways that we lost 10 year of progress in shooters when Halo launched.

 

[uchytjes]

Steambot (motherfucking) Chronicles. That game had all of the sidequests. All of them. Oh, and remember how people praised Bully for having a system where charactors weren't just random NPCs? This game had that too, but IN THREE CITIES, AND SPREAD OUT BETWEEN 4 TIMES OF THE DAY. Granted, most of them seemed to be sets of twins, triplets, or even quadruplets or more, but each person had a set path for every time of day. Oh, and you had to collect them all to fill out a photo album. Oh, and lets not forget the enemy designs. Those were really amazing.

On a tangentially related note: Bully! That game was amazing, I have no idea why they have yet to make a sequel. Hell, I could go for a college themed one.

 

[the_great_cessation]

Viewtiful Joe, Zone of the Enders II: The Second Runner, Jet Force Gemini, Otogi: Myth of Demons and the Onimusha games are all titles that easily apply to the topic. However, my number one pick would be the Oddworld series. While it seems to be coming back into the public consciousness in recent years, for an extended period of time it looked as if this fantastic series of games would be lost to time - never to receive the respect they rightfully deserve. Both Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath were released to little fan fair and it seemed as if the Abe games were to be forgotten. Thankfully, discussion on the series has started to pick up but I still feel as if this series doesn't get the due it deserves as they are easily some of the most intelligent, charming and engaging games made to date.

Another big one for me is Jade Empire.The original games was one of my absolute favorite games (topped only by Psychonauts and a few multiplat titles) for the original Xbox. For all the talk that Mass Effect, Dragon Age, KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights inspire, its a real shame that more discussion isn't aimed at what is, as far as I'm concerned, Bioware's most interesting and creative IP.

 

[JagermanXcell]

MGS Peace Walker.
It had Pokemon style RPGish elements stacked on top of Metal Gear with a side dish of Monster Hunter on the side, literally fighting the monsters from MONSTER. HUNTER. You had ultimate coop weapons, one of them had you weaponize Big Boss into a human bullet, you held people up with bananas, fought spooky ghosts with CPR, flew into hay boxes like Ezio, laughed at the Rocket Peace cutscene, listened to codecs revealing that Outer Heaven was just one big frat house in the middle of the ocean, had box time with Miller, and fought Hitsune Miku Metal Gears whilst eating Doritos in a swimsuit.

Did I mention you weaponize Big Boss into a human bullet?!
;_;7

Why aren't you people gawking over this?!

 

[Eve Charm]

Who remember wild arms 3 when 1 and 2 were better ;p

To throw my two cents in, Gotcha Force. Capcom rerelease this damn game on a collection. It's basically Armored core if it was a Saturday morning cartoon show and all the mechs were different toys all with different weapons speeds and play styles. You'd make a team of a few of the hundreds you could pick from and level up and go into 3rd person armored core battles with them in like parks and kids rooms and stuff. Damn the game was good.

 

[TheMigrantSoldier]

I second MGS Peace Walker. To add, I think the story was quality work. A good companion to MGS3. I still can't believe I haven't gotten around to playing it on the 360 when I always wanted another thumbstick.

 

[Gormech]

The game is Extermination for the PS2.
It's a 3rd person survival horror done right.
Ammo is limited and enemies are hard to kill.
Health items are hidden and there's also an infection stat that can cause effects as well, curable only by medical beds with a vaccine.
The enemies are a mix between Slither and The Thing.
There is only one gun but multiple atachments for it that change it from rifle to shotgun to flamethrower and so on.

9/10 due to dialogue but other than that it's what Resident Evil's been trying to be since RE4.
But it did it right.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

*Checks with Binoculars*

Nope,not even one in sight.

*Cheks again*

Nope.Damit.

*Picks up Megaphone*

FUCKING SLY COOPER GODAMIT!

*Runs away*

Don't be so silly.

Sly was part of the PS2 Platformer Trio, and is one of the best platformers out there. Heck, the first Sly is one of my favorite games, and I'll still call it better than the other 3 any day because it uses the Saturday-Morning-Cartoon theme so well.

OT: I was going to say Persona, but a good portion of people on this site know about it and how shit it is, so I'll throw in another mention of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Picked it up for $5 and was too pleased with it. Great game.

Disgaea's another one worth mentioning. I've played every one, excluding the new one, and they're some of the niche-iest games out there. Grid-based turn combat with over-the-top action that would make Gurren Lagann blush. Not to mention the crazy situations the characters end up in. Also, I don't believe any other game in existence lets you use a horse wiener as an item.

Other mentions go to Okami, God Hand, and the Time Splitters games.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

I never see anyone ever talk about the Rune Factory series of games. While the first one was a bit slow and flawed, and the second has its own problems, but the third.... oh gosh... Rune Factory 3 is fantastic, it's so funny and fun and entertaining. You have a witch practicing medicine with a syringe trumpet contraption, whether people are actually sick or not, a mermaid that's a true cloud cuckoolander through and through, a brother and sister that begin their mornings by telling each other how sad they are to go about their day without them and how much they love each other, a girl that's so unmotivated and lazy that about the only thing to get her motivated is the prospect of being more lazy, a girl that shouts RAINBOW all the time, a man that speaks in opposites, a girl that designs clothes out of food. I just love the characters.

And the gameplay is nothing to snort at either, pretty much anything you do adds to your stats so even if you're more interested in fighting, doing things like pharmacy, smithing, sleeping, walking (Yes, really), all of those things improve your stats. And there's so many weapons to choose from too. And as for the meat of the Harvest Moon series, I quite enjoy that as well, waking up in the morning, watering the various plants in your garden, feeding your monsters. Ah yes, if you don't know about the series, you don't technically have animals but instead recruit monsters that can help fight or work on your farm for you in various ways depending on what kind they are.

There's just sooooo much stuff in the game and it's so entertaining... and yet no one talks about it!

 

[Ryleh]

Warlords III: Darklords Rising

That game ate up so much of my childhood. If I could get a copy now I probably wouldn't finish my masters...

Spoiler

 

[Exhuminator]

 

[josemlopes]

Why aren't you people gawking over this?!

I think more people would be if like 75% of the content wasnt hidden, I "finished" the game and barelly unlocked any gear and even after the real ending I still had a shit load of things to do.

Its certainly a good game (really hated the story though) but a lot of it is most likely only going to be played by people that are really into it.

OT: Timesplitters and Second Sight, TS still gets some love here and there but it deserves a lot more and SS just disapeared into darkness, it has one of the best plot twists out there since it doesnt insult the player and actually makes sense.