Underrated Games

[Sabby]

A great game you love gone by unnoticed? Poor timing, bad marketing, or just plain horrid luck makes sure it doesn't get the praise it deserves? Heres your chance to maybe bring it some of love you feel it should have gotten.

I'd start with Jet Force Gemini. Good quality third person shooter from Rare. Its only problem was being released during the N64's end days :( I'd also throw in The Warriors.

[Inkidu]

Can you dig it!

Beyond Good & Evil. The greatest game nobody ever played.

[Sabby]

And the most worrying possible sequel ever.

[Inkidu]

I feel kind of bad for Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath. It just came out at the wrong time. Not many people had Xboxs yet and it was under-marketed.

[Malefique]

I am not much acquainted with shooters or console games in general (I leave those to the spawn), but having watched them on Oddworld, I'd agree on that.  Personally I enjoy point and click horror games, because I never really feel I've enjoyed myself if I get repetitive strain injury.  So I would plump for the Darkfall series of Brit horror games - The Journal, Lights Out and Lost Souls.  I have loved every one of those, and the second has one of the simplest but downright creepiest things I ever came across in a game - and it's a blink and you'll miss it thing.  Enjoyably spooky goings on, and if you ever watched Sapphire and Steel you should love them.

[Hemingway]

Well, as posted in the "What are you playing" thread: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. In my opinion a far better game than reviews might lead you to believe, and with an interesting story on top of that.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines would also go on my list. In this case, the game was terribly bugged, and has since been fixed with unofficial patches. It may lack polish, but the intense atmosphere and story make it easily one of my favorite games, period.

Those are just two games I think are fantastic but underrated. If I included games that are in some way flawed, but still entertaining and underrated, the list would get a lot longer.

[Anjasa]

I really liked PN03. A lot of people gave it poor reviews because they said the controls were too complicated, but once you got used to it, it was amazingly smooth and really well done. It had really nice music and animations, too. It was really fun.

[Sabby]

Can I play Darkfall 3 by itself, or do I need to play the first 2?

[Wolfy]

Rez.

[Inkidu]

I really liked PN03. A lot of people gave it poor reviews because they said the controls were too complicated, but once you got used to it, it was amazingly smooth and really well done. It had really nice music and animations, too. It was really fun.

I liked that one too, and my problem wasn't that the controls were complex, it was because the gameplay was repetitious to no end. Shoot stuff, make score. I don't think it held over well from that era in gaming. I agree though, it was underrated.

James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing. In my opinion it's the only good Bond game out there and that includes Golden Eye. Motorbike chases across Lake Pontchartrain Bridge, driving a tank in what used to be Red Square, and a stellar cast including Pierce B. John Cleese, Willem Defoe.

It was a truly great game despite the Bond title. Oh, and it had extra objectives for playing it on harder difficulties.   

[Craz]

Jagged Alliance 2. I will orally pleasure this game from now til the end of eternity. A decent game on its own, but once the modders got their hands on it, it became a great game. I love it, though it's good luck getting other people to play it.

[Shjade]

Jagged Alliance 2.

Hm. Looks like it could be interesting. Might have to keep an eye on it for upcoming Steam sales. Pity it doesn't have a demo.

[DudelRok]

I have me a list:

Psyconaughts (Multiplatform)
Phantom Crash (Xbox)
Radiata Stories (PS2)
Zone of the Enders (PS2)

[Kazyth]

Azure Dreams (PSX)

I really liked this game.  It had an interesting premise, random maps, and the ability to influence your town and who lived there by the structures that you financed.

Now that I talk about it, I want to play it again.  Hrm.  I need a good PSX emulator...

[CmdrRenegade]

The whole Onimusha series.

[Inkidu]

Metro 2033. It's a totally underrated game and a real cerebral experience of a shooter.

Fortunately, it does seem to have gotten enough support for a sequel. Don't look at me like that Beyond Good & Evil's getting one too.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.288162-Metro-Last-Light-Officially-Unveiled#11400626

[consortium11]

Well, as posted in the "What are you playing" thread: Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. In my opinion a far better game than reviews might lead you to believe, and with an interesting story on top of that.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines would also go on my list. In this case, the game was terribly bugged, and has since been fixed with unofficial patches. It may lack polish, but the intense atmosphere and story make it easily one of my favorite games, period.

Those are just two games I think are fantastic but underrated. If I included games that are in some way flawed, but still entertaining and underrated, the list would get a lot longer.

+1. Great game... clever, challenging, each playthorugh can be a completely different experience and the haunted house section is still one of my favourite levels ever made.

Jagged Alliance 2. I will orally pleasure this game from now til the end of eternity. A decent game on its own, but once the modders got their hands on it, it became a great game. I love it, though it's good luck getting other people to play it.

Another +1. Incredibly challenging but never frustrating. I have a horrible feeling that "Back in Action" is going to be an absolute waste of the series.

I have me a list:

Psyconaughts (Multiplatform)
Phantom Crash (Xbox)
Radiata Stories (PS2)
Zone of the Enders (PS2)

+1. One of my favourite platformers. Gameplay isn't always the greatest but the plot and world make up for it.

Metro 2033. It's a totally underrated game and a real cerebral experience of a shooter.

