Name an underrated game/game franchise.

[NinjaDeathSlap]

Simple enough. It doesn't necessarily have to be the game or franchise that you feel is most underrated, just to give you more options.

I'm going to say the HAWX games. The first game was actually a whole lot of fun. True, its story was retarded, but it was done in a sort of deliberately camp, Top Gun kind of way which worked for me; and it felt a bit, cheap, in places with some ideas not being fully realised. Mind you, for a brand new IP in a niche market you can't expect a AAA development budget.

It was only last week that I found out that they'd released a sequel (no idea when), and considering I enjoyed the first one and that it was on sale for £12 I thought I might as well get it, and it is very, very good indeed. It's a near perfect example of what a sequel should be. Taking what worked from the first game and expanding on it, rather than just stagnating it. There are lots of great new features, the dog fighting is as fun and challenging as it ever was, it looks fantastic and in general its just a much more polished experience. I also like how they tie in the story to the already established Ghost Recon franchise as well. I know a 'Tom Clancy expanded universe' might not be everyone's thing, but for what it's worth I think that it's a good idea. Perhaps adding to this would give other, older franchises that have seen their best days come and go *cough Splinter Cell cough* a new lease of life.

So yeah, HAWX was fun, and HAWX 2 is brilliant, but apart from me and my brother I know of no-one else who plays it. Even I never knew they were making a sequel, let alone when it was coming out. That's why I consider it my underrated franchise of the moment. What's yours?

 

[consolemasterrace]

i feel call of duty is seriously under-rated... it doesn't get the spotlight it deserves, especially MW3 what with BF3 stealing the limelight.

 

[Hal10k]

Siege of Avalon.

Not the greatest game in terms of actual mechanics, but definitely one of the best stories I've played to date. One of the few games I've ever played that actually got me to empathize with the antagonists without feeling like a dirtbag for killing them. The studio responsible disbanded shortly after the full version was released. Life ain't fair.

 

[Octobot888]

Well, I've always thought that the EarthBound series was very underrated, especially considering that only one game out out of three was released in North America. There were plans to localize the first game on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1991 but it was scrapped due to the release of a new system, the Super Nintendo. After that, the second game was released in North America during 1995, but sold way less than Nintendo expected. The fact that it sold so little most likely caused the third and final installment in the series, which was released on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance in 2006, to stay in Japan only.

 

[Caffeine_Bombed]

'Getting Up' for the oringinal Xbox.
It had a fairly ridiculous plot and sometimes the combat could be frustrating, but overall I actually really enjoy that game.
I like how you weren't limited to just spray painting on everything, and a lot of the designs of the grafitti were pretty impressive.
Great soundtrack too!

 

[Gorilla Gunk]

MAG and Bulletstorm come to mind: Two great FPS's that should have done a lot better.

I think people (me included at first) were turned off by MAG's less-than-stellar visuals and Bulletstorm's marketing making it look like a dude-bro game.

 

[Terminate421]

I think I win at this:

I'm like one of the few people who appreciates its existance, though the first one had probobly the worst story I've ever seen (Sonic on the 360 was the worst ever but the first mystery dungeon was just plain ass)

The only thing that seems to be its weakness is its gameplay, it can be repetitive but at times it can be hectic. I just hope the Naonogua's Ambition is the dream pokemon game I've been waiting for (fighting as pokemon on a plain like setting rather than taking turns, though turn based does work amazingly well for the series)

 

[Aur0ra145]

B-17 Flying Fortress: The Mighty Eighth
DCS: A-10C

There are a lot of flight sims out there that I feel are grossly underrated. B-17 was a game I could play, and still play for hours. Also, DCS is bomb.

 

[Fleetfiend]

I've never heard anyone else talk about Rogue Galaxy for the PS2... but it's one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and I felt like it was pretty innovative and a helluva lot of fun.

 

[Caffeine_Bombed]

I've never heard anyone else talk about Rogue Galaxy for the PS2... but it's one of my favorite RPGs of all time, and I felt like it was pretty innovative and a helluva lot of fun.

Damn, I forgot about that! Totally agree with you there. I picked up a display copy for like 15 bucks at the store in town thinking "Screw it, there's nothing else here" and it was fantastic! Had a nice story, good combat system... Even just little things like unlocking new costumes.
Definately recommend that to any RPG fans =)

 

[The Madman]

Age of Wonders series. Did fairly well and is fondly remembered by many but still I wish it had become bigger. Heroes of Might & Magic meets Civilization? Yes!

 

[dave1004]

Either Legend of Dragoon, or C(h?)rono Cross. Really, both good games. The hate that they get is crazily unreasonable...

Also: Dwarf Fortress. Heh-eh.

Don't really know many others...

 

[crono738]

Either Legend of Dragoon, or C(h?)rono Cross. Really, both good games. The hate that they get is crazily unreasonable...

