Unsuspected Gems?

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Sinclair Solutions

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Jul 22, 2010
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TheYellowCellPhone said:
The recent King Kong game.

What I was expecting: Some copy-pasted hack 'n' slash game featuring you playing as Kong or a hero on Skull Island.

What I got: a great survival-horror FPS, and the monsters on Skull Island were varied in size, skill, health, and attack methods.
Holy shit, I was just thinking about this game. The movie tie-in right? This was a really good game. I don't know why people don't give it the credit it deserves.

Mine would be Dante's Inferno. From all the criticism it got, I was suspecting a shit sandwich. It's now one of my favorite games.
 

onewheeled

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Aug 4, 2009
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DJ Hero.

The first time I heard about it, I thought it was gonna be a terrible knock-off of Guitar Hero, just put out there for the moneys. That is, until I actually played it.

It turned out to be one of my favorite rhythm games of all time. It was very challenging, you felt like you were truly in control of the music, and it was just really fun.

That is, until the sequel came out and improved EVERYTHING.
 

teh_Canape

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May 18, 2010
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from back in the day?

Tyrian 2000

what I expected: a SHMUP on PC with cool music
what I got: the only SHMUP so far that's story driven, with badass music, and a gameplay deeper than most SHMUPS (for example, you can't just go trigger happy on the stages or your energy generator will run dry, causing your shields to shut down and not allowing you to attack)

then there's
Bujingai: Forsaken City for PS2

what I expected: another Devil May Cry clone, with colorful slashes
what I got: a kick ass hack and slash, with a surprisingly deep combat system and very fluid animations

edit: shit, I forgot about Spy Fiction for PS2

what I expected: your average Metal Gear Solid ripoff with anime-ish characters
what I got: a pretty good Stealth action game, with quite unique features such as disguising and the invisibility system
 

MostlyHarmless

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Feb 8, 2010
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Eternal Sonata. Yeah, I rant about it a lot, but it's a beautiful gem. I actually bought it because I thought the girl I liked recommended it. Turns out she didn't, but I found an addicting, wonderful JRPG.
 

Gigaguy64

Special Zero Unit
Apr 22, 2009
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I remember buying Megaman Battle Network 3:Blue on impulse.
I had never heard of the BN series but 3 turned into one of my favorite games of all time.
 

Plucky

Enthusiast Magician
Jan 16, 2011
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Just sat down to 48 minutes of Portal, it was pretty easy for the first few stages, though the real difficulty was doing multiportal trajectory jumps, made me feel sick, plus theres there bit with the 2 diagonal pieces of wall and bouncing balls. :O


Hmm, just throwing it out here, but the 2 (English that is) Boktai games are pretty obscure, their main gimmick is that it has a sun sensor on the cartriges, but the first game in the series had a heavier influence in stealth, its produced by Hideo Kojima. i personally thought the puzzles were more complicated in the first game than the second, though it does have multiple ways to get to the end whereas the second game is pretty linear, the main quips with the both of them is that they both absolutely require the Sun at specific parts. (such as the beginning of the first game, or at a plot relevant bit in the 2nd)

Another game i menctioned in the first post was Gitarooman Lives, an unusual rhythm game that was developed by IniS (think Elite Beat Agents), you hold the control stick in a certain direction to make sure it 'traces' the note lines, it has a few phases where it switches to rhymnic button pressings and trace phases, the music is catchy and can get difficult really quickly. (does sort of give me a PaRappa vibe slightly, with little emphasis about rapping and more about survival)

A video of Gitarooman's gameplay if you're interested.

Hmm now that i think about it, placing youtube videos inside spoiler tags makes it look neater, plus i dont think it uses time to load the applet up unless you flip open the tag.
 

Palademon

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Mar 20, 2010
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Leemaster777 said:
I took one look at No More Heroes, thought, "eh, this should kill some time", and bought it. GREAT DECISION.
I bought No More Heroes yesterday for £5.98
Epic deal.
 

Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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MSG: Zeonic Front


I'm a fan of mediocre mecha games (HEY, GUNDAM!) but ZF surprised the hell out of me.

Not only is it one of the BEST squad games I've played (Think SOCOM) but it also manages to have all that lovely mecha pounding fun with it!
 

omicron1

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Mar 26, 2008
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Well, I'd probably say Risen, but I was expecting it to be good.

Nemesis of the Roman Empire, then, would be my choice - a unique RPG-RTS title from 2003 that never got much press, but was quite good. Lots of unique features, too.
 

Chibz

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Sep 12, 2008
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Left 4 Dead. I expected it to just be another shit Valve game. But it surprised me.
 

imperialreign

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Mar 23, 2010
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lettri said:
There's heaps of indie games out there that deserve more attention. I found Osmosis to be fun.
True - and with a lot of developers flocking to the console market primarily, I think we're going to start seeing a lot of new groundbreaking indie games come to light. There's too much brilliant talent that's been overshadowed by the mass-hype gaming market.
 

migo

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Jun 27, 2010
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Bayonetta - I thought it was all going to be about gratuitous sexuality with little actual content, but the gameplay and combat is awesome.
 

Plucky

Enthusiast Magician
Jan 16, 2011
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My god, Zombies (Ate My Neighbors) is awesome, it is Nintendo Hard and barely makes sence, my brother's old girlfriend bought some games down to play in the Mega Drive (Genesis for you americans) its a pasting of horror and B-movie elements, where you'll have Werewolves, Vampires, Axe(Chainsaw)Murderers, killer dolls, and classic zombies but then they crank it up to eleven with things such as giant Worms, Aliens, Mermen and yes, Giant BABIES!

Its a top down shooter (?) where you have to rescue as many Neighbours in each level to go to the next, but monsters can kill them easally, the SNES version of Zombies is on the Virtual Console in both the USA and EU countries. (not sure wherever the Genesis/MD version is better or what though)

Video of the Genesis/Mega Drive version. VVV
 

Sephychu

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Dec 13, 2009
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Disgaea and it's sequels. Bought the second game on a whim because I was bored. A long and lasting love affair followed.
 

Skoldpadda

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Jan 13, 2010
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Well, I got Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for maybe 10 euros and expected it to be cute and quirky but nothing more, and it ended up one of my favourite games ever. It's amazing. And it's also actually really funny.

Picked up Eternal Sonata on a whim, because it looked weird and I wanted something weird. Well, it is weird as shit, but it's also quite charming, fun to play, and the music is stellar. A bit too easy though. To this day I do not know what the game-over-screen looks like.
 

Plucky

Enthusiast Magician
Jan 16, 2011
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bahumat42 said:
ummm patapon in general has good press and is quite well known. (although your other games were spot on for their lakc of being known).

Anyway since i can't think of any games of the top of my head I'll name some films that genuinely suprised me when i watched for the hell of it.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind
How to train your dragon
I guess you're right about it being quite well known but honestly though, the PSP does have quite alot of titles that steals the spotlight from eachover quite easally: Dissida, Monster Hunter, GTA, Kingdom Hearts and soon, Tactics Ogre. (is it a remake or a sequal? unsure)