when was the last time you "discovered" a console game?

[Tuxedoman]

Dragon Age Origins would be the last console game I discovered. I bought it solely because I had two weeks of nothing to do, and I remembered the Zero Punctuation review saying "it is long".

And on no other recommendations aside from that, I bought it. And sunk about 200 hours into four playthroughs nearly back to back.

Shame about the sequel.

 

[josemlopes]

It really doesnt happen often, especially on consoles so I'll go with some PC games.

Mount And Blade: Warband, really didnt know much about what it was and was blown away at the scope and ambition of the singleplayer. You really could be whatever you wanted to be. The last thing I played that was kind of similar was the Pirate of the Caribbeans game but it was still a lot smaller.

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy, well shit, I really wasnt prepared for that, I dont think anyone is. The tone of the game really grabbed my attention.

Death to Spies, picked this one a long time after release and really enjoyed the mix of Commandos and Hitman.

Hidden and Dangerous 2, I would have loved to see some more creative mission design for this one since the gameplay was really good for a mix of stealth and tactical combat in a WW2 game.

Boiling Point: Road to Hell, its basicly a weird mix a GTA and Far Cry 2 where you actually have to buy your own car and fill it with gas, and there are all these factions you can work with in a huge map in some south american country. The gameplay could be better but it a suprise to see so much in a game from 2005

 

[votemarvel]

Mass Effect 1. I walked into a Gamestop with sixty bucks and no clue what I was going to buy. I look around and find it sitting in the new games section. Instantly take an interest in it and buy it. Best buying choice of my life.

This is the same for me.

I was walking through the store and saw Mass Effect in a bundle with the Xbox 360. I had cash on the hip and so purchased it.

Perhaps the best gaming discovery I've ever made.

 

[Padwolf]

Harvest Moon way back for the gamecube. Absolutely brilliant game and the one that really got me into the entire franchise. I now collect them. So far I'm only missing 3 that I know of. I love those games so much. I wish my Wii was working so I could play Animal Parade Also from there I discovered Rune Factory. Such a brilliant JRPG. The combat is pretty good, the difficulty spikes a hell of a lot sometimes but it makes it all the more interesting.

 

[L. Declis]

Mass Effect 1. I walked into a Gamestop with sixty bucks and no clue what I was going to buy. I look around and find it sitting in the new games section. Instantly take an interest in it and buy it. Best buying choice of my life.

Eee-yup. I had just got an Xbox 360, and I remember I had about £10 left and there was Mass Effect, which honestly looked a bit like crap from the box cover like a Star Wars rip-off. Then I played it and it was one of my favourite ever games and I've actually bought the series four times now, once for my Xbox 360, then a copy for my (then) girlfriend and my little brother, and then I rebought it for me on PC and all the DLC again with the full intention of another play-though.

The only thing that stops me playing it is the lack of controller support. I really wish there were controllers.

....


Oh, and I picked up a game called Long Live the Queen because it looked interesting on Steam; simply fantastic. I highly recommend it. And Resogun on the PS4 (due to a lack of anything else) which is actually a REALLY nice side-shooter which is frantic without being stupid.

I think the main reason people don't pick up more games on the shelves like we used to is that 1) You pick up opinions via osmosis and on a gaming forum, every game tends to get discussed and 2) Games are so expensive that if you offer me a game from a developer I like in a series I like, or a random game I've never heard of, I will go with the known over the unknown everytime. Which is sad, because I know there are some great games I missed, but there is a lot of terrible ones I've missed too.

 

[thehorror2]

I think the last game I picked up without knowing ANYTHING about it was KotOR II. I got it on a whim when I was 13 because a game magazine an older relative gave me as a birthday present included a strategy guide for it and it sounded cool. Turns out it was my favorite RPG of all time. Ever since then I've been a lot more invested in the games I get, so I haven't bought a game I haven't researched since.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

I'm pretty sure I bought Okami without really knowing what it was about. It wasn't at a game shop, I think it was Target. I just saw it on the shelf for a good price ($30 or something, which is very cheap in Australia) and thought "why not?". It was a good purchase, I had a lot of fun with that game.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Probably this old series of action-RPG-esque survival horror games. I think the last entry is TRAPT (remember, Cyrilic R)
and it was about a young girl who has to kill a bunch of people for her own, greedy, self-indulgent wishes. No, really; over the course of the game you kill at least 150 people. And it's veru fun.

Honestly, the Ouya was very promising: "Free the games". Instead we got shitty ports of MDickie's already shitty games, Final Fantasy 3, and Hide the Baby.

 

[Idlemessiah]

'Warhammer 40k: Space Marine'- I like my Warhammer lore okay but that game looked like the worst kind of Gears rip off. Picked it up for £4 anyway and it turned out it's Gears of War crossed with Dynasty Warriors and it's a TON of fun!. Not to mention the environments and voice acting are pretty spiffy and fit it perfectly to boot.

Same here. I picked up a copy dirt cheap when all the GAME stores were closing down. Had more fun with that than I ever did with Gears.

Another discovery was Red Faction: Guerrilla. A mate of mine was always talking about how good the previous ones were so I picked up RF:G on a whim. The acting is crap, the story is crap and it doesn't even look very good tbh. But with all the cheats on you can just play the game as Mars Thor and have a fucking blast just bashing things with your hammer.

 

[lacktheknack]

American McGee's Scrapland on the original xbox one. I had 5 dollars and it was the only thing that wasn't an old sports game or boring concept in the bargain section. Looked like a pretty bad kids game, but I gave it a chance because I had really enjoyed American Mcgee's Alice. Ended up being an amazing game, not for being like Alice, rather for being it's own thing. It's hard to describe, like GTA and Ratchet and clank put together staring robots.

This.

Scrapland was a total delight and I'm pleased as punch that I said "What the hell" and bought the silly bargain title with the kiddish graphics.

I'll try to expand: It's a far-future world populated entirely by robots, ever wary of "viscous creatures". When you die, you respawn from the Great Database for a small fee... except someone's deleting other bots from the Great Database before murdering them, so they cannot come back, and it's up to a plucky new reporter to figure out what the hell is happening. The game is Grand Theft Auto if the cars could fly and it was all a murder mystery.

Also, despite the stylized and colorful graphics, the murder sequences are almost Saw-like. It genuinely scared the hell out of me as a junior-high student.

Also, around the same time, I played Second Sight, which was not only a great stealth/action game, but it's basically video games' "The Sixth Sense", only it's executed better.

Yes: The twist of "Second Sight" blew my mind harder than "The Sixth Sense". Just... play it.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

The last time I went to my local games shop I discovered a Super Nintendo game for $35 called Packey and Marlon. They also had River City Ransom for the same price but I chose Packey and Marlon after having playing it in-store because this is one of the few games about diabetes. Packey and Marlon is a platformer wherein you play as a diabetic Elephant who must eat a certain amount of food (adventure island style only with moderation) and beat a boss. If you eat too much food, you get tired and thirsty, failing the level. If you eat too little, you presumably pass out from low blood sugar. This is one of the most bizarre games I've played on the Super Nintendo and Ganbare Goemon was a favorite of mine when I was a kid.