What games bashed critically you loved?

Dragon Age 2 isn't critically panned, but it's hated by most people on the internet. I loved the hell out of it, though. I understand the problems people had with it, but I had a lot of fun with it.

@falserelic said:

I didn't realize an average score of 85 counted as a critical bashing.

And I'm fucking positive that an average score of 92 doesn't even come close.

Like some have said, Alpha Protocol. The game certainly had its faults when it came to combat, but the way it immersed you in the life of a spy has yet to be matched. I replay the game a few times a year, and it is more endearing every time I play it.

007: Nightfire wasn't exactly critically panned, but the press unfortunately disliked it. Maybe it's just the goggles of nostalgia at play, but Nightfire still stands as one of my favorite games.

Years ago, A friend of mine and played the Genesis Version of Pit-Fighter as a weekly ritual.

Over the course of 3 or 4 years we beat it twice. . .

Any game where you get to throw Harley-Davidsons at people and piledrive drunk bikers on a car is awesome, regardless of critical reception.

Yeah, I agree. The campaign did have some highs, but it sure had it's issues too. I don't think I ever encountered as many glitches as you, but there were few instances where the A.I royally messed up. Despite that, I really enjoyed it's multiplayer with bots. It was still in a time where I'd get a friend over for split-screen, which probably enhanced the experience significantly. So yeah, worth the playtime.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan

FFXII

@slashdance said:

Oh geez! I totally forgot that I bought that game for like...nothing! I spent many hours putting in cheats and having crazy Jedi Brawls against the Jedi Masters. 'Twas awesome.

Ridge racer 6, socom: confrontation , resident evil operation raccoon city. The later two are developed by slant six.

I played, and enjoyed, the new splatterhouse quite a bit.

I'm not sure why. All the blood? There was a lot of blood.

I really hated it when reviewers called Serious Sam 3 a 'throwback'

@flappy said:

My game is The Force Unleashed, if that can be considered a proper game for this thread. Regarding SW:OW, I used to work with a guy whose son created textures for the game. Not that big of a deal, I know, but considering I live in Wisconsin, it's great to hear when someone out here gets involved with the game industry (beyond Raven which is located in Madison). Plus, I'm a huge Star Wars fan so hearing about his experiences at Lucasarts was pretty cool.

• Alone in the Dark

Site instability... more later? ;)

Alpha Protocol. Also Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts in a reverse "liked by critics, panned by consumers" situation.

Rollcage and Rollcage Stage 2 got pretty mixed reviews. Yet they're the best future/combat racer games to date - at least in my opinion.

Apparently it was *too hard* for many a reviewer, whom were unable to stay in control with all the destruction and crazy physics and extreme speed - I for one loved how I could tame Rollcage with foresight and skill and discipline. It was doubly rewarding for being so demanding.

Oh well. At least I know I'm not alone in my love for the Rollcage franchise. If only I could have another one. Sony should have the rights to it. Now is the time for Rollcage to take over for Wipeout!

Kens Rage

AP ofc and Mafia 2 comes to my mind

Oh yes also add that to my list. I thought it was quite fun and the graphics, at the time anyway, were pretty impressive.

Duke Nukem Forever, Crackdown 2, and One Piece Pirate Warriors were some of my favorite games this gen that got shit on by critics.

I'm gonna say Lost Planet 2 I have spent countless hours playing MP hell I still play it.

Heavenly Sword. I think it was a good game. I played it trying to figure out why people were so "ugh" about it but I loved it. Some of the controls were wonky but I loved other parts of the game that people did not focus on, like character design, the details put into the hair flow, her crazy flip moves that made no sense, even the start up screen when it would zoom into her face.

Alpha Protocol "bashed"? If it was, then that.

Dante's Inferno for sure.

WET, kind of?

Really, I've enjoyed games that have been middling in their reviews. I don't tend to play the ones that are critically panned (e.g. 1 or 2 stars).

Dante's Inferno

Tenchu Z

Duke Nukem Forever

Ghostbusters console game from 2009

Alpha Protocol for sure. The 3rd Birthday is also very fun.

Digimon World for the original Playstation.

Although it was broken in many different ways, it has an often rare theme to its game mechanics: in life, you never have full control. You don't directly move your trained monster, you have to really work at grinding exercise routines to get your monster up to a passable level, your monster has to go to the washroom every now and again; it might digivolve into a dud or, heaven forbid, your monster dies because of what good you thought you were doing was doing him harm instead.

It really breaks the perfectionist and OCD gamer in me that was much fostered in the original Spyro games (ohhhh, all those gems!)

Crap, thought of some more thanks to some of the others in this thread.

Dragon Age 2, obviously(though that tends to be more public reaction than critical). Thought it was fantastic, probably liked it better than Origins. It had some flaws, but it had some killer strengths.

SYPHON FILTER: THE OMEGA STRAIN! I loved that game so much(along with the other games, one of my favorite overlooked franchises). One of the only games I really went out of my way to try and unlock every single thing in. So awesome. I so wish they'd get around to making the next game in the series.

Dante's Inferno. Sure, it was a clone, but it was pretty rad. I still want them to make the other parts of the trilogy.

Lost Planet 2 was alright. It had some jank, but it also had some pretty cool stuff in it, and it actually was pretty gorgeous.

