Underappreciated games.

[Pink Gregory]

I just remembered another game I just need to mention.

ZombiU
It was ripped apart by critics who thought it was an action game. It is not an action game, it is a survival horror game, and a damn good one at that. Perhaps the best example of scary zombie game in a long while.

YES. Exactly.

A main criticism that I hear is that the combat is repetitive. It's zombies, of course it's going to be repetitive, and the point isn't the combat. Slow zombies means that you can bypass them, which is a crucial element of survival horror.

Of course the 'horror' part can be debated, because zombies aren't scary, but it does what it does well, especially for a launch game. And maybe it endears itself to me because it's set in London.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Oh man, Dragon's Dogma is a gem, simply fantastic.

Despite the lukewarm reviews in the west, the people who played it love it. I know gaming websites that talk about DD every other day.

Incidentally, if one wanted to check out DD, would you recommend going straight to Dark Arisen? Cuz I hear it's almost like an 'enhanced edition' type thing.

 

[Nowhere Man]

Catherine most definitely. Such an addictive game. And I don't care what anyone says, to me Heavenly Sword is more enjoyable then God of War.

 

[Catfood220]

de Blob/de Blob 2. Two colourful fun platformers that never did as well as they should have done despite being critically well received. I think its because they were seen as kiddie games in a world that only seems to want realistic military shooter. However they were really addictive and more importantly fun and I think the de Blob series wasn't picked up when THQ went belly up, so not likely to see another one.

Puppeteer. Yes, I love this game and so did the reviewers (apart from Jim Sterling, who thought it was merely ok) and again I think its because it was seen as a kiddie game in a world that wants nothing but realistic military shooters, but it sold about 15 copies. I think I may have actually brought most of those as presents for everyone. But again, fun, funny and colourful platformer that deserved to do better than it did. You can actually pick it up for free on PS+ so anyone who has that should check it out.

 

[BlackBark]

Topic's in the title.


2. Bioshock 2
Yes, it was not made by the same people as Bioshock 1. Yes, it wasn't as good as Bioshock 1. No, it did not "almost ruin the franchise", and it certainly does not deserve to be forgotten about. Narratively, the game has strong characters (both prominent and secondary), and gives a story that does not directly relate to the first game, but logically expands upon the concepts of the first game to tell its own story. Playing as a Big Daddy brought new additions to how the game played that worked (well enough) and the multiplayer's take on story telling is one of the best examples of multiplayer and story working together that I have seen in recent years. Titanfall could have learned from Bioshock 2.

I definitely agree with this one. While overall, it wasn't as good as the first, I still thought it made quite a few improvements. I never understood the dislike for this game.

Following on from that; my choice is Deus Ex: Invisible War. People talk about it as though it is the worst game in existence and spit upon it for bearing the same name as the original. While it did have some annoying elements, I still thought it was a really good game overall, and even surpassed DE:HR in some aspects. For example, the way you pan pick sides during various missions, altering who is friendly or hostile to you later in the game.

 

[TheWorstMuppetEver]

Mario RPG's- They don't get enough love. Paper Mario TTYD is my personal favorite. You think. Mario games are easy. Play the final boss of this game, and prepared to have the most intense fight in your life. Excellent music, secrets, dialogue, design, and combat. It's well loved, but not enough.

I completely agree! TTYD's story is my favourite in any videogame I've played! Becoming a wrestler in Chapter 3, fighting Doopless in Chapter 4, the battle at the end of Chapter 5! And being a detective on a train? Amazing! I loved the turn based fighting and was sad when Super Paper Mario chucked 'em.

Ty the Tasmainan Tiger- Does anyone talk about these games? Ever? God damn, they're all great.

I never played the sequels, but the original was the first game I had for my Gamecube along with Double Dash. The environments were awesome! Great Barrier Reef were flippin' massive! The boomerangs were amazing. I'd constantly keep spamming the Multirang everywhere. It was great!

