Underappreciated games.

[laggyteabag]

The Dragon Age series, mostly because it is almost always overshadowed by the Mass Effect series. Say what you will about Dragon Age 2 in terms of it's quality when compared to Origins, but it is in no way a bad game. I am really excited to see what Inquisition will do, and how much the choices from the first two games will have an impact on the plot.

BioShock 2. Most people consider this to be the worst of the BioShock games, and I am inclined to agree with them, but it is no way as bad as many people make it out to be. The combat in this game is by far the best in the series, and it will never get old being able to drill into a splicer. BioShock 2 was a great entry in the series, and the Minerva's Den DLC was on par with the original game in terms of story, with the added benefit of the BioShock 2 combat.

Saints Row 3/4. It might not have the same level of detail, or anywhere near the same budget as games like GTA V, but at least Saints Row has a shred of imagination.

 

[El Pwnz]

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.

Came in here to say this. Ripping around Paris and the countryside in a blue race car. Climbing buildings, wearing disguises, sniping targets, planting bombs. A ridiculous number of targets to destroy, but since they don't respawn, you could gradually clear an area. Being chased by airships and only having 2 places on the entire map to hide. The gorgeous art direction.

The Saboteur is a tragically underrated game.

Honorable mentions go to Driver: San Francisco, The Secret World, and Alpha Protocol.

 

[Uriel_Hayabusa]

I'm partial towards Shinobi for the Playstation 2. Fast-paced and fun action game that doesn't have any of the (in my opinion) unecessary RPG-elements that many 3D action games have.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

Infinite Undiscovery should be mentioned here. It was a fantastic game done by TriAce. So you can expect that it was of the same quality you'd expect Starocean. It was quite good, had a ton of extras and introduced interesting scenerios where you'd have you entire cast out in the field in multiple groups. This doubled as both a cool plot tool, but also a way to catch up the levels of anyone who may have fallen behind.

I believe it's rating was a 5.6, which is silly. It deserved at least an 8. Especially since COD is still considered "innovative" or "Genre redefining".

 

[Flammablezeus]

Zombi U, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Prototype, Darksiders, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. I'm sure I can think of others but they popped to mind pretty quickly.

Zombi U is simply an amazing survival horror game. Very unique and I'm glad that it's a thing, even if Ubisoft decided to drop it afterwards.

Kingdoms of Amalur is basically a single-player MMO with action combat. I can't believe it's not more popular. It's a very satisfying game to play.

With Prototype and Darksiders, the sequels really fell short as the devs didn't seem to realise what made the first games so appealing in the first place. Now I feel like most people will simply jump to the sequels and miss the best things these series' have to offer.

Fall of Cybertron has an amazing multiplayer component, however since it wasn't a gigantic success a lot of people didn't play it and it didn't receive the support it needed post-launch. Unforunately, Russian hackers put an end to the fun of the multiplayer. The campaign is still a lot of fun, but that wasn't the meat of the game for me.

Edit: Wanted to add my love for Bioshock 2. I simply don't get the hate at all. Bioshock was always about the open-ended nature of the gameplay and the atmosphere, which 2 improved upon greatly. The only thing that hurt it was the fact that people had already been to Rapture in the first game, so it lost some of that wow factor.

The people that say the first one had an amazing story seem to be referring to the fact that there's a twist in it. That's literally all that stuck with me from the story itself. The rest was all atmosphere and backstory, which 2 did just as well. Infinite seemed to drop the ball in both gameplay and atmosphere to focus more on story, then it turned to shambles by the end anyway. Sure, it was still fun, but it felt pretty watered down for a Bioshock game.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Shadow Hearts and Shadow Hearts: Covenant don't get nearly enough love and attention in my opinion.

Great soundtrack, great design, amazing story with genuinely likable characters - and on top of that, the pacing was downright perfect, not just concerning story, but especially when it came to combat. These two games are among the very few RPGs where you can play throughout the entire game (including side quests) without grinding.

Also, while the graphics of the original were never all that good (from the low resolution CG-backdrops to the blocky models), Covenant turned that around like you wouldn't believe. Same goes for the gameplay, the original introduced the Judgement Ring system, but it was Covenant that perfected it, adding customization options, went from Turn Based to Conditional Turn Based, added a combo system, introduced the Crest mechanic, made acquiring character-specific abilities more interesting AND brought the number of active combatants from 3 to 4. And the opening cinematic is ten kinds of awesome.

And Legend of Legaia. Sure, the graphics don't hold up, the dialogue is a bit off sometimes and there aren't a lot of post-endgame side missions... But everything else? Solid soundtrack, interesting storyline, original combat system and some great monster designs (especially among the Seru you can acquire).

 

[Windcaler]

In no particular order

1. Sang Froid: Tales of werewolves. Im actually not so sure its underappreciated so much as its overlooked. Its a strategy game in which you play one of two canadian brothers defending your home and sister against waves of enemies. It also has a really cool story with it. However each night you have to plan out how you deal with the waves. Many people would compare it to tower defense games but I dont think that does it justice since 1. youre an active participant in the battle and 2. many of the traps you use arent tower defense-like.

2. Alpha protocol. A spy thriller thats also an RPG, yes please. When it first released reviews (many unfairly) trashed the game. A lot of people thought it was just another 3rd person shooter game instead of an RPG with 3rd person shooter/sneaking mechanics. However its built kind of a cult following over the years. It still has a lot of bugs but through probably 20+ playthroughs the only bugs Ive seen are graphical.