Also: Dwarf Fortress. Heh-eh.

Don't really know many others...

I think the hate CC got was more because it wasn't the sequel to Trigger that everyone wanted. Did Legend of Dragoon actually get hate?

OT:
Obligatory Okami reference.

Also, Radiant Historia.

 

[dobahci]

One of the early games I really loved was Unreal. Not Unreal Tournament, but the original Unreal, a singleplayer FPS game in which you play the lone survivor of a prison ship crash landed on an uncharted alien planet. It's got wonderfully atmospheric music from the same guys who went on to do the music for Deus Ex, beautiful environments (at a time when FPS games were known for being mostly reddish brown games set in hellish environments, Unreal had trees, landscapes, waterfalls, etc), and it's got a story that is subtly revealed through the process of playing and exploring.

It uses the Half-Life technique of never taking the player out of the action. There are no cutscenes until the very end of the game. You don't meet any (living) humans along the way, so there are no bits of badly-written dialogue or odd facial animations to break the immersion. The story is told through journals left around by previous humans before they died of not-very-natural causes, which plays like a precursor to the audio logs found in later games like Bioshock.

To this day, it's one of the most immersive games I've ever played, up there with the Thief series.

Another game series I liked ages ago was the Marathon series. The original game was Mac only, and was later ported to windows; the later games were available on both. It was developed by Bungie, of later Halo fame. It's a first person shooter where the player is on a ship where Things Have Gone Horribly Wrong. Aliens have invaded the ship and it is your job to stop the aliens, aided along the way by an AI, which slowly undergoes the inevitable evil megalomaniacal transformation which all fictional AIs must undergo by law.

By today's standards, Marathon doesn't hold up very well, but for its time it was fairly revolutionary. Unlike Doom and similar games, the progression is story-based rather than being based on key hunting and arbitrary level design. It was also the first major release to use mouselook, which quickly became a standard.

All of the Marathon games have since been re-released as Free/Open-source Software under the GPL, and can be made a bit more tolerable visually by high definition texture upgrades and such, for any players that still feel the hankering to go back and (re)play them.

 

[Flailing Escapist]

I'm going to say Condemned: Criminal Origins and Condemned 2: Bloodshot if only because none of my friends have ever played them and really the most I've ever heard anyone talking about them is on Zero Punctuation. Granted that Condemned 2's ending is really fucking stupid but the first game and several parts of the second game are very good and they have some of the scariest, most horrifying bits I've seen in video games or movies. Not to mention the most visceral hand to hand combat that I've never seen duplicated since. You could probably find either of them in a bargain bin for less than $5 each.

*Minor Spoilers Below*​

 

[bean burrito]

I'm going to say Condemned: Criminal Origins and Condemned 2: Bloodshot if only because none of my friends have ever played them and really the most I've ever heard anyone talking about them is on Zero Punctuation. Granted that Condemned 2's ending is really fucking stupid but the first game and several parts of the second game are very good and they have some of the scariest, most horrifying bits I've seen in video games or movies. Not to mention the most visceral hand to hand combat that I've never seen duplicated since. You could probably find either of them in a bargain bin for less than $5 each.

*Minor Spoilers Below*​

Just watching that video makes me want to play. That game seems terrifying... in a good way.

 

[dave1004]

Either Legend of Dragoon, or C(h?)rono Cross. Really, both good games. The hate that they get is crazily unreasonable...

Also: Dwarf Fortress. Heh-eh.

Don't really know many others...

I think the hate CC got was more because it wasn't the sequel to Trigger that everyone wanted. Did Legend of Dragoon actually get hate?

OT:
Obligatory Okami reference.

Also, Radiant Historia.

Well, I don't know. Nobody that I've known liked Legend of Dragoon (Is it legend of the dragoon? Keep forgetting), and I guess you're right about Chrono Cross. It was a very solid "Stand-Alone" game however.

 

[malestrithe]

The Soul Blazer series for the Snes. Three action RPG for the SNES. Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia/ Time and Terranigma. The last one did not even get a US release before Enix folded its North American office. Square Enix is talking about reviving this franchise and I hope they do because I want my North American release of Terranigma dammit.

Harvest Moon. With a few notable exceptions, a Harvest moon game has appeared on almost all of the consoles since the Super Nintendo.

 

[Therumancer]

Honestly, with me it's not so much a matter of there being a lot of games I liked that were underrated, as much as they simply got old and nobody much cared about them anymore, and the knowlege gradually disappeared in proportion to the casuals.

I tend to look at "Wizardry 8" as my personal underrated game, that could have lead to great things if it was better promoted and got more attention.

I'd like to say I think Alpha Centauri an Master Of Magic were underrated, but really they both got pretty good receptions, it's just nobody bothered to do sequels to them.