Unexpectedly good games

[baddude1337]

Hello fellow escapists, Just wondering if anyone picked up a game or thought a game was going to be rubbish, and then surprised you by how good it is? I have two that I can think of:

Crackdown: When it was announced that it would come with the Halo: Reach Beta, a lot of people, myself included, thought this was a sign the game was going to be pants. When I picked it up a few years later, however, I was surprised by how fun it is, I have a blast every time I play it. Shame I can't say the same about the sequel. (It's not a bad game, just they changed so little it seemed like it could have been an expansion, the only time I've thought that about a sequel.)

Ghostbusters The Video Game: This game really surprised me. I like the films but I am not a huge fan of Ghostbusters, but I simply love this game. It's accuracy to the movies, canon story, great gameplay and immersive graphics as well as some great designed levels made this a winner in my book.

 

[Mr Thin]

Dungeon Keeper 2.

I wasn't even the one who bought it, my brother found it in a bargain bin. I had very low expectations.

Anyone who's played the game knows how wrong I was.

 

[Rayne870]

Earth 2160, I picked it up in a bargain bin at a Superstore while grocery shopping. I thought at $9 I would have an RTS that I would play for a day or two and then forget about. But no it hooked me in and I played it for at least a month straight.

 

[Zhukov]

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light.

I thought it would be playable. Little did I know it would be really, really fun. It's hardly a deep or visionary game, but it's very well executed.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

It's made by the folks who made Penumbra so I was expected something pretty good. I wasn't expecting to be blown away and converted into an instant fanboy.

 

[Sticky Squid]

Silent Hill 2, disliked the first 10 minutes or so but after that I've started enjoying it.

 

[Natocwal]

Collin McRae's Dirt: I thought it would just another rally game but when i played it, i was hooked. So much fun and the different vehicles and open tracks were really cool.

 

[Bobbity]

Mount&Blade. A friend put me on to it, but I thought I'd be over it after a week or so. Turns out, I've played it almost as much as Oblivion by now

 

[The Youth Counselor]

Resident Evil 4: I never liked any of the other RE games. I loved this.

Batman: Arkham Asylum: I cringed when I plopped down money[footnote]Unfortunately all that money I put went to useless "making of DVDs," a leather journal with character art that could be seen anywhere, and a crappy plastic batarang.[/footnote], because my friend was 1/2 short to pay for her pre-order. It was the best game of the year.

 

[Durgiun]

Alpha Protocol and Singularity.

 

[figday]

Mount & Blade (so simple yet so addictive)
The Witcher (picked it up on impulse without ever hearing about it)
Risen (a gamble, win)
Shin Megami Tensei : Imagine (yeah its an MMO, but it holds a dear place in my heart,aww)
Machinarium (after that i played all of Amanita's flash games)

so far that, im still in my hangover state... blech

 

[MrGalactus]

Red Faction: Guerilla.

 

[Kenko]

Recently Crysis 2. Figured it'd be a boring re-hash of the previous titles. It turned out to actually have good gameplay and a decent story. As well as a decent gametime (8-10 hrs depending on player and difficulty).

 

[Byere]

I'm going to go with the Ace Attorney series. When I first heard of them, I was all "A game about being a lawyer? Gawd... that's going to be boring as hell!".

Then, on a whim, I rented Trials and Tribulations (the 3rd game in the series) and tried it and thought "Oh shi... this is actually really good!"

 

[The Real Sandman]

Kingdom Hearts
I've never been a fan of Final Fantasy and Disney was starting to not appeal to me anymore. But shit, was I still blown away by this game. A damn good cross over story, gorgeous visuals, and pretty fun gameplay. Not one of my favorites, but I really liked it.

Its a shame they had to ruin it all with Kingdom Hearts II.

Wolfenstein
Before I played it (the new one obviously), I read from multiple sources and heard from one of my friends that Wolfenstein was a repetitive trudge through samey looking generic brown corridors.

