Name some underrated games that everyone should play

[Jaeke]

Well time to repeat my weekly answer for this question...

Chromehounds
LOTR: BFME 2
Shadowrun
Viking: Battle For Asgard
Too Human
Brutal Legend
Splinter Cell: Conviction
(and according to this website ) Dragon Age 2
Edit: almost forgot about Kameo.

 

[Sarah Kerrigan]

Anything by Suda 51
Resident Evil Mercinaries 3D
Ghost Recon Shadow Wars
& Bulletstorm.
Alan Wake also.

 

[karcentric]

Grim Fandango.

Great game, but I'd be hard pressed to call it underrated, since it's pretty much unanimously considered the greatest adventure game of all time (with Monkey Island and The Longest Journey nipping at its heels).

And Sam & Max!

 

[ResonanceGames]

Grim Fandango.

Great game, but I'd be hard pressed to call it underrated, since it's pretty much unanimously considered the greatest adventure game of all time (with Monkey Island and The Longest Journey nipping at its heels).

And Sam & Max!

I like all the Sam and Max games, from Hit the Road to the last S&M (tee hee) chapter from Telltale. But I'd be hard pressed to rank any of them with those games. That's just me though.

I forgot another (genuinely) underrated game: Singularity. It's not going to set the world on fire, so to speak, but it's a genuinely fun, well-made nuclear apocalypse shooter that Lackovision kind of threw to the wolves. I'd recommend it to any FPS fan without hesitation.

 

[katsabas]

Have to add some to my previous list:

Kurushi Final
Muppet Racemania (aside from being an awesome kart racer, it had the best transition of the Muppet Show opening song. Ever.)
Colin McRae Rally. The 1st one.
Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX Maximum Remix (the rag doll physics make me wanna play this just to crash in mid-air)
Soul Blade (before boobs took over, this and Soul Calibur were some of the best fighters out there)

Also, Pure and Split Second. Black Box had impressive new mechanics nailed on these 2 games and they were a lot of fun to play. I even named my ATVs.

 

[WaReloaded]

In my experience these are some underrated games that I found to be quite enjoyable:

Enter The Matrix (PS2).
Fight Club (PS2). It received terrible reviews, but I found the fighting mechancis to be visceral and worth the very small price I paid for it (keep in mind it's been quit a long time since I've played it though).
Duke Nukem: Forever (PC). It wasn't THAT bad, well, for $17 AUD it wasn't bad.
Two Worlds (PC).
Hoard (PC). An enjoyable way to kill 15 minutes every so often.

I should of gone into more depth, but oh well.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

RPG heads:
Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines
Fallout 2 (I can find like 3 people in my age group who have beat it, COME ON!)

Horror heads:
Illbleed
Penumbra Series
Rule of Rose

Trippy shiz heads:
Killer7
LSD Dream Simulator (PSX)

And music games:
Rez
Guitaroo Man
Frequency

 

[pwned123456]

Nobody has mentioned Okami yet?

I'm disappointed in you all, I've taught you better than that.

if you mean the wii version it was not underrated at all if you are talking about the original ps2 version i completely agree

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Nobody has mentioned Okami yet?

I'm disappointed in you all, I've taught you better than that.

if you mean the wii version it was not underrated at all if you are talking about the original ps2 version i completely agree

I own both, so I don't really know what you're talking about.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Valkyria Chronicles great style in gameplay and artwork

Phantasy Star 3 (it wasn't as good as the others but still damn good)

Soul Blazer (lost in the muddle of snes Zelda clones)

Anything by Suda 51

I like Suda 51 as a person, but I can never get into his games.

 

[Herbert_v1legacy]

System shock 1-2 (Seriously, why the heck did these games not sell well? System shock 2 is the best shooter ever made (it is not a pure shooter, much like Deus Ex, it has a strong CRPG element))

It is the best game I've ever played (the only reason I play Dead Space is because sometimes, if I'm drunk enough, I can fool myself into thinking they remade SS2), but there's a difference between underrated and underplayed. Anybody who's actually played it puts it in the top five.

Arcanum is underplayed. Every reviewer talked about how it had the most iterations of character creation they'd ever seen (beat it 7 times-each with a completely different character) and a unique world, but nobody bought it.

Alpha Protocol was underrated. I see alot of it in Deus Ex:HR, especially the talking duels. And misplaced boss fights. It just wasn't as flashy and had more bugs. I can forgive the bugs because none of them broke the game for me, and I beat it 4 times. But the end level was kinda...retarded. Which stood out in such an otherwise intelligent game.

Vampire Masquerade: Bloodlines was massively underrated. Story and gameplay were great, it had a somehow fresh idea, and the graphics were great for their time. It just had some bugs so people didn't play it, but if that game had gotten a console release, Troika would still be around.

