That underrated games thread - the return

Lately I have been playing some more obscure titles, recent and older games.

I'm gonna share some of the gems I 'think' I have uncovered:

X3 - Terran conflict/Albion prelude - pc

This game is unbelievably difficult to explain, I first started playing this coming in from Eve online/Freelancer so I thought that it would be your standard space, mission, story kind of campaign. I am now a couple of days in and I have to say this thing has surpassed my every expectation. I don't care that it's not a multiplayer game because quite frankly the game universe and depth just totally blows me away.

A brief overview of what I have in game to give you some sort of idea:

• A light shield production complex with my traders supplying my factory and selling my world to the games economy.
• Mining operations including silicon and ore used to support the local economies and earn me profits.
• 8 automated universe traders that seek out goods for the best price and sell to make me profit.
• Various fleets of ships that I can control from anywhere in the universe serving different purposes from protecting some of my trade lines to invading certain territories.
• Assisting the development of the re emerging Terran economy.
• Stock market investments.

The game has a steep learning curve but if you read the forums and take the time to learn the game it is amazingly rewarding. It really feels like Egosoft are going to make a LOT of money with future iterations of this game, it seems like the TRUE evolution of what the dream of Elite was back in the 80's.

With the complexity of this game and the evolution of the engine, it is hard to imagine any other company really moving in on this market as the barrier of entry is to high.

Gradius 3 - Snes

I am not the biggest fan of 2d shooters but this game has rocked my world in the last couple of weeks. I keep playing it in small bursts of 15 - 20 mins. I have played many various shooters and bullet hell simulators but to me this game just feels so great.

The powerups seem to compliment the game perfectly, you collect energy that fills up a power up scale. The scale has different levels of powerups, the more you collect before spending your powerup energy they better the powerup you generally get.

You often have to take the risk of making decisions such as increasing your arsenal over increasing speed, ship speed is essential or you can just find yourself overwhelmed very quick and without it you can start missing out on other powerup energy.

There is real difficulty in the game, if you die you lose your equipped powerups which can be devestating to the whole campaign, to really power up to your ships true potential it takes quite a lot of time, but when you get there you are pretty much unstoppable.

It's a fantastic game, challenging and when you finally start nailing it, really great fun.

Darkfall - PC

Many of you probably have played darkfall but to some it's a relatively unknown game.

I came across this game Years ago when it was in development and what a frustratingly long development cycle it had.

The game is an MMO, it is a sandbox with full loot when you die. I played it when it was first released and was dissapointed, the game was buggy, people were heavily exploiting and to be honest there wasn't an awefull lot to do.

I recently tried the game again and I have to say that I was really impressed the game has come a long way it seems. Graphically also it seems to have improved, although I have upgraded my computer so not sure how much this has to do with it!

I rolled a new character and started off on my quest, to start with I met a random guy in the starter town who started talking to me, suspiciously he asked me if I wanted to go and help kill some of the starting area mobs with him (as soon as you leave the starter town you are basically "fair game" to anyone), I said "ok". I thought to myself even if it's a trap, ive basically just started so don't really care if I lose what I have on me.

He kept to his word and we quested a bit together, he explained that this was an alt of his and he was part of a larger guild that had there own town that they had built as there base of operations. Because of how I got on, he asked if I wanted to join, I was like sure :)

From that moment on the game totally opened up for me, there was some grinding yes but for the most part I was being boosted around, helping with some group activities. Maybe I got lucky but it is probably the best MMO experience I have had since the beginning of Eve.

I heard that the game was dying but the eu realm that I am on seems pretty active also.

anyway, there's a few games I have discovered lately and reasons why I think they're awesome!

Final Fantasy VIII is severely underrated.

Gunbound is a wicked free PC game that not many people have played.

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

I dunno if underrated is the same thing as under appreciated. I think Resident Evil Zero is underrated. I think Temple of Elemental Evil is under appreciated.

Driver: San Francisco.

@ArbitraryWater said:

Resident Evil Zero is underrated.

Agreed. Even though the concept of removing the item box was a dumb idea, Zero is still a great game.

The Club and Wolfenstein are underrated as well. I played those games extensively when they first came out.