After completing a mission in which I stormed a (nothing short of HUGE) Nazi stronghold hidden ridiculously well beneath a cozy normal looking farm and massacred wave after wave of different varieties of Nazis and paranormal monstrosities with an assortment of Nazi weaponry, fire axes, magic powers, and super atomic laser thing-a-ma-jigs, I started wondering if I was playing the same game all those people claimed to be so boring and generic.

Wolfenstein isn't a great game and it's not particularly original, but damn it with the shear amount of dark and gritty shooters out, at least Wolfenstein was trying to just be fun. That's really I can say about it. It's fun! End of story.

See also: The Saboteur

The Sly Trilogy
Some months ago, I was hoping for the next game from my GameFly queue to be Mafia II. Well, no copies of that (as well as a bunch of other titles) were in at the time. All except for Sly Cooper and The Thievius Racoonus, a game I only had a small interest in playing. Slightly disappointed, I thought "Okay, I'll just run through the game and get it over with".

After the collective eight or so hours it took me to complete it, I was in a shock.

Sly Cooper and The Thievius Racoonus was one of the best games I've ever played!

I went in the game expecting some slick and stylish stealth/platforming gameplay in varied luscious cel-shaded environments, and that's what I got. But what I didn't expect getting was genuinely likable protagonists, clever and funny dialog, a non-token romance subplot that actually develops the characters involved in it, and a unique and pretty dark story that was extremely reminiscent of the stuff people and studios like Disney, Don Bluth, and Warner Bros. Animation used to produce before they jumped the shark.

It wasn't perfect, but I fucking loved it!

So naturally I got the sequels in ASAP.

While Band of Thieves and Honor Among Thieves not only made significant improvements to the gameplay and visuals, they also managed the near impossible and still retained the quality story, characters, writing, and presentation that had me fall head-over-heels in love with this series in the first place.

The Sly Trilogy is now my all time favorite franchise. Hell I love it so much, I bought The Sly Collection and I don't even own a PS3!

Here's hoping Sly 4 isn't a baseless tease.

 

[Vault101]

Recently Crysis 2. Figured it'd be a boring re-hash of the previous titles. It turned out to actually have good gameplay and a decent story. As well as a decent gametime (8-10 hrs depending on player and difficulty).

not saying its a bad game or anything


8-10 hours....discounting multiplayer (and even then thats a grey area) thats a little disapointing, yes I know its a FPS and your lucky to get over 6 hours thease days but I still think thats a little short

or mabye Ive just been spoilt by long games like Fallout NV and Bioware titles

 

[Monkfish Acc.]

One time I picked up some stupid JRPG I found for like fifteen euros because it said it was multiplayer on the back and I was hurting for games my brother could play too so he'd shut up for five seconds.
I didn't expect much from it. At best, I thought it would be passable. Turned out I'd bought Tales of Symphonia.

My brother didn't play with me once.

 

[Tax_Document]

Sword of the Stars, now at first glance, this seems boring.

The combat is in-depth and extremely tactical, from maneuvering thousands of drone ships to your own personal flag-ship, from cutting-lasers to huge proton cannons, you must find out what is the best counter to your enemy.

The map is entirely customizable, from 18 stars to 360, from one hour to a month, you decide.

The technology tree, so expansive, your opponent will be different, from lasers to ballistics!

Random Encounters, half way through the game and a massive intergalactic race decides your galaxy is the perfect nesting ground, you want to survive, you have to team up with your enemies and destroy it.

You out-fit your ships with the guns you want, from engines to drones, you decide.

Your ships not perfect on the battlefield? Don't worry, a nice AI will help your ships along nicely, but if the AI revolt, expect an entire new player, because they might just think this galaxy isn't big enough for all of you.

Completely different races, from Humans to Bird People.

Unique Graphics Style, from the cartoony logos and race-drawing, but on the battlefield and star-map expect beautiful and serene space, massive explosions and fantastic ships.

Trust me, try it out, don't just it by it's cover, one of the best games of all time.

Only got half an hour or two months to spare? Try it out.