Fortunately, it does seem to have gotten enough support for a sequel. Don't look at me like that Beyond Good & Evil's getting one too.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.288162-Metro-Last-Light-Officially-Unveiled#11400626

+1. A little linear for my tastes but a really good game.

My own suggestions:

Dark Reign: One of the better second gen of Command and Conquer clones that came out that had the bad timing to be released just before Total Annihilation.

Arcanum: Made by the same people who made Bloodlines but in a more traditional isometric perspective. Fairly original steampunk/fantasy world, pretty poor combat but brilliant plot, character creation, choices and consequences and multiple builds and play styles.

Unreal: A pretty decent FPS that came out around Halflife... and not surprisingly got blown away by it.

Stalker (the entire series): Truly brilliant FPS survival shooter/horror with RPG elements. 3 games came out in fairly short succession which can confuse the issue, some of them are quite bugged but still perfectly playable and, as if often the way, once the modders sorted them out they're incredible.

Alpha Protocol: Yes it's bugged. Yes, the shooting mechanics need some serious tweaking. Yes it shows all that's wrong with Obsidian. It also shows all that's right with them. Brilliant dialogue system, huge amounts of choices and consequences, some great characters, an original setting and plot, massive amounts of choices and consequences. I didn't find most of the bugs gamebreaking and I think it often gets written off far too much. Suffers due to lack of support for modders... along with Bloodlines probably defines the term "flawed genius" for action RPGs.

Morrowind: Well regarded at the time but now most people look back on it as simply an inferior Oblivion. It more than stands up to its bigger brother and in my opinion surpasses it, especially as Bethesda were fairly friendly to the mod community at the time before the realised the money spinner that DLC could be (see Horse Armour).

Rome: Total War: Again, well regarded at the time but the vanilla version stands up to to every single vanilla release of a Total War game since. Basically redefined the series, didn't have the AI and balancing bugs/issues that crippled later releases (I'm looking at you specifically Empire) and the fact that the series was brought back closer to this by Shogun 2 suggests the developers understood this as well.

Heroes of Might and Magic 2 (with expansions): Still my favourite of the series. Tactical yet simple, deep but fun, clever yet easy to pick up. Probably the height of the series and something they have never quite managed to capture since. Honorary mention for the original Kings Bounty, which did many of the same things with a deeper RPG/wandering mercenary feel as opposed to being an all seeing God-king.

[Oniya]

I actually liked Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter.  The game got a lot of flak because it was radically different from the previous BoF titles, combining tactics and a dark, high-tech, post-apocalyptic setting instead of the simple turn-based combat in a mostly 'well-adjusted' post-technology world from the other BoFs.  Also, you were penalized for using your super-dragon-powers by having a limited amount of 'points' in the entire game that you could use.

[Craz]

Hm. Looks like it could be interesting. Might have to keep an eye on it for upcoming Steam sales. Pity it doesn't have a demo.

I know Steam has it as "gold" for twenty bucks. If you want a cheaper alternatives, it's on GOG for ten. It's where I picked it up. As Consortium said, it's challenging, but never frustrating.

[Shjade]

I was more hoping for a demo just to see how it runs. I'm always leery of PC games that I can't test-drive pre-purchase to make sure they don't blow up or play choppy or otherwise have issues beyond gameplay.

[Craz]

Ah, right, that's understandable. I'm the dolt who will buy games without even finding out if it will run on my system.

[consortium11]

A quick google search came up with this : http://download.cnet.com/Jagged-Alliance-2-demo/3000-2119_4-10022398.html

Should allow you to test run it.

It's no X-COM hard (although at times it feels like it) but it's the type of game where making one tactical mistake can really ruin your days. What lowers the frustration value is that it was your mistake that caused it... it never feels cheap or like the computer is cheating.

[Shjade]

It's no X-COM hard (although at times it feels like it) but it's the type of game where making one tactical mistake can really ruin your days. What lowers the frustration value is that it was your mistake that caused it... it never feels cheap or like the computer is cheating.

That's good to hear. The #1 most frustrating bs in tactical/strategy games is when a plan that SHOULD work doesn't because arbitrary-lost-roll-here, especially when it's the kind of failure that should be extremely unlikely but happens frequently anyway (ex: missing 3 "92% accurate" shots in a row).

I've made that mistake enough times to be gun shy about it now, Craz. Sometimes older/less demanding games just don't run at all on multi-core processors (Beyond Good & Evil, Thief, Thief 2, I'm looking at you guys. >:| ), for instance.

[consortium11]

Oh, there's still the odd "What!" moment... simple probability means in enough playthroughs it will happen but far more common are your mistakes... and they're punished fairly ruthlessly. Not properly clearing a building only to have a "snapperhead" rear up and put a shot into the guts of your favourite mercenary... and you then find that your others are out of position to heal him (especially as they're pinned down by gunfire) and you have to agonisingly watch him bleed out turn after turn until he's gone, never to come back...

That said I have seen someone complete it in about 10 minutes... but that was someone who knew exactly what they were doing.

[Shjade]

I just seem to have the worst luck with artificial chance. The Front Mission series in particular - my snipers can never hit the broadside of a barn but the enemy wanzers hit me at max range with freaking SMGs for massive damage. >.<