I own all of those games, bought them on or near release, so don't blame me for their poor sales

Alpha Protocol handled dialogue trees and consequences better than any other (relatively) linear game that I have ever played. I really hope other developers take notice, so that we can drop the silly "good/evil" morality scale, and instead focus on interesting choices and consequences, that does not boil down to a simple scale.

The main problem with bloodlines was that Trokia was forced to release it at roughly the same time as Half Life 2, that was part of the agreement in order for them to be allowed to use the engine. Sadly a complex game like bloodlines can't be rushed, in particularly not when you have a relatively small developers like Troika (I really wish Troika would still be around, even their worst game, Temple of Elemental evil, still stands head and shoulders above most other CRPGS).

....Outcast.....

Oh man I remember that one.
An open-world, sci-fi, third person shooter, rpg doesn't sound that original these days, with Mass Effect 3 around the corner, but in 1999 it was amazing.

I would not really classify Outcast as an RPG, more like an action/adventure game with a great setting. Outcast is one of those games that has yet to be beaten in its particular niche. It is a good thing at least that it is being sold again over at GOG [http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/outcast], so that a new(er) generation of gamers can play this absolute masterpiece of a game.



And people, please don't say that the old Lucas Arts adventure games were underrated. They were highly rated, loved by almost everyone. It would seem like some are just posting their favourite games of yesteryears and call them underrated.

 

[Razomka]

I have to mention this as well cause I just remembered it,

but "Sam and Max Hit the Road"

Just check the intro music and you'll know it is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO5tbEujT8k

Sorry for the poor linking

Edit: Just realised someone else mentioned it above.

 

[Herbert_v1legacy]

I have to mention this as well cause I just remembered it,

but "Sam and Max Hit the Road"

Just check the intro music and you'll know it is awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO5tbEujT8k

Sorry for the poor linking

Edit: Just realised someone else mentioned it above.

And it is really not underrated either. It is one of the highest rated adventure games of all time, right up there with Monkey Island and Grim Fandango, and even above Sierra's classics like Gabriel Knight or King's Quest, or the more recent top adventure games Syberia & The longest journey

 

[the_great_cessation]

I find it funny when people ask for underrated games and people come back with the same games everyone already played. Things like Ico, SotC, Okami, Psychonauts and Beyond Good and Evil aren't underrated or unknown. At least name stuff like Mirrors Edge which was better than most reviewers gave it credit or To the Moon which is great but unknown.

I couldn't agree with this more. I love all of these games (in fact BG&E and SoTC are two fo my favorite games ever), but these titles are critical darlings and perhaps the most fondly remembered titles of the last console generation and often held up in the same breath as other cult hits like Portal and Earthbound. How this is underrated is beyond me. For me, an underrated game is a title which received mixed to good scores and nobody played it because of that, or conversely a title which a lot of people played but was mainly met with negative feelings (which you feel didn't deserve the negative reaction).

My picks would be:

Rogue Galaxy (PS2)
Jet Force Gemini (N64)
Yoshi Story (N64)
Metal Arms: A Glitch in the System (Xbox/PS2/GCN)
The Oddworld series (PS1, Xbox, PC)
Alice: Madness Returns (360/PS3)
Brutal Legend (360/PS3)
Shadow of Rome (PS2)
Otogi: Myth of Demons (Xbox)
Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast)
Armed and Dangerous (Xbox/PC)
Zone of the Enders (PS2)
Dragon Warrior Monsters (GBC)
Wario Land 4 (GBA)
The Saboteur (360/PS3)

 

[springheeljack]

The suffering
and The suffering ties that bind
really awesome survival horror game that takes place in a haunted prison
and it has an amazing story and great voice acting

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Tron 2.0 (PC/Xbox). A fps with some light rpg elements set in the Tron universe (duh!). It used to be the official sequel to Tron, until Tron Legacy wrote it out of canon. It has its flaws, but is otherwise an interesting take on the fps genre. And it has the classic lightcycles that can only make 90% turns.

 

[DioWallachia]

Dungeon Keeper: A game made by Peter Molyneux before he lost his groove. A wonderfully different RTS where you control a dungeon full of monsters all of who go about their daily business in addition to the whole killing adventurers thing because let's face it, sometimes a dragon just needs to sleep and lord knows you better make sure you pay it on time. There was a sequel so obviously it did decently, but the series ended there.

You win a link for just mentioning Dungeon Keeper:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGHmr3D4Mnc
(You may remember this voice as one of the Werewolf Shadow Lord in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow)

I will enjoy watching the videos of DK if the OP actually is into detailing gaming history or at least play the games that Bullfrog made with Molineux.
Games such as:
Syndicate
Populous
Dungeon Keeper (i think that he wasnt around when DK2 was made)
Before he started to eat loony pills and made Black & White, his jumping the shark game if you will (in fact i think that the very intro of B&W there are sharks in it. How symbolic ) Would be nice to analyze how was this RTS that combines FPS was forgotten and sold along with Populous to a bunch of koreans that will make use of the licenses to make a MMORPG that the western audiences will NOT see because they wont get a release for them.

