Those games that only you seemed to like.

[Flammablezeus]

Superman Returns. It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I can kill plenty of time just using the powers in this game. They really nailed how to handle controlling Superman. I also loved that he doesn't have health, but letting the city get destroyed too much without saving people would result in a fail-state. Building on these strengths alone could result in a pretty amazing game if the right developer was given the chance.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I've got a couple. Both of them are mediocre third person shooters from the Xbox 360

Dark Sector
-I remember people not liking it because it went from being this cool, sci-fi, quasi stealth game that was the first next-gen title to get announced; and then it came out and had been altered into this brown and red Gears of War third person action game with a weird story about mutants and a big boomerang blade. Things is, I LOVED Gears of Way at that age and the game had competent action with pretty grisly finishers and pretty graphics. Plus it had some puzzles with electrically charging the throwing blade to hit switches and gates. I understand why people were upset but it wasn't horrible.

Army of Two
-This is probably one of the most average games ever made. Generic third person cover based shooting, action movie jokes, predictable story. But, it was all focused on coop play, and it introduced an aggro meter to a shooter. I had a ton of fun maxing out my guns and pimping out my character with different masks and weapons and manipulating the enemies with the aggro system. I played through it multiple times but could never get into the sequels. Oddly enough I think it was because they seemed like more solid games than something that was charming and trying really hard.

Edit: Of course AoT gets mentioned in one of the few posts I didn't read -__-

 

[Asun]

I have spent more hours on Neverwinter Nights 2 and MotB than I care to admit. To me it was far superior to the original, especially in terms of storytelling. It did get a lot of flak for bugs, but I must have lucked out since even the release version ran stable on my machine.

I'm also going to throw in some more love for DA II and FF XIII.

 

[Totenkreuz]

I don't know if it counts but I believe I'm in the minority when it comes to enjoying games that the developer "Choice of Games" produce. They are basically just 'choose your own adventure' type of games, no 'real' gameplay in them, you read some text and then pick one or more answers or actions and then you read some more text and do it all over again.

I think I'm just rather tired of games where the main gameplay element is anything but dialogs and dialog choices. I've used so many guns, killed so many NPC's and seen so many explosions, I really don't find them that fun or exciting anymore. All I would ask for now is a "Telltale" type of game with a personal character and maybe 40+ hours of dialog choices and no quicktime events.

Cheers.

 

[sumanoskae]

I've never gotten the impression that the public consensus on ME3 was negative in regards to the whole package, just the ending. So that should put my words into context when I express that I still consider it to be criminally underrated. Me and everyone else have explained in every form of communication known to man why the ending was an abomination unto the Lord, so I won't repeat myself; let's just say that I'm more or less in agreement with the public on that front.

The aspect of the game that I think is overlooked is it's staggering mechanical depth. This is a game in which each individual ability, of which there are more than 40, has 9 different potential forms, and each class has 7 of them. Not only that, but they also interact with each other. The amount of variety available to just ONE class is staggering.

That variety alone would make the game exceptional, but what makes it fantastic, is that among all the hundreds of different ways to play the game, I have never once found an objectively "Bad" one. Bioware somehow managed to keep all of these disparate pieces in check, so that each one is interesting and useful without overshadowing any of the others. The powers you command are so effective and so interactive that changing just one of them really will meaningfully alter your tactical approach.

Building a character and doing battle in Mass Effect 3 is managing a complex chain of cause and effect; it's the only time I've ever seen a game deliver on the promise that "Every choice matters".

This is compounded by the staggering improvements to visceral gameplay offered in this installment of the series; this is probably one of the only RPG's I've ever played that has combat weighty and impactful enough for a dedicated action game.

So you can imagine how irritating it gets when ME3 is accused of "Not being an RPG" because it refuses to lug around all of the genre's traditional baggage. This is a perfect example of how broken our categorization of games is; Mass Effect 3 is both a better RPG AND a better action game than either of it's predecessors.

The crux of these complaints are usually nothing more than "It's different, and therefore it's RUINED". I think the mistake people make is that they don't understand the difference between a choice and a meaningful.

