Great games you found by accident

[Ljs1121]

Just Cause and Assassin's Creed. Both of them belonged to my nephew and when I got an Xbox 360 for Christmas he let me borrow them. This eventually paved the way for me discovering what would become two of my favorite games of all time, namely Just Cause 2 and Assassin's Creed 2.

 

[nathan-dts]

DJ Hero, I knew of it, but hadn't exactly been subject to any advertisements or recommendations to buy it. Saw it in Tesco for £20. It came with the first and second games as well as the turntables. I don't like music, let alone rhythm games. Only bought it cause I thought it'd be funny to carry a large box around college for the day. Game was suprisingly good.

 

[Bagged Milk]

Jak and Daxter, it came for free with my ps2 and it was the first game to REALLY get me into gaming.

 

[The Headcrab Farmer]

Medal of Honor Warchest, hot fucking dang. This was when i was a youngster without any game sites or magazines to browse through and no bootcamped mac to be able to have any sort of big libraries to choose from (or to buy stuff for a good price). Had saved up 500 kr (~?50) and was torn between Warchest and CoD 2 till my dad suggested warchest since it had 3 games instead of 1. Took it home, installed it, and god damn i have never played something like it. The variety, first you're on a covert rescue mission in North Africa, then i am infiltrating a submarine harbor dressed as an officer and then participates in the landing on omaha beach in just the first 3 chapters! And the expansions, They compressed the best of 3 chapters each and turned the awesome up to 11!

Doshin the giant, cute little thing, old GC game i picked up just because of its 3 for 2 offer and it's so.... cute. Going around on the little island as the Bananas in pajamas cousin was so nice.

I want to say Kane and Lynch: Dead Men too, since the only things that caught my eye were a bad review and "at least it aint Kane and Lynch!" jokes before actually buying it on a sale and.. i loved it. Stiff yes, but the story was awesome, i genuinely cared for Kane and Lynch while they were running across the globe in search for Kane's daughter and it all felt so real since shit went from bad to worse without a happy ending pulled out the arse ruining it. Can't wait for KaL 3.

 

[Swifteye]

Sakura wars so long my love for Playstation 2. I was looking for a RPG to play. I mean I don't play games like Skyrim or disgea they just don't gel my interest despite being very well made. So I have a hard time looking for the next good roleplaying game to pick up and play.

While I was at gamestop. I see this game sitting on the shelf. It wasn't just sitting in a case though. It had it's own box. That drew interest immediately. The thing about RPGs though. Especially the eastern developed ones. The story will often be medicore dressing for the combat system which isn't as inventive as it wants to be.

I read the flavor text on the back and it says that it removes the grinding in games by having you gain stats through conversing with your teammates. The stronger the relationship. The stronger the player and the allies get. So I'm hearing "Multi choice game, Dialogue heavy scenes, and game play that's direct and focused on events rather than dungeon crawling."

SOUNDS GOOD. Too me at least. I just got done playing some game called Adventures To Go. It was awful. The writing was weak, the dungeon system convoluted, and the game mechanics were breathtakingly tepid.

Sorry Persona people. Disgea blokes. I don't want to grind for hours. I got a cap. If I can't catch up and stay caught up by grinding for five levels. I don't want to play this game. You'd have to have a hell of a story to keep me around.

So yeah. Sakura wars wasn't this. So when I actually started playing it I was like "Good lord there is so much talking. I can hear yathzee's hate all the way from brisbane." First pitch though it hit me up with something interesting. You get timed multi choice questions. And Not answering any of them. Is also a choice. There is also a emphasis choice in which you can gauge how much emphasis your character gives on the certain phrase or action.
That's good, that's nice. I like that. It's all right with me. But what really sold the game. Wasn't that it eventually led into fun action sequences. But that the characters were AMAZING. It seems like every other day someone is talking about how terribly women are represented in video games. This game has the best cast of females I have ever seen.
They were like real people. Not female characters. People. By the time I was done I loved all those women.

The thing that blows me away is that it took this long to find this game. I hate that it's become a real thing to where if games have too much story content and not enough game play. It becomes a battle for validation in the eyes of the community.
Sakura wars gave me a great time and that's all I ever wanted.

 

[anthony87]

Ronin Blade(aka Soul of the Samurai)

A survival horror/hack and slash action game set in a Japanese fiefdom where you play as a Ronin returning to his hometown and Ninja searching for her lost brother through parallel and eventually converging stories. You start off fighting basic swordsman mooks and as the game progresses you start fighting off monsters and mutants and shit.