But anyway, i dont know exactly why the OP would want to play ALL the games for a Youtube show since everyone here is going to bombard him with recommendations to the point that he wont be able to keep up with them but if he want it so munch well.....

I will list a bunch of games but right now i will detail 3 examples in particular that may be kite obscure and a decent view of why haven't they surfaced in the world may be nice.

------------IJI------------- (PC)(2008)
An Action RPG 2D Platformer that has the brilliant dialog complexity and specialization of Deus Ex but with more focus on what you around in the gameplay, meaning that there are no specific points in the game that you can press a button to do something important instead your actions predetermine the dialog and reactions of everyone (there is even dialog for when you collect lots of ammo even if you havent killed anyone with it)

-----------Requiem: The Avenging Angel------------ (PC) (1999)
I call it "Half Life 1 Evil Twin" because it was still in development when Half Life 1 came out in November 19 of 1998 and finally released in March 31 of 1999. It also had the interactive cutscenes that Half Life is praised for but you had a pletora of angelic and demonic powers to exploit against the forces of hell. You can ressurect people to fight for you, you can posses a body and use its powers to kill more people, you can turn people into salt and insta kill them, it even had bullet time before Max Payne did it. You may think that this is sort of like Painkiller meets Half Life and therefore the best game ever right??? ............ no, not at all. Dear God this game sucked hard and also its bugged up the ass to the point that even John Romero's Daikatana will look playable.
I am not entirely sure, but i think this game took down Cyclone Studios and 3DO into bankrupsy, but at least Ubisoft (one of the publishers) live on

---------ResQ------------- (Sega Genesis) (Unknow years, rise of Playstation perhaps?)
This game has the history of not being released for the Sega Genesis because the Playstation was out and the developers feared that people would have sold or abandon their Sega's. It is available for free download in ROM form, so you can play it safe with emulators, and you WILL need these because the ENTIRE game is about ESCORT MISSIONS. You pilot an invulnerable ship that you have to maneuver around to land safely and close as possible rescue all the people in the stage to proceed (its sort of like Abe's Odyssey but less bloody hilarious but at least you have weapons to defend yourself and a jetpack)

That is the big three. I had my regrets of not mentioning Evolva or Tyrian but at least i will list them down here:

Chakan The Forever Man
Vynyl Goddess From Mars
Syndicate
Dungeon Keeper
Populous 3: The Beginning
Sacrifice
MDK2
Messiah
Vectorman
Heroes 3 of Might And Magic (and if possible its perfect fan mod named "Wake of The Gods")
Thunder Force IV
Splatterhouse 2 and 3
Cave Story
Evil Genius
Radix Beyond the Void
Descent
Blood 1
Scott Pilgram Vs The World - The Game
Silent Hill 2
Rise of the Triad
Street Of Rage 2 and 3
God Hand
Cthulhu Saves The World
Raptor Call Of The Shadows
Irisu Syndrome
Deadly Premonition
Jazz Jackrabbit
Hexen 1 and 2
Heretic 1
Hero Core
Total Distorsion
Arcus Odyssey
Bastion
Killer7
Battletoads & Double Dragon
The Binding of Isaac
El Viento
Robocop vs Terminator
Phantom 2040 (Sega Genesis version)
The Pirates Of Dark water (Sega Genesis version)
Shinobi 3
Warzard
Hyper Princess Pitch
Frozen Synapse
Magicka
Snow Brothers
Shadow Warrior
Grim Fandango
Abe's Odyssey
Abe's Exodus
And all games made by Treasure:
Alien Soldier
Dynamite Headdy
Gunstar Heroes (Sega Genesis version)
Mischief Makers
Stretch Panic
Ikaruga

Told you its going to be a difficult task but at least most of them are free to download or very cheap.

 

[Ryu-Kage]

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (for Game Boy)
I'm surprised people don't talk about this game very much. It has better controls and feels more like a traditional Mario game than its predecessor. It also lets you complete the different worlds in any order. I used to think of it as Mario exploring a more dangerous and evil Disney World.

Kid Icarus (for NES)
I don't know if this counts or not, but it was a pretty unique little game for its time. A side-scrolling platformer like Mario with exploration elements like in Zelda and Metroid. Also comes with a few neat secrets. I should warn you, though, grinding may be involved to strengthen you or just to gain hearts (which are used as money like in Simon's Quest). Might not be for everyone (LordKat didn't like it.), but it's something to see.

Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (for Nintendo DS)
A Capcom adventure game whose development was led by the creator of Ace Attorney. You play as a guy who recently died, and for reasons later explained in the game, his ghost has the ability to manipulate objects (turning on a lamp, moving a lever, things like that). He has to figure out why he died by saving the lives of various people who keep dying (he can also move into the past: 4 minutes before a person died, to be exact), but things get even more complicated as this ghost continues on. Best character in the game, btw, is a puppy, and that's saying something coming from someone who's not a dog-person.