It's true that in Mass Effect 1 there were more weapons, but all the weapons from a single class functioned in almost the same way. In ME3, there are fewer weapons, but no two of them are exactly alike.

Abilities had more levels, but they only progressed in one direction and most of the "Advancement" boiled down a linear improvement; all you could do was choose which abilities you were going to ignore. In ME3, even your weakest abilities can be useful if you employ them with creativity.

In both of these cases, even though the player was technically provided with more options, there was no real choice to be made, because the impact of that myriad of options was so minimal.

It's like people don't even really know what an RPG is but they feel obligated to respect it, so they dogmatically champion every single tradition of the genre, no matter how insignificant it is.

 

[BadNewDingus]

Hmm.

I would say Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, but I think people like it now just because of nostalgia.

And the kicking.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Blast from the past alert: Mine would have to be Lost Planet 1, for the XBox 360. I thought the game was pretty fun, even if the story didn't make a hell of a lot of sense. I can still remember trying to suss out any details about the upcoming game from the prerelease ARG they ran for a few months.

Fun times, but no one else seemed to give a crap about it, and HATED the game when it came out.

 

[Fijiman]

Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel - A lot of people seem to dislike the thing, but... It is a decent piece of DLC, and since I knew it was just a standalone DLC, I didn't think it was bad.

I'll be honest; I liked it as a game, full stop. Plus, the Claptrap DLC was a good story (Holodome, not so much). But yeah, this was a great title.

I'll agree that Pre-Sequal was a pretty good game on it's own. The biggest problems I had with it was the lack of meaningful DLC and other post game content. I'm sure it had something to do with 2K Australia getting shut down, but there still just wasn't really enough to do after you beat the main game for the third or fifth time. Also, anyone who doesn't think that the final boss of the Claptrap DLC was overpowered bullshit was probably using some sort of super overpowered setup themselves.

Saints Row 4: I think 4 is the best game of the series, even when I know it is not so different of 3 in several aspects.

My initial reasons for not wanting that game was because of it being ripped from SR3's DLC list without giving players who bought the season pass an form of compensation and then charging $60 for it, but now it's because I'd not have anyone to play it with. Saint Row, like Borderlands, gets boring as fuck after a while without someone else to dick around with.

Blast from the past alert: Mine would have to be Lost Planet 1, for the XBox 360. I thought the game was pretty fun, even if the story didn't make a hell of a lot of sense. I can still remember trying to suss out any details about the upcoming game from the prerelease ARG they ran for a few months.

Fun times, but no one else seemed to give a crap about it, and HATED the game when it came out.

Oh Christ, that game. I will admit that it had several ideas and mechanics that I rather liked. I will also say that some of the main level bits weren't too bad, but there were a lot of areas that were fairly terrible. The boss fights in particular were usually a massive pain in the ass. I was particularly not fond of the final fight where the game pretty much goes "Here's a fancy, new, flying sword mech; go practice by flying up a small tube for two minutes. Not enough time to get used to it? Too bad. Have a boss that constantly area spams ranged attacks and only gives you an opening for like two seconds at best."

 

[Dragonlayer]

Mount and Blade: With Fire and Sword: Judging by the incredibly sparse amount of mods on offer, Flaming Sword never quite took off with the community the way Warband did, probably because it's predecessor had a giant swathe of mods that added gunpowder warfare. Shame really, because I quite enjoyed fighting in the 17th century - something rarer in video games then the First World War - and racing across the steppe to engage Russians and Cossacks with lance, sabre and pistol made me feel like I was in Riders of the Dead. I wish they had taken out those bloody irritating "Deliver my letter to some jerk" quests, because those were hard enough to do right in Calradia, let alone the freaking entirety of Eastern Europe and western Russia!

Ironstorm: World War Zero: I doubt this lacks popularity because it's bad, just that it was a PS2 game that no-one ever heard of. I was fortunate enough to stumble across it's gas-masked cover art eons ago and loved every second of it: alternate-history WW1-stretches-into-the-60s dieselpunk FPS with surprisingly advanced AI for the time! It was fucking awesome! Also very fondly remembered for being a superb example of that glorious age when game manuals had actual lore, not just DLC codes - historical background, character bios, faction descriptions, weapon and equipment lists....