Alone in the Dark: Inferno(or the original 360 one, whichever you prefer). Some awesome, unique ideas, and a cool execution. I greatly enjoyed it when I played it, and am still super bummed that they never got to resolve their cliffhanger.

Glad to see someone thought Haze was fine. Look, it wasn't perfect, but I genuinely thought some of their story ideas were cool, and worked pretty well. Plus, it had coop, and it was just a good time. Shouldn't have been slammed as much as it was. Same thing goes for Heavenly Sword.

Actually, screw it, let's just say that everything that has gameplay similar to God of War is criminally underlooked. Seriously, why does everyone freak the crap out when something is inspired by or riffs on God of War? For some reason, people treat that like some sacred cow that no one can ever come near, but those same people probably don't lost their minds every time a FPS, RPG, or fighting game comes out. I mean, come on. Nothing wrong with something playing like God of War.

Sorry for the random rant.

Your DP is relevant - Catherine is a game I really love that was certainly bashed critically.

Do people not like Nuts and Bolts? I guess I mostly only read Giantbomb and they liked it, so I was unaware.

I love Kane and Lynch 2 (I hate the first) and I enjoyed Duke Nukem Forever.

I loved Resident Evil 6!

Shenmue. Perfect Dark Zero(not sure if this counts). Blood Wake. There was another Dreamcast game but I can't remember the name. It was like an adventure version of Skyrim and you hacked and slashed orcs, trolls, goblins. Loved that game.

God Hand 2

I guess the Warriors games and Dragon Age 2. Those get bashed.

Ninja Shadow of Darkness got a 5.3 on GameSpot. That was my first PS1 game and I loved it. People always say the Genesis Aladdin was better than the SNES version, but fuck them they're all insane. Don't know how that was received critically.

This.

GTA4: Got a little bit too much hate. I didn't think it was quite as good as many of the critics did (ie. I didn't think it was worth 10/10) but it was still a great game.

Kane & Lynch 2: I had a good time with this game. It was far superior to the first game and did many things well.

Duke Nukem Forever: Nowhere near as bad as many made out to be. You would think the game was broken and unplayable from the way people crapped on that game. It was actually very playable and there was a decent amount of variety and fun in the campaign. Yeah there was some real dumb shit in there too but none of it was bad.

Mafia 2: Not bashed at all but despite the fact that there was a fair bit of content stripped out to be sold as DLC (which pissed me off), the game was still fantastic.

Stranglehold: Pretty fun game, not perfect but still lots of fun to play.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Silent Hill Downpour, sure the game has fucking HUGE technical issues that make your console want to crash. It's melee combat is completely random and incredibly frustrating.

But it has some really fucking cool optional quests that do some awesome shit in figuring out mysteries. It has some technically incredibly moments transitioning from the normal world to hell world for story moments. The town of Silent Hill in this version is quite large and full to explore for goodies.

It's a flawed as fuck game but if ya stick with it you'll have some good times.

Shenmue wasn't critically panned, many people just didn't buy it. Everyone I talked to who DID play it absolutely loved that game. It's a shame that there will never be a third game though, since the second one ended on that massive cliffhanger!

As for games I like that are critically panned - I tend to like the niche JRPG games that NISA releases, I know they are bad games, but I have a blast playing them anyway. Already preordered Time and Eternity, and I expect that will be critically bashed as well.

I really like Catherine(even the gameplay!), God Hand, I thought Dante's Inferno had some truly inspired art direction, Dark Messiah is still good fun to play...

This list is going to get very long if I sit here and think about it.

Clive Barker's Jericho, Resident Evil 6 and Silent Hill: Downpour... Love is a strong word but I liked them despite some of their unfavourable qualities.

Probably many, but I don't really pay attention to what critics think about the games that I like.

I really enjoyed Syndicate and for some odd reason I got sucked into Too Human and ended up putting about 100 hours into it. Also, star wars galaxies is probably my favorite MMO ever.

I don't know about loved but I really enjoyed the presentation of Kane & Lynch 2.

Also, if anybody says Homefront, I'll cut them.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

To add to my list, I really like Brink. There's a lot of problems with it, and the gunplay isn't nearly as satisfying compared to your more popular FPS games, but I like the customization and class systems contained in it. It's very personal with how many different things you can put on your character and his gun. Couple that with a TF2-inspired class system and I think you can have a good time with that game.

Alpha Protocol for sure, and while The Secret World had it's flaws, I friggin' loved the world.

WET, Saboteur, Brink, and DA 2 also come to mind.

Nier, FFXIII-2 (shit story but man I sunk like 40 hours just collecting time shard or whatever they are call), they don't really get bashed but all of Vanillaware games need more love in general.

Not by reviewers but L.A Noire gets a lot of hate on the internet. I love that game, so much so that I 100% completed it, DLC included.

Evil Knievel on gameboy advance. Rockstar jumped five bus's wih that one.

All I can think of right now is Lego City Undercover, which while I guess did alright critically, Giant Bomb didn't much care for.

While it might be nostalgia clouding my judgment, I enjoyed that James Bond game for the Gameboy and a friend and I both enjoyed the hell out of Star Wars Jedi Power Battles.