My own personal pick:
Chibi Robo - The last game I got for Gamecube, so it has a weird special place in my heart. If you ever wanted to play 'Toy Story The Game' (apart from just playing an actual Toy Story game), this would be right up your street. Scaling great heights on the Sanderson's coffee cabinet, then surveying the vast living room you just trekked through, made you feel like a living toy. It was awesome. Pretty short, though.

King Kong: The Videogame based off the Movie - I didn't really know what to expect when I got this, but to my surprise it was a decent game! Sure it takes a bit of a nose spiral when you leave Skull Island and it is rather short but fighting off a T-Rex with a spear is crazy bananas fun! Definitely one of the better movie games out there!

Enslaved - Not the best game ever, but had good characters, pretty good story and Andy Serkis starring as everyone.

 

[Hazy]

Phantom Dust.

Post-apocalyptic card game-esque realtime psychic third person battle action. Also pompadours.

[sub]The name's Dandy... but you can call me Dust Dandy, baby.[/sub]
​

The game was made by Yukio Futatsugi, who also made the Panzer Dragoon series. That should tell you everything you need to know.

 

[King of Asgaard]

I'll second the Legacy of Kain series. While gameplay was never outstanding (it went as far as good in Defiance), the complexity of the narrative is well worth acclaim, but it was brushed aside for being 'too pretentious'. Silly reviewers.

The biggest one I can think of right now is Steambot Chronicles. Absolutely brilliant mech/RPG from the PS2. Probably among my favorite games of all time.

I like this human. He understands!

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'll go for Grisaia no Kaijitsu since Visual Novels are underrepresented around here. I would say Katawa Shoujo but everybody should at least be aware of that one by now, it went through quite the popular phase for a short while.

Anyway, GnK is the Visual Novel that ruined all other Visual Novels for me with its godlike quality. We have stunning visuals, great characters, the best player character ever in Kazami Yuuji and brilliant comedy. Seriously, GnK highlights how important an interesting main character is to a VN.

I'll add Tsukihime in there as well if only for the rather... unique(?) introduction to one of the female characters early on, I doubt anyone could have seen that coming.

If we absolutely must add more conventional games, i'll add Bioshock 2 and Dragonage 2 in as well. Bioshock 2 had some interesting characters in there especially whatshername. Y'know the kid. The way the endings work was amazing and there were like 4/5 variations of them too.

Speaking of endings, I liked DA2's ending. I don't exactly know why Bioware has decided to make rather subverted endings to the classic chosen hero of the land thing they're known for but it worked here, as long as you aren't raging about how your choices don't really affect that ending shit game 0/10 to realise that that's the point.

Dead party members randomly coming back to life was really bad though I agree if you had that problem with your imported saves.

 

[Autumnflame]

Beyond Two Souls

as someone who didnt read any of the hype and promises before hand i had no over hyped expectations.
So i played it to discover what it was not what someone had told me.
Due to that i enjoyed it quite alot.

Yes i understand there was a lack of gameplay and the game was simple in area and i can forgive that
I like the story and always considering my actions and their impact on who my Jodie would become.

 

[raeior]

Topic's in the title.


2. Bioshock 2
Yes, it was not made by the same people as Bioshock 1. Yes, it wasn't as good as Bioshock 1. No, it did not "almost ruin the franchise", and it certainly does not deserve to be forgotten about. Narratively, the game has strong characters (both prominent and secondary), and gives a story that does not directly relate to the first game, but logically expands upon the concepts of the first game to tell its own story. Playing as a Big Daddy brought new additions to how the game played that worked (well enough) and the multiplayer's take on story telling is one of the best examples of multiplayer and story working together that I have seen in recent years. Titanfall could have learned from Bioshock 2.

I definitely agree with this one. While overall, it wasn't as good as the first, I still thought it made quite a few improvements. I never understood the dislike for this game.