Assassins Creed 3

I totally agree, it's not as good as 2 or 4 by a longshot, but I appreciate the fact AC tried to do something different with the main story. Conner also seems to get a lot more shit then he really deserves, considering his background and situation, though I suspect Haythem taking the first 3 chapters didn't help matters in comparison. The Homestead was also a nice diversion from some of the other AC side quests, giving a sense of Conner building a new life for himself without playing real estate manager(looking at you, Ezio). I also appreciate the fact they finally dealt with the 2012 plot they'd been teasing for 5 games at that point(even if it did leave them with little to replace it with).

To be fair, I'm not defending the fact that Conner got shoehorned into every major event of the American Revolution(Hey conner, watch us sign this REALLY IMPORTANT DOCUMENT THAT YOU JUST HAPPEN TO BE PRESENT FOR!) or the fact it really doesn't feel like an AC most of the time.

It also had one of the best DLCs in an AC game to date, the Tyranny of King Washington, whicb somehow had Evil George Washington with a Laser staff and made it work through sheer refuge in audacity.

I never got why people seemed to turn on Connor's adventures so viciously a while after the game was released. Unless it was a delayed backlash to the utterly retarded, 'MURICA!!!!!! marketing campaign, which I can totally empathize with.

Got a few:


Army Men: Sarge's Heroes

This is kind of a gimp, as I've never really gauged what the general consensus of the Army Men series is, bar it being good at one point, then descending into mediocrity. Certainly the game ratings seem to reflect that. But I will say that yes, I loved this game, regardless of which side of the quality scale it fell on.

Oh man, I remember Sarge's Heroes! I played that way more then I probably should have, given that it mechanically wasn't exactly brilliant, but I just couldn't help being charmed by the grimdarkness.

PLASTIC TOY WAR IS HELL.

Edit: Wait shit no, I'm thinking of Sarge's War. I did play Heroes as well though, along with the rest of the franchise. In fact, I think Air, Land and Sea was one of the very first PS1 games that I personally bought....

 

[Tommy1138]

I seem to be one of the few people who actually liked Deus Ex Invisible War. While it wasn't as in depth as tts predecessor and the adaptable ammo system was stupid, I enjoyed the setting immensely. If I could only convince it to run properly on a multi-core computer, I'd be playing it now. Another cyberpunk dystopia FPS game that only I seemed to like was the Syndicate remake. I never played the original games so I had no basis of comparison and I thought that it was a better Shadowrun FPS then that SHADOWRUN 2007 MOBA would ever be. Amusingly enough my last two games for the list are both movie tie in games. I quite like Star Wars Bounty Hunter, which was a tie in game on the PS2 to Attack of the Clones where you get to play as Jango Fett. Sure the gameplay was simple and the graphics are hideously dated now but it was just fun to fly around as Jango Fett, blasting mooks and grabbing bounties. The other was the 2004 Punisher game on the ps2 starring Thomas Jane. The story was basically the Welcome Back Frank and was kind of cheesy in parts, especially some of Thomas Jane's dialogue. However it was the only punisher game I've seen so far that really brought the grittier aspects to light. You could grab opponents and use them as human shields or interrogate them and there were special interrogation or kill spots that would add a little extra flair.

 

[Hawki]

Oh man, I remember Sarge's Heroes! I played that way more then I probably should have, given that it mechanically wasn't exactly brilliant, but I just couldn't help being charmed by the grimdarkness.

PLASTIC TOY WAR IS HELL.

Edit: Wait shit no, I'm thinking of Sarge's War. I did play Heroes as well though, along with the rest of the franchise. In fact, I think Air, Land and Sea was one of the very first PS1 games that I personally bought....

A world exists quite different from our own. There, a battle wages out of control. A battle between the forces of good and evil...Green and Tan...

