Best Under-appreciated Games?

For me it is The Saboteur. I understand the faults for it but the story, music, and style were amazing.

I guess another one would be Dark Sector, it was a thrill ride and I often ask my self why its like 5 bucks.

Hyperdimension Neptuna. I have been playing it for less than an hour but I'm already starting to like characters and music.

Super Robot Taisen Saga: Endless Frontier why was this never as appreciated? I LOVED the fighting system and the interactions with the characters.

X-Men Wolverines: Origins. One movie tied game that I was able look past its flaws because the ride was pretty fun.

Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. This was my very first GBA game and I guess it came and went because the overall game was EXTREMELY dark and I couldn't see anything with the standard GBA.

Marble Blast Ultra. A game that I can literally take 30 min to beat ONE level and have an awesome time with.

Dino Crisis. Why wasnt this game as popuas RE2? It used a lot of the same mechanics and was extremely suspenseful. A very complicated game but in a satisfying way. To this day I cannot beat.

Rival Schools. Capcom bring this series back! I miss Batsu! I loved this game to death and found it extremely fun. Remake this game or put it to HD!

Sonic Adventure. For what it's worth, I have the best memeries with this game as a child.

Jet Set Radio series. They merely came and went. I'm super happy for the HD remake, as long as they include the music I am fine!

Zombie Revenge. Oh my God did I have the greatest time with this game! Re-release it and take all my money!

Duke Nukem. I cant remember which ones these were but the ones where it seemed very 8-bit. Before Duke had glasses. I played these on the PC and had an amazing time with them as a child.

Have plenty more but I'll save my fingers...

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Arcanum, Fallout and Planescape: Torment are my top three favorite RPGs

NIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIERNIER

Mass Effect 3

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the World. One of the most under-appreciated survival horror games.

Hunted: The Demon's Forge.

Say what you want, that game is a whole bunch of fun. Pretty bummed it's never getting a sequel. =(

Surprised anyone remembers Duke's origin.

Probably ARMA II for me? It's janky as fuck but it's often considered overpoweringly so. It's easy enough to pick up and play and pretty cool with close friends that you cooperate well with.

The recent Bionic Commando, I thought that game was a lot of fun. I also felt Vanquish was an amazing game that should have had more commercial success. Actually, I feel like almost anything Platinum Games makes is under appreciated. No More Heroes also.

X-com Apocalypse

I've played a lot of X-com in my days and Apocalypse more than any. Never felt that game got what it deserved.

Oh, and Arcanum. Always Arcanum.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.  
 
edit-----  wait wait wait just a second here.  I looked up the wiki on both this and its aggressively mediocre sequel to make sure I had the title right.  Mercs 1: published by Lucas Arts.  Mercs 2:  published by EA.  Why am I not surprised?  :(

The combat in King's Field: The Ancient City is clunkier than Skyrim but the atmosphere makes up for everything IMO.

I thought Madworld kicked ass

Brothers in Arms Series, Mercenaries and The Saboteur.

I am sure more will come to me.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.  
 
edit-----  wait wait wait just a second here.  I looked up the wiki on both this and its aggressively mediocre sequel to make sure I had the title right.  Mercs 1: published by Lucas Arts.  Mercs 2:  published by EA.  Why am I not surprised?  :(

Sonic Adventure isnt underappreciated it's actually quite overrated.

Marble Blast Ultra is definitely underlooked, in many respects it its the best 3D Sonic title ever and the one that brings classic gameplay to 3D, all self respecting Sonic fans should be banging their drums over this title yet it seems to be almost completely ignored.

I feel that Alan Wake is quite underappreciated.

I love Godhand so damn much. I feel if someone were to do a "modern" brawler, they would have to do what Godhand did 5 years ago.

I think this is the most overdone topic on these forums but i'm going to have to agree with you on The Saboteur. Absolutely loved that game.

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System

I love that game and i am still holding out for a sequel.

i felt lost planet 2 was a pretty fun kinda Japanese blockbuster

and also lost Odyssey just because

and i also found MAG alot funner than most people.

Ghost Trick and Viva Pinata.

@Dagbiker said:

Viva Pinata.

This I loved both Viva Pinata games.

Toonstruck, an adventure game featuring a live-action Christopher Lloyd exploring a cartoon world. It had a wicked sense of humor, but what's more is that it actually presented an interesting and unique framework to structure the point-and-click gameplay (I don't know how much detail I should go into it before I'd be spoiling anything).