This. Except for the last bit of the game which stretched on for far too long I really liked it. Was BS1 a better game? Yes, but BS2 was still a very good one too. Still have to play Minervas Den, that's supposed to be pretty good.

Following on from that; my choice is Deus Ex: Invisible War. People talk about it as though it is the worst game in existence and spit upon it for bearing the same name as the original. While it did have some annoying elements, I still thought it was a really good game overall, and even surpassed DE:HR in some aspects. For example, the way you pan pick sides during various missions, altering who is friendly or hostile to you later in the game.

Fully agreed. My main problems with it were the level design in some areas, the terrible terrible interface (hello console optimization), the reduction of rpg elements (undestandably a very big negative since Deus Ex had so many rpg elements in it and was rightfully praised for it) and the...templar cyborg thingies that would take all of your ammunition to take down in the later parts of the game. I guess if they hadn't called it Deus Ex it would have been decently successful.

 

[ryan_cs]

Oh man, Dragon's Dogma is a gem, simply fantastic.

Despite the lukewarm reviews in the west, the people who played it love it. I know gaming websites that talk about DD every other day.

Incidentally, if one wanted to check out DD, would you recommend going straight to Dark Arisen? Cuz I hear it's almost like an 'enhanced edition' type thing.

Yes, it has some improvements that makes the game better. For example more teleport pillars that you can carry and set up than in the original game and the ability to buy teleport rocks at a new game instead of having to wait until post-game, it also rebalances the game.

 

[Caiphus]

Incidentally, if one wanted to check out DD, would you recommend going straight to Dark Arisen? Cuz I hear it's almost like an 'enhanced edition' type thing.

Yes, as the above poster has pointed out, it has a bunch of improvements. It also has a new dungeon-island type expansion thing to get into after you beat the vanilla game.

http://dragonsdogma.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon's_Dogma:_Dark_Arisen

Enhanced edition pretty much sums it up, really.

There is, I'm pretty sure, no reason to get the base game. Unless it's substantially cheaper, or something. But I can't imagine either are all that expensive at this point.

But yeah, I also found it to be really fun. Watch Let's Plays, the pawn system and strange difficulty curve may put you off (I found the game tough for the first five hours, then perhaps a bit too easy after that). Although I hear the expansion island is rather challenging, never got that far. Exams hit when I was near the end of the main campaign, and I never revisited.

Edited broken URL

Edit: Oh yeah, if you want an opposing, negative review of Dragon's Dogma, then go message Zhukov. I'm sure he'd love to talk about his experiences some more. It might help the grieving process.[footnote]Probably don't, actually. That was a joke.[/footnote]

 

[fhmy]

I thought The Saboteur was pretty decent actually. It had an interesting open world, nice aesthetic design and surprisingly not bad gunplay. Don't remember much of the story but I do remember it had some really neat missions. Basically it's the closest thing we'll get to a WW2 Assassin's Creed.

Shame it was the final nail in Pandemic's coffin.

 

[Artina89]

I have always felt that Sleeping Dogs deserves more credit. It has its flaws, but it is an insanely fun game. I also love Metal gear rising: revengeance as it tried to do something different in the Metal gear series. I will probably place Deadly premonition in this category as well, as a lot of people critisized it for its horrible graphics and control, but the characters and the story rank as one of my favourites in any medium, and the references to Twin Peaks are a welcome addition.

 

[V4Viewtiful]

Knights in the Nightmare on the DS is a greatly unknown game and it's highily unique the story is dark the game mechanics are very unusual.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

The only game which managed to make me feel pretty dumb: The Secret World. The riddles were, I think, really like nothing else regarding complexity and difficulty a major title ever had so far. And a Cthulhu background, too? Count me in. Hurling fireballs and wielding swords while running around in Chucks and some sporty outfit and a nice old school hat? Hell, yeah, count me in again.

But everyone knows how it failed to attract enough players and FunCom had to fire a load of people.