Yeah, did blink when you mentioned Sarge's Heroes was grimdark, but your edit sorted that out. Played World at War too, spurred on by a friend who purchased Lock n' Load instead. Enjoyed it, but don't rank it that highly compared to the others. I didn't play that many Army Men games, but I feel the series was at its strongest when it took advantage of the real-world setting. Part of why I'll also laud Toy Commander (anyone remember that?) for utilizing a similar premise.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Oh man, I remember Sarge's Heroes! I played that way more then I probably should have, given that it mechanically wasn't exactly brilliant, but I just couldn't help being charmed by the grimdarkness.

PLASTIC TOY WAR IS HELL.

Edit: Wait shit no, I'm thinking of Sarge's War. I did play Heroes as well though, along with the rest of the franchise. In fact, I think Air, Land and Sea was one of the very first PS1 games that I personally bought....

A world exists quite different from our own. There, a battle wages out of control. A battle between the forces of good and evil...Green and Tan...

Yeah, did blink when you mentioned Sarge's Heroes was grimdark, but your edit sorted that out. Played World at War too, spurred on by a friend who purchased Lock n' Load instead. Enjoyed it, but don't rank it that highly compared to the others. I didn't play that many Army Men games, but I feel the series was at its strongest when it took advantage of the real-world setting. Part of why I'll also laud Toy Commander (anyone remember that?) for utilizing a similar premise.

No-one ever remembers the insidious and cowardly Blues, or the bloodthirsty guerilla Greys....

Which one was Lock n'Load? I think the only one I missed out on was Rogue, or whatever the one with the faceless Green super-soldier on the cover art was called. I had a particular fondness for the Air Attack games, because in their own cheesy little way they combined base building mechanics with helicopter combat: air-lifting candles and children's building blocks to form defensive perimeters around isolated Green outposts. I used to come up with intricate storylines in my head for each base and what they were doing there, then direct my own mission objectives with my younger brothers when we did split-screen co-op.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Oh snap, just remembered another personal gem.

Clive Barker's Jericho: incredibly repetitive at times (with an archaic focus on missions where you'd be by yourself against nigh-endlessly spawning suicide enemies that must be killed off to unlock new areas), very weak enemy AI and some absolutely ridiculously grindy achievement requirements ("Kill 100 enemies using the special psychic bullet you can only use once or twice per mission and is stupidly unwieldy to use anyway"). But in spite of all that, I loved the background lore, environments and enemy design - wonderfully fucked up creatures in the best Clive Barker tradition, drawing on various chunks of history for inspiration.

 

[mrdude2010]

LA: Rush
It's supposed to be terrible, but I like it.

 

[Hawki]

Which one was Lock n'Load?

Also known as "Final Fronts" in some cases.

 

[JamesGoblin]

Warhammer Online, I played it to the very shutdown - together with few dozens of hardcore fans. For what it's worth, the best game ever made IMO - my name, sigs and avatars anywhere online come from WAR.

Now, if you ask people about it - you will hear lots of love and support, but almost every single one of these scrubz turned their backs to it after months (to play WotLK...) or a year at best

 

[happyninja42]

Vagrant Story. A JRPG that I actually loved, and had a plot that mostly made fucking sense. Holy shit! It ended with a sequel bait after credits shot, and I was all ready for one. But it never happened, or at least never happened in the US.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

Batman Arkham Knight
Loved this game. I hated Arkham Knights reveal and one of the harder Tank battles, but otherwise this game was absolute fun and Gotham was amazing. I liked the Batmobile. Sure, it was used a little too much, but it was fun. The race tracks were easy enough. The final race was the most annoying. It also dissapointed me that Riddler was the only villain with a boss fight. I hope the next time we get to play in Gotham it wont just be populated by thugs.

Koei Warriors Games
I can't help myself. I absolutely loved Dynasty Warriors 8. Would I prefer it if they went back to the way the did it in Dynasty Warriors 4/5? Sure, but the chances of that are... low. Regardless, I like playing these games. They're a stupid kind of fun. Pick up the controller, play for a few minutes, and walk away. Or do what I do and play for a few hours because you don't mind how repetitive it is. The dubbing is usually dissapointing and Ma Chao is an idiot that screams "JUSTICE!" all the time, but otherwise. Can't really get into Samurai Warriors. But SW4E seems to be headed in the right direction, so I'm hyped for that. Can't wait for them to announce Warriors Orochi 4.