@ArbitraryWater said:

I dunno if underrated is the same thing as under appreciated. I think Resident Evil Zero is underrated. I think Temple of Elemental Evil is under appreciated.

Aye, I see what you mean, the original point in the title I guess was that x3 and darkfall sometimes get bad rap. Temple of Elemental Evil get's my appreciation along with Planscape, Icewindale and BG :)

@Psykhophear said:

@ArbitraryWater said:

Resident Evil Zero is underrated.

Agreed. Even though the concept of removing the item box was a dumb idea, Zero is still a great game.

The Club and Wolfenstein are underrated as well. I played those games extensively when they first came out.

Zero is the one on the cube yea? Remebered it was ok, the beginning with the train and atmosphere seemed amazing to me if I remember, but I seemed to remember it got more shallow as it went on..... i think.

Most recently Alpha Protocol.

@katanalauncher said:

Most recently Alpha Protocol.

yep yep. Definitely flawed, but nonetheless one of my favorites in the past few years. Excellent characters and storytelling.

I always mention this game in these types of threads, but it's worth repeating: Singularity came and went practically w/o a blip, and it's a very fun BioShock-esque shooter. Could get it for peanuts these days, too, I'm sure.

@laserbolts said:

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

Reviews were good. But underrated by fans. Most "Hardcore" FF fans hate it for its junctioning system and characters. Even though that was a sick battle system and it has some of the best JRPG characters. Most of the people who dislike it are the people who think FF7 is the greatest RPG ever, so they are very vocal.

@MasturbatingestBear: I love 7, but in some ways 8 for me is the best in the series.

I like to mention Trails in The Sky in threads like this.
 
It's the best game on the PSP and anyone who is getting a Vita should give it a try.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@laserbolts said:

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

Reviews were good. But underrated by fans. Most "Hardcore" FF fans hate it for its junctioning system and characters. Even though that was a sick battle system and it has some of the best JRPG characters. Most of the people who dislike it are the people who think FF7 is the greatest RPG ever, so they are very vocal.

Hmmm right on news to me then. Thats a shame because 8 was pretty good and the card game was awesome.

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@laserbolts said:

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

Reviews were good. But underrated by fans. Most "Hardcore" FF fans hate it for its junctioning system and characters. Even though that was a sick battle system and it has some of the best JRPG characters. Most of the people who dislike it are the people who think FF7 is the greatest RPG ever, so they are very vocal.

I'm one of those people who dislike the Junction and GF system. I also don't care for any of the characters but Squall. It looks great and the soundtrack is good.

Final Fantasy XII

Dark Sector.

I like to mention Trails in The Sky in threads like this.  It's the best game on the PSP and anyone who is getting a Vita should give it a try.

@katanalauncher said:

Most recently Alpha Protocol.

Absolutely. I never understood why people bash this game. It's legitimately good.

Final Fantasy XIII. Perhaps not really underrated by critics in general, since it does have 85% on Gamerankings (on PS3 at least), which indeed is good. But we all know how much people bash that game, and those people are loud. I fucking loved it.

@ArbitraryWater said:

I dunno if underrated is the same thing as under appreciated. I think Resident Evil Zero is underrated. I think Temple of Elemental Evil is under appreciated.

Resident Evil 0 received great reviews......so unless you think it should be considered one of the greatest games of all time its not underrated.

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@laserbolts said:

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

Reviews were good. But underrated by fans. Most "Hardcore" FF fans hate it for its junctioning system and characters. Even though that was a sick battle system and it has some of the best JRPG characters. Most of the people who dislike it are the people who think FF7 is the greatest RPG ever, so they are very vocal.

I'm one of those people who dislike the Junction and GF system. I also don't care for any of the characters but Squall. It looks great and the soundtrack is good.

I can understand the Junction and GF system hate. Because for at least the first disk the only useful option you have in battles is constantly summoning GFs. But by mid game you pretty much never need to summon an attacking GF again, support GF's rarely too. But characters? Come on son... Zell? What a badass.

Rise of The Argonauts had a lukewarm to bad response in reviews yet it has a great wealth of dialogue & KoTOR era Bioware thematic design. The combat can grate but the world/mythos and extensive dialogue/interactions are great. Although seeing Achilles not look like Brad Pitt was jarring.