3. Warframe. Ever wanted a game that takes the idea of a ninja and cranks it up to 11? Warframes your game. Yes youre a space ninja with funcional parkour mechanics, a wide selection of abilities through the various warframes, and an even wider selection of weaponry (ancient and modern). Content also seems to come quite regularily. I started playing the game again about a month and a half ago and since that time we've gotten 1 content expansion (dark sectors), 2 mechanics reworks (melee and stealth 2.0), 1 new warframe (hydriod), and 7 or 8 weapons. Not to mention 2 events. I dont see many people talking about warframe though, especially not praising it for all its content updates considering its a free to play game with a pretty fair business model

4. Catherine. I dont know how to describe catherine except by calling it Q-bert with a relationship story. Its fun, its strange, its a work of art with some meaningful looks of society, humanity, and our culture as it pertains to relationships. God I wish this game was on PC.

5. Zeno clash and Zeno clash 2. At its core Zeno clash is a 1st person Brawler and a really good one. That by itself is enough to get my attention. However Zeno clash also has such an interesting world. Strange, alien, primal, and sometimes uncanny yet its a world that I get immersed in. A world I want to explore more to see all the places and people it has to offer. Only Morrowind and Fallout 3 have made me want to just explore every inch of the world before.

6. Killing floor. The best horde mode game on the market today and its still getting updates and dlc for characters/weapons. Too many people just dismiss it on grounds of it being like/looking like left for dead 2 and while Left for dead 2 isnt a bad game I just dont think its nearly as interesting as killing floor. Killing floor IMO has more variety in class selection, a greater focus on cooperative gameplay, and more modes/content to satisfy a greater variety of players. Yet people dismiss it because of left for dead 2. I dont get it.

7. Raiderz. A monster hunter-esque MMORPG with a variety of classes (and multiclassing options) and its free to play. It lacks a lot of content, especially when you get to the highest levels in the game but there is no other MMO that Im aware of where I can legitimately solo every boss in the game based on nothing but my skill. Plus its got a decent story to boot.

 

[Racecarlock]

Hey dead horse, I'm getting out the chainsaw!

Saints Row IV.

Look, you can continue to have whatever negative opinion (if you have one) of this game you want. But I want you to go back into the past inside your own mind, tell your ten year old self that you will one day play a game where you're the president with superpowers fighting aliens in the matrix and one of the guns weaponizes shitty music. See if he doesn't freak out.

This is a game that begins with you riding a rocket on the outside to the tune of aerosmith and you're saving america by ripping it apart with your bare hands. I don't give a shit about "Oh, it's DLC made into a full game". It's much more than that. It's a game in which destroying shit with a mech is a side activity. And another side activity involves telekinesis accuracy.

This is the ultimate antidote to all the "Serious, relevant" games coming out now and by god, I enjoy it and I really think people were harsher than necessary on it.

Shit, yahtzee liked it enough to put it on one of his top 5 lists. At number 3. What more does it take?

 

[NoeL]

Since nobody seems to talk about this game and most of my friends can't stand it I think it qualifies as underappreciated:

Dokapon Kingdom

example:

Admittedly it can get pretty repetitive and the presentation is pretty awful, but this 20+ hour RPG board game is some of the most fun I've ever had in gaming - even when playing alone! Grab three of your best mates and set aside a night a week to play through the story mode. Have a few beers and have fun screwing each other over. It's for people that are a little more into their games than what Mario Party offers, but still random enough to still BE a party game. I love it to bits... in fact I might organise another playthrough soon.

EDIT: Haha! Game Grumps just started this:

 

[And Man]

Resonance of Fate. The game mechanics were explained somewhat poorly, and the story presentation was possibly the worst I've seen in any form of media, but the gameplay was very unique and incredibly fun once you got the hang of it, the gun customization was great, and the huge amount of clothing and appearance options available helped keep things fresh.

 

[hermes]

Hey dead horse, I'm getting out the chainsaw!

Saints Row IV.

Look, you can continue to have whatever negative opinion (if you have one) of this game you want. But I want you to go back into the past inside your own mind, tell your ten year old self that you will one day play a game where you're the president with superpowers fighting aliens in the matrix and one of the guns weaponizes shitty music. See if he doesn't freak out.

This is a game that begins with you riding a rocket on the outside to the tune of aerosmith and you're saving america by ripping it apart with your bare hands. I don't give a shit about "Oh, it's DLC made into a full game". It's much more than that. It's a game in which destroying shit with a mech is a side activity. And another side activity involves telekinesis accuracy.

This is the ultimate antidote to all the "Serious, relevant" games coming out now and by god, I enjoy it and I really think people were harsher than necessary on it.

Shit, yahtzee liked it enough to put it on one of his top 5 lists. At number 3. What more does it take?

I have come to a new appreciation of the Saints Row series:


I wouldn't call it unappreciated, though... Those games sold pretty well.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Gotcha Force.
It had great graphic for being a Gamecube Game, the game was fun and addictive (abliet it can get repeatitive at times) and teh multiplayer was awesome!

 

[Pink Gregory]

Resonance of Fate. The game mechanics were explained somewhat poorly, and the story presentation was possibly the worst I've seen in any form of media, but the gameplay was very unique and incredibly fun once you got the hang of it, the gun customization was great, and the huge amount of clothing and appearance options available helped keep things fresh.

I thought that the dialogue was surprisingly amusing. That your three player characters are basically two somewhat loveable dickheads and one incredibly naive wee slip of a lass keeps my interest well.