 

[Chester Rabbit]

Mega Man X8: This game is a triumphant return to form for the series after the abysmal misstep that was X7 and the less than stellar X5 and X6.
But you see, the audience isn't divisive on this game. Oh sure there are those snobby stuck in the past fans who will say Nothing will ever come close to the first three. You know, like the nerds and the new Star Wars movie.
The reason this is on here, is because BARELY ANYONE EVEN KNOWS IT EXISTS!! Every X fan owes it to themselves to play this game.

Sonic Lost World: Genuinely had a blast with this game. The new control scheme took a little getting used to seeing how it was a big departure from Unleashed to Generations. I dearly hope they haven?t abandoned that winning formula because they finally nailed Sonic in 3D. However a little experimental diversion from time to time is always welcome.

Mass Effect 3: I liked the ending so blow me. It's 2016 I?m all done defending this game with a giant paragraph.

Silent Hill Shattered Memories: Not the scariest but the most valid entry in the series since Silent Hill 4.
And on the topic of it being a retelling of the first game. *shrugs* Silent Hill is an anthology franchise so I just looked at it as just another story with similarities to the story of the first game.

Resident Evil Dead Aim: I really enjoyed this game. It was the last post Remake Resident Evil before the series got a much needed reboot with 4 that had any genuine atmosphere and tension. The monster design in it at time I found genuinely unnerving...fucking Torpedo Kids *shudders*
This would be the last time I would find zombies in a video game to be scary :*(

Saints Row 3: Any game with a Killer Instinct reference in it, is gold in my books.
This game was just an absolute blast. I was almost smiling the entire time and thanks to this game I earned a new appreciation for Saints 2. No I don't mean that in the "it was so shit that it made me love what came before it" way.
It just made me an even bigger fan of the characters and allowed me to go back to two and really enjoy their scenes more. Especially Gat.

Resident Evil 5: Hated the absolute fuck out of this game for a long time. But then Resident Evil 6 happened, and that made me see this game in an all new light.
Resident Evil 6, is a game without a purpose. It?s what happens when something keeps going after it has ended. It?s just spinning its wheels and going nowhere. And it?s thanks to RE6 that I was finally able to see Resident Evil 5 as the definitive ending for the series and forgive it for its total abandonment of the series horror roots in favor for an action tone and its total metal gear level of absurdity when it comes to the story.
It?s the bombastic third act of the series. Where everything goes absolutely insane and there are explosions and crazy set pieces occurring one after the other. And I?m okay with that now and can enjoy it.

Catlevania Dracula X: To me this game is the best of the gen 5 Castlevania games and vastly superior to Rondo of Blood and for the most part, it all comes down to pacing. Rondo is paced like an action platformer game. Very fast with set pieces that rush your along the levels and that?s just not Castlevania , or at least not when it comes to 2D Castlevania?s involving whips.

Then there is Castlevania 4...I just don?t like it. The sprites and color pallet are downright ugly and well we?ve all seen Arin Hansen?s video explaining how they majorly fumbled with fundamental mechanics of the game.
Dracula X just feels like a faithful successor and logical progression of the NES games in every way.


Re-Loaded: This game gets a lot of flack all due to a few very minor problems that almost amount to nit picks, and because of that it usually gets tossed aside and disregarded as garbage and inferior to the first game.

Yeah there is slow down but other than that, people, this is better than Loaded in every way. The levels and enemies are more diverse and enthralling. The character roster is padded out a bit more with two very fun and welcomed editions.(and one of my favorite female game characters.) The music blows the soundtrack of the first game out of the water.
That's not saying the first games soundtrack isn't still great but, the sequel just has a better one. As any proper sequel should when it comes to its content.

And the best part about this game. No cheap impossible difficulty to drag out the game. Looking at you FUCKING RATS! Yeah the first game 4 levels in starts playing dirty with the player in enemies such as the rats and other animal creatures that hone in on you and move in such a way that your character simply can not maneuver to properly counter before taking a hit. And damn it once these things get in and start gnawing at your ankles it's only a matter of time until they eat you down to nothing. And! They fucking respawn!!