I'll leave you with this sample of gameplay (it makes more sense if you watch part 1, but part 2 is a better example of how the twisted the humor can get) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I25sVv2PWNs

Fighting Vipers. You could be the fucking car from Daytona USA and punch strippers inside a cage with your wheel hands.

World in Conflict.

Swarm, one of the best platformers there is and has an amazing scoring system.

@egg: I've been a Marble Blast fan since the first PC version came out. Glad to see another fan around for once!

@Kscorps: I really loved Marble Blast Ultra. It's such a shame it's no longer on XBLA.

Anyways, I feel that ilomilo hasn't gotten as much love as it deserves. It really is one of the best puzzle games I've ever played.

@Ali_D said:

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the World. One of the most under-appreciated survival horror games.

So true, one of my favorite games of all time.

The Saboteur.

I hate to sound like a broken record but..... Eternal Darkness was pretty fucking great and it saddens me that it didn't sell well and a sequel never came to be (fuck you Dennis and your Too Human bullshit). I think it is really safe to say that we shall never see anything from this "franchise" (one game considered a franchise?) but it shall always hold a special place in my heart. And all you heartless bastards that didn't buy it when it came out? Fuck you.

Freaking Blast Corps. That is all.

About half the shit I play.

Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars the best 3DS launch title, and nobody at all talked about it. Its kinda modern day Fire Emblem, and going around stabbing guys with the invisible lady was cool.

Rogue Trooper was also really good.

@Bleeble said:

@Dagbiker said:

Viva Pinata.

This I loved both Viva Pinata games.

Yup. Two of my favourite games of the generation.

From Viva Pinata, to Kameo, to Nuts & Bolts I think Rare as a whole has been under-appreciated for the awesome games they've made this generation.

Alpha Protocol definitely.

Alan Wake maybe.

Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth, indeed.

Mass Effect 3, also, I believe is very under-appreciated.

Duke 3d. Still holds up pretty well.

I would say that Brutal Legend is a really underrated game. Sure, the RTS stuff wasn't that good, but the art style, music, story was so good. Now most of the people only mention it as one of the biggest let downs when in reality it was a pretty fun game.

Kane & Lynch 2. Not for the gameplay but for literally everything else about it.

Jake Hunter: Memories of the past.

And before anyone jumps on me, this is the cleaned up version.

Not too underappreciated but the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series are by far the best survival horror games I have ever played. I bought the original on a whim a few years ago during the Christmas sale on Steam for $2 and was completely blown away by how amazing of a game it was.

Something more underappreciated but still loved by the more niche group: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. It's the closest game out there to the original Deus Ex. It's an absolutely amazing game and if you have played Deus Ex, you should definitely play Vampire. I guarantee you will love it if you loved Deus Ex. I still think Deus Ex is the better game but Vampire certainly is the only game that comes close to that style.

Deus Ex: Invisible War

It was a bit more action oriented, and did not have the same level of world feeling that the first had. But it was a fun continuation of the story and the augmentation system and inventory management were still interesting. Sometimes this one gets especially thrown out due to the tendency to ignore that the first was also a good action game, and did not specifically require stealth to any extent.

Since Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth was mentioned early on, I'd like to throw out Incredible Crisis. I've been going backwards through the podcast archives, and I did a double-take when I heard Ryan mention it.

It also has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard in a game. The Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra produced something... well, incredible.

It's very cheap on eBay, so if you're a PS1 owner in search of quirky games, this should be part of your library, no questions asked.

Merc's 2 was great! I barely remember anything about it... but I remember liking it!

@TooWalrus said:

Merc's 2 was great! I barely remember anything about it... but I remember liking it!

Had this song on my iPod for ages. Might still do. It's awesome.

@MrKlorox said:

Fighting Vipers. You could be the fucking car from Daytona USA and punch strippers inside a cage with your wheel hands.

I am pretty sure that's Fighters Megamix.

@connerthekewlkid said:

i felt lost planet 2 was a pretty fun kinda Japanese blockbuster

and also lost Odyssey just because

and i also found MAG alot funner than most people.

+1 for Lost Odyssey. Best Final Fantasy on the next-gens.

Karoshi!

The object of each level is to kill yourself. The game has been through so many reversions though, I don't know if it's any good anymore. The flash version I just tried out was alright, but not as much fun as the version I first played. It (at least used to be) a brilliant subversion of 2d platformer cliches.

Silent Hill Downpour

It's the best time I had in Silent Hill.