Have you ever bought a game you knew nothing about and upon playing it found it to be AWESOME?

[Samurai Silhouette]

Xbox / 360
Halo: CE when it first came out.
First Mass Effect
Half Life 2
Morrowind
Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders
Phantasy Star Online

Saturn
Guardian Heroes
Dragon Force
Shining Force 3
Robopit

And a lot more.
Yeah, I'm pretty ignorant before I make my purchases.

 

[Puzzlenaut]

I had £70 to spend in some shop that was closing down within the week, so I picked up Oblivion, Mirror's Edge and Dead Space.

I had heard quite a lot about Oblivion, and it was the one I expected to be the best, but in the end Mirror's Edge and Dead Space turned out to be two of my favourite games EVER despite the fact that I had barely heard of Mirror's Edge and NEVER heard of Dead Space AT ALL.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Hmm...Prince of Persia: Sands of Time? I think I read something about it somewhere, though I'm not sure what. I guess I'll try it out.

Spoiler: End Result

This. Just this. It's one of the best games on the PS2, with actually likable characters, smooth platforming and an interesting story (although the ending does seem a little rushed).

 

[Soulpunch]

GTA 3, My First game On the PS 2. And In my top 3 games from the PS 2.

 

[vid87]

Mine was a happy accident:

I had just discovered Final Fantasy 7 and was getting into RPGs, but I always rented it, never bought it (until much later). One day, I asked one of my parents when they were going out to pick it up from the rental store. By mistake, they got Final Fantasy Tactics (whatever, it happens ).

How much do I love Tactics now? Someone once offered me $100 for it: I refused.

 

[Kungfu_Teddybear]

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Mount and Blade.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Rome: Total War. I played the demo for Medieval 1 and really liked it. I saw Rome at a store and went for it. A few thousand hours later, I am a huge TW fan, excluding Empire and Napoleon.

I saw some footage of Mount&Blade online and was intrigued. I got the demo (which is the full game with a level limit), and shortly after I bought it, then instantly bought Warband when released, then instantly bought WF&S when it was released. As long as they keep making them, they will keep getting my money.
Total War and M&B have taken thousands upon thousands of hours of my life over the years. If I had all the hours I spent on them back, I'd spend them playing those games.

 

[Undercover]

Penumbra.

I was bored silly one weekend so I went to my usual store looking for a new, preferably cheap PC game, and when I picked up Penumbra: Overture, I was instantly intrigued.

I've always loved horror games, & this one seemed to be somewhat of an enigma, as even the guys at the store were like, "I don't know man, it just sort of showed up in our inventory, none of us has played it yet..." Which, if my life was a movie, would mean that the game was actually some kind of key to a dimensional portal, placed surreptitiously in local mom & pop video game stores with the sole intent of finding the one who can unlock it's secrets and free the evil overlord and their demonic horde...

But this just turned out to be a really cool game from Frictional [http://www.penumbragame.com/ageGate.php].

I loved the dark atmosphere and the lack of weapons or obvious routes/objects/hints, which reminded me of a long lost classic, Out of This World [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/tag/out%20of%20this%20world?from_search=1], which I was hopelessly addicted to back in my Sega Genesis days.

The gameplay was smooth, the story full of twists and turns, the atmosphere was dark and foreboding, and despite a few frustrating moments of back and forth type missions, had a pretty good pace. It's one of those games that makes you think rather than just blow shit up, and the answer to every problem requires both abstract and analytical thinking.

The graphics aren't all that great, and the soundtrack gets kind of irritating after a while, but Penumbra is definitely on my list of unexpected game gold. Amnesia, Dark Descent by the same studio is pretty damn good, too.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the sequels, Penumbra: "Black Plague" and "Requiem" are also both as good (Black Plague will scare the shit out of you) if not better than the original...

 

[Njae]

Psychonauts, just knew it was a Tim Schafer game.
Recettear
and today Dungeons of Dredmor, such a wonderful and humorous game.

 

[Ickorus]

I bought S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl from a bargain bin a long time ago because it looked OK, it turned out to be completely different to what I expected but I definitely wasn't disappointed even if the game is pretty buggy.

 

[Kevon Huggins]

singularity
had like 10 dollars after i both fallout GOTY
Best 10 bucks i ever spent

 

[Drummie666]

Crysis 2
Perhaps not an "AWESOME" game, but well above average.

I was in the damn store wondering what I should get. My mind pretty much settled on Black Ops, then I saw Crysis 2, remembered the legend of the first and thought "What the hell."

I later tried Black Ops on loan from a friend and found out that I made the right call. BlOps was awful.

 

[NellNell]

For me it would be Chrono Trigger DS.

I had never heard of this game and when I couldn't decide between that or Final Fantasy 4 the dude at GameStop told me that Chrono Trigger was good as well. I gave it a shot and I think as we all know its an amazing game. Still haven't beaten it though.

 

[FallenTraveler]

Amnesia: The Dark Descent. All I knew was that people were raving about it. I bought it on a steam sale for 10 bucks. Best 10 bucks ever.

When I got the orange box I only intended to play the halflife games and portal. I did not know I would fall so madly in love with tf2. I was like 14 at the time and very much a singleplayer only kind of guy.

 

[Ace of Spades]

That's the story of how Shadow of the Colossus and I became acquainted.

 

[SiegeJack]

I'd gone to a local EB for some game, or maybe to trade some in. Or something. Anyways, as I wandered about trying to find something thata caught my eye, my mother called me over and pointed to a game. That game was Ghosthunter. I fell in love with it damn-near-instantly. Infact, I wrote the original Ghosthunter wikipedia page.

Other great games include: Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies, Resident Evil: Outbreak + File 2, Code Veronica X, MGS3, SW Battlefront 2 and many others.

 

[Xian_Frost]

A game that I personally love would be Okage Shadow King. I found an advert for it a very old copy of Game Informer and I got it cheaply. Too bad the company folded, there was a sequel hook after the credits.

 

[SpaceBat]

This. Just this. It's one of the best games on the PS2, with actually likable characters, smooth platforming and an interesting story (although the ending does seem a little rushed).

Huh? What?
Could you please elaborate?