Picked it up randomly one day when I was like 11 simply because it was the only game in the pre-owned section I could afford that day. Ended up becoming one of my favourite Playstation 1 games.

The soundtrack was absolutely bitchin' too:

 

[Mirroga]

I simply went to The Escapist just for Yahtzee. Now I was simply bored and looked at the reviews they made. Due to that, I discovered Frozen Synapse and Warp, games I thoroughly love. Also big thanks to Extra Punctuation for making me discover Binding of Isaac and Bastion.

 

[moostar]

Zeno clash, Onlive was having a sale a week ago, and they were giving this game out for free... best beat'em up game I've played so far.

 

[Dfskelleton]

Beneath a Steel Sky was given to me free with my GOG account.
Best $0.00 I've spent in my entire life.

Also, I did find an old survival horror game for the PS1 called "Martian Gothic: Unification", which I thought was going to be bad (so I could make fun of it), but while it turned out to be pleasant overall (if a bit disappointing towards the end), the thing I couldn't get over was how absolutely awesome Karne's voice actor was.
I had a theory that he was sent to Mars not because he was one of the best people for the job, but because they had to get him off of the Earth because whenever he spoke, everyone within hearing distance would go into a trance and start taking their clothes off.

 

[Autumnflame]

Vampire bloodlines. i was exceedingly surprised hoe good it was.

 

[unstabLized]

Ah man there's lots. In the PS2 era too. One would be Ace Comnbat 4:Shattered Skies. That game, along with Ace combat 5 and Zero, became one of my all time favourite games. You have no idea how much i love those games.

Another would be True Crime: NYC. My dad brought it home one day. I got so hooked, I finished the game,including doing all side missions,races,etc. at least 5 times.

Another was Midnight Club 2, which also got me hooked to the series, and got me to my beloved Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition. My cousin brought MC2 when he visited from Canada for vacation, and I got so hooked to it. Same thing happened with Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne.

Guitar Hero was another. Played it at my cousins back when GH2 was brand new. Promised myself to get a copy no matter what.

Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault and the very first Call of Duty. Both my dad got because back when I was little, he'd play these games with me. He liked war games best. We loved those games so much. Played it many times. I begged him one day that I didn't have school, for him to call in sick, and we just played games all day. Good memories.

 

[Lokoloshe]

Well pretty much every game I had before the advent of the internet. You know... look at box art, skim through the description on the back and finally hope you had enough of your allowance left to buy it.

The one I remember most fondly is one time I had to accompany my dad on a business trip to Brussels and while he was at his meetings I decided to walk around the aimlessly just checking out the sights. I noticed a small game store on the second story of a building and since I was just killing time, figured I'd check it out. I took my time looking around before getting to the used game bin. I see this black box with a big ship on it's cover that grabs my attention, after perusing the back I'm intrigued and taking advantage of the reduced price I take it with me.

That game was Homeworld. To this day it's my favorite space RTS.

 

[Dethenger]

The Saboteur

loved the game... pity this was the game that shut Pandemic down :*(

Another for The Saboteur. Can't even remember how I came across a trailer for it, only that I didn't know about it prior and wanted it immediately.

 

[Dr Jones]

I've always thought that god had some sort of greater plan for me and Metal Gear Solid (even though I don't believe in the presence of a god, I am willing to let him exist in this case, just to bring more rad-ness to my story).

Anyhow, Metal Gear Solid 1 was one of the first games I have ever played, back in the good o'l days of PS1. The farthest I made it was about after Meryl had taken Johnny's clothes, and you stare at her ass (and see Psycho Mantis, but who cares about that? MERYL'S ASS!)

Skip forward some years later, I'm playing PS2 and I have become quite the little gamer by this point. While on vacation (somewhere I have NO clue of where is) my family and I visit one of my father's old friends from school, who he hasn't seen for some time. Apparently this fellow is a PS2 gamer (not avid, just a few games a year) and set me to play Metal Gear Solid 2, to beat a boss (who he was so sure would be impossible for me, as he had been trying for ages. The boss was Fatman, by the way.) Within about 10 minutes, I had beaten the boss, and my father's friend gave the game to me 'cause he couldn't play it with the fact that he had a 7-8 year old kid help him.

Skip forward a few years, I'm a Metal Gear Solid fan, but have yet to play MGS3, even a year after it's release. Me and some of my friends go to this flea-market ages from my house, it was rather big and I just happened to find "Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater".

Fast forward a few years, I absolutely love MGS, and I just happen to see Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence in the library which I go to. I borrow it and play it again, as if it was MGS3 all over again (But with proper good 3rd person).