Also, before others mention them;

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a lost gem from Troika.

The Darkness should be played by anybody who owns an Xbox 360 or PS3.

Dreamfall & The Longest Journey are engaging adventures (Siberia is worth mentioning here also).

The Yakuza series outside of Japan doesn't really get its dues from the gaming media (in order of greatness it goes 3//1/2/4 for me personally -- although zombies may actually replace 3 at the top).

Hidden & Dangerous is an excellent TPS/Squad strategy game involving the SAS & some light X-COM mechanics.

Marc Ecko's Getting Up has pretty good controls, some enjoyable urban story/setting and favourable music.

Lost Odyssey stays true to the old battle systems of JRPG history while injecting its story/world with some involved characters & pathos. Also, the dream seqeunces were superb.

I'd also agree about Alpha Protocol & Singularity. In addition, FFVIII is my personal favourite of the series (well-realised game worlds & nuanced characters that go beyond the typical hur-dur emo thing help).

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@ImmortalSaiyan said:

@MasturbatingestBear said:

@laserbolts said:

@MasturbatingestBear: Is it? I thought it got really good reviews when it came out. I loved it and I haven't heard anyone say it's a bad game.

Reviews were good. But underrated by fans. Most "Hardcore" FF fans hate it for its junctioning system and characters. Even though that was a sick battle system and it has some of the best JRPG characters. Most of the people who dislike it are the people who think FF7 is the greatest RPG ever, so they are very vocal.

I'm one of those people who dislike the Junction and GF system. I also don't care for any of the characters but Squall. It looks great and the soundtrack is good.

I can understand the Junction and GF system hate. Because for at least the first disk the only useful option you have in battles is constantly summoning GFs. But by mid game you pretty much never need to summon an attacking GF again, support GF's rarely too. But characters? Come on son... Zell? What a badass.

At first I was trying to play is the way I bet is intended. But after a few hours I started spamming GF's because it was so much more effective. For the rest of the game continued to be the case for me, I had no idea what I was doing wrong with my juntions. I don't think the game did a good job explaining it's systems and allowing you to just spam GF's the whole game. That was until I fought sefer at the near end of the game and was severaly punished for it. At a point I skipped half of the battles because it was so easy to and my GF's were strong enough to handle bosses anyway. So what i'm saying is I think the game is poorly designed and never encouraged learning of it's system.

As for the characters they felt like cookie cutter versions of characters I had seen before. The bubbly girl, the brash, hot-headed guy, the wanna be ladies man, the soft spoken love interest. Etc.

I really love Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. Yes, it's a pretty shameless God of War clone but it comes into it's own early enough that it hooked me. I love the voice acting, the graphics are gorgeous, the puzzles are fun and challenging, and the combat is a whole lot of fun. It's also a really long game for what it is. I'm 17 hours into it and I have 3 or 4 chapters left. I haven't even died or gotten stuck all that often either. I think people should give it another chance. It's become one of the more memorable games I've played this generation.

I think Brink got a bum rap when it came out and most of the people that talk trash about it now have clearly never played it. I'm not saying it's the best game or even one of my favourites but it's definitely underrated and worth checking out for the price it goes for now.

Enslaved and Shadows of the Damned are the 2 most underrated games of this console cycle!!

@Astras said:

@Psykhophear said:

@ArbitraryWater said:

Resident Evil Zero is underrated.

Agreed. Even though the concept of removing the item box was a dumb idea, Zero is still a great game.

The Club and Wolfenstein are underrated as well. I played those games extensively when they first came out.

Zero is the one on the cube yea? Remebered it was ok, the beginning with the train and atmosphere seemed amazing to me if I remember, but I seemed to remember it got more shallow as it went on..... i think.

Yes, Zero WAS a Gamecube exclusive but in it was later ported to the Wii. I thought the game was alright. I admit it was kinda repetitive but for me it didn't boring in any way.

@katanalauncher said:

Most recently Alpha Protocol.

Absolutely. I never understood why people bash this game. It's legitimately good.

Alpha Protocol is the game that comes to mind. I will never trust reviews again because of it (not that I took them much into account to form my opinion before).