Fast forward to last year. I got myself a PS3, after I had sold my Xbox (because I wanted a change, and I played less and less console, so Live was being a burden on me). The first game I got was "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" (Along with a Blu-Ray edition of "I'm Not There", which surprised the clerk (apparently Bob and PS3 is a strange combi for her)). MGS4 was also the first store-bought MGS I've ever had (well except for Portable Ops, but I don't count that in here).

Fast forward to two days ago, I got m'self MGS HD collection and can now judge 2-3 fairly. I always did say that MGS2 was the best (because I played the everloving FUCK out of it), but I have to admit that looking at it now, MGS3 is just superior (especially with 3rd person, but even without it, its just a pleasurable game.

I love MGS.

 

[Beautiful End]

Off the top of my head, Dragon Age: Origins. My friend who works at GameStop literally brainwashed me to buy the game. I gotta admit; he made a pretty solid argument about why I'd like that game (I like RPGs, character development, different classes, not Elder Scrolls, etc).
I hated myself for falling for his sales pitch so I abandoned the game on my car's back seat for months until the day I had to clean up my car and I was forced to take it out.

By then, it had been a few months after I bought it so I couldn't even return it. It wasn't even that expensive, but still. So without any other choice left, I decided to give it a shot. And holy mother of Jeebuz, it is one of my favorite games ever! Seriously, I haven't finished it yet or anything but I absolutely love it! Now I trust my friend whenever he recommends me a game. I'm just grateful he introduced me to it.

Also, Final Fantasy VIII. I got it as a Xmas present when I was 14. The only RPG I had played at the time was Pokemon and I wasn't even entirely aware I was playing a RPG. So I named it "Pokemon for grown ups". I immediately fell in love with the fancy graphics and the music and that made me kept playing the game. Soon, I fell in love with the game and I played it nonstop. It was the only RPG ever that I've managed to collect everything and level up every single thing that can be leveled up in that game.
I doubt my parents even knew what they gave me but I'm grateful they did anyway.

 

[rhyno435]

Just Cause 2, a year and a half ago. I'd seen the Zero Punctuation review, but I never really looked into it. I saw it at an EB Games one day for $30. I thought, "Eh, this could be fun. I mean, Yahtzee liked it".

Got home, played it, kept playing it, kept playing it. To this day I still haven't done more than three missions. I just go around blowing stuff up and doing hilarious things and recording video clips (awesome feature).

I remember spending a full day playing that game, just at the airport finding different ways to crash planes on the runway. And this was about two weeks before I went on a plane for the first time in real life.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

2. Demonstone - Mind you, this wasn't as great as Guilty Gear...but its still great. It was SO by accident in fact, that I didn't bother looking for screenshots (We don't have an Internet Connection at the time)...the game isn't much, but for what I played it on (An old Pentium 4, with 384 MB RAM)...the game LOOKED great, and I enjoyed most of the psuedo RPG elements of the game.

While scrolling to the page I saw this and thought it said 'Deathstroke'. I now want nothing more than to play a game revolving around Deathstroke...like Punisher on the Xbox/PS2 only with melee combat (because swords). Sad now...and angry because Liefeld! WHY IS HE STILL GETTING WORK!?

...

sorry...Anyway, Otogi Myth of Demons. There were two in the series and as far as I remember they were exclusive to the Xbox. Otogi Myth of Demons centered around Raiko, who went through relatively large, completely destructible levels fighting against demons and, yokai on a quest to save trapped souls and bring Feudal Japan out of a dark age...I think...I haven't played the game in ages.

It basically combined the gameplay of Devil May Cry and, Onimusha with Zelda-sized boss fights but also added in things like platforming and destructible stages like a pagoda which could be torn the fuck up. If Otogi was allowed to have survived I'm sure an Xbox 360 version would have had fully destructible set pieces (the aforementioned pagoda couldn't actually crumble and fall for example). Wanna see a couple of the bosses you fight?

Recurring rival/antithesis boss guy

Electric Morpheel/centipede thing.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Crusader Kings II
Eufloria
Solar 2

 

[Terratina.]

Also Folklore for PS3. Remember that one? Travelling to the netherworld and battling souls of dead people. Also Ireland.

I just listed Folkore and Resonance of Fate on my christmas list for that year, which had many things: clothes, books, games, etc. My nan randomly chooses what she buys on the list and just so happened to choose to buy those two games.

I played them and enjoyed them very much.

[sub]If I keep going on, on these games and their greatness, I'll probably have to LP them at some stage....[/sub]

 

[metalslug10]

Bit.trip .... life changing game