Great overlooked campaigns?

I just finished the Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare campaign. I felt it was positively gut wrenching and one of the best campaigns they have ever produced. I reflected on how poorly the game performed market-wise (at least by Call of Duty standards) and consider myself lucky to have even been recommended the campaign to begin with. Otherwise it likely would have been a great and well crafted story I never got to see.

So, I was wondering, what is one great single player experience you feel may have been overlooked or quickly forgotten? Whether it be due to it being a minor part of the experience, or simply being lost in a flurry of other releases.

Asura's Wrath and its DLC are absolutely incredible. It might've been brushed aside as dumb anime action because of that giant dude and QTE's, but it had a ton of heart. And giant stuff. That true ending DLC contains some of the most memorable stuff I've ever seen in a game.

Also, Zone of the Enders 2 has been lost to time for far too long. The first game was so short and simple that I'm afraid a lot of people didn't give the second one a shot. It was a much larger game, with a thoughtful story full of well-paced sequences and some of Kojima's most affecting moments. I'm super glad about the upcoming rerelease, although the PS3 version of the HD collection was patched to run perfectly (not on 360, though).

Deus Ex Human Revolution has one of the better campaigns I've played that I don't think gets it's due as it came out in a pretty crowded year. I also think due to the nature of it being an MMO, and the slower starts there is that a lot of the Class Campaigns in Star Wars The Old Republic get overlooked. Some of the better Bioware content in there, especially if you liked KOTOR. It takes a bit to build up with most of the classes, again it's an MMO, but there is some pretty great character work and scenes the later you get into each class stuff.

ZombiU. Awesome experience unlike any I've ever had. Helped in part by the gamepad which not only enriched the game but certifiably made the game.

I really liked Prince of Persia (2008).

@frodobaggins: Yeah I really liked my play through of ZombiU as well

As for myself some suggestions include:

• Transformers: War For Cybertron
• Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
• Nier
• Vanquish
• Singularity

What @kiwikuku said. Prince of Persia (2008) is a forgotten gem.

Sleeping Dogs

Remember me

Silent Hill Shattered memories

Condemned Criminal Origins

Mafia 2

Demigod, the 2009 also-ran MOBA, had a great single player mode. It wasn't a story mode or anything, but it let you customize the bot matches to a degree that disappointingly few other games did (as far as I know). There were several different maps (some small, 1 lane maps, some gigantic 4 lane maps) and you could fine tune mob strength, mob spawn rate, experience/gold gain rate, tower strength, player respawn time, AI aggression, and a few other things, I think.

That game deserved better.

Personally, I've found Defenders Quests story underrated, I felt it was funny and good. Its certainly very unqiue for a Tower Defense game.

@egonvonholz: Absolutely. I remember the lack of death system getting a lot more attention than the quality of the game itself. Also the art style is just wonderful.

@frozen27:Yeah I much preferred Condemned: Criminal Origins to the sequel.

Hindsight is 20-20 but I can't help but feel the Kickstarter campaign for Clans of Caledonia deserved more money.

Oh, wait.

Alpha Protocol. Everything about Alpha Protocol deserved more attention. The level of narrative choice is immense.

Rime

Criminally overlooked. I thought it looked like an Ico knock-off and I enjoyed it even more than that. The crew didn't do more than a quick look at the very beginning. So much was missed out on this game this year. Criminal.

Also! Condemned; Criminal Origins is a great one. ^^^

Alundra is the first one that comes to mind. It may not be over the top incredible but several years ago when everyone was complaining that there was no gritty dark Legend of Zelda game this always came to mind and I wondered why no one ever talked about it in those conversations.

@devise22: I've always thought that the Agent story-line in TOR is one of the better stories Bioware's ever written.

Hah, I bought both of the PS3 re-releases, but I didn't have any bad memories of the first game so I decided, despite them not being tied all that closely together, that I'd just go ahead and play the first one first. It's not a bad game, but it's not a good one either and the combat specifically isn't nearly as varied as I remembered it being. I wound up getting stuck not being able to solve some puzzle and didn't get all the way to the end of the game and inadvertently kept myself from ever playing 2nd Runner. This is exciting news, I'd somehow missed that they were putting 2nd Runner out again!

The Shadow Warrior remake, fantastic level design and great combat make this one of the best FPS campaigns ever.

@kingbonesaw: Good point, Resistance 3 was one of my favorite campaigns of last gen. The gunplay and pacing was on point with a very well told story. The other two were fine but 3 was something special.

I just finished The Witcher 2 for a second time (taking the alternative path). I played it first in 2014 and thought it was amazing back then, but playing it through again and seeing how strong the game manages to be with different events unfolding is still extremely impressive.

For all the deserved love TW3 gets, I honestly feel that 2's story and characters are more consistently strong, putting you in a series of difficult positions and presented with decisions where the outcome is never "good" or "bad". I'm always going to recommend that people play TW2 before diving into TW3. The number of people that have played 2 must be very small in comparison to that of 3, I feel.

Singularity, The Darkness, Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II

Titanfall 2's campaign was really good.

Escape from Butcher Bay

Max Payne 2 - the early apartments sections felt so unique at the time. A great setting to fill with goons, kinda like The Raid, and then it really goes places from there: the fun house, the hospital, etc.

SC: Chaos Theory - some of the tensest mid-mission twists, especially in Hokkaido. The great Amon Tobin soundtrack makes those moments punch harder too. So many great levels.

People turned on BioShock Infinite pretty quick. I still think it's one of the more interesting stories I've been told in a videogame.

These other two don't count since no one has overlooked them but I'd like to mention them anyway: Titanfall 2 and The Last of Us.

I am going to chime in with Hollow Knight which is currently competing with 3 or so other titles to be my personal GOTY. The whole game has been overlooked by a lot of gaming sites so by definition so has its campaign. It is currently only available on PC which doesn't help, but if you have a machine that can run it then it is a must have. I will admit that it probably doesn't completely click in to gear until the 2-3 hour mark, as it is a game that wants you to figure out the correct route to take, but give it time and it is an extremely rewarding experience. There is a lazy comparison to be made to a classic exploration game with a reputation for being difficult, but I won’t make that here. What I will say is that the story is packed with atmosphere and intrigue and takes 20+ hours to unfold completely, so it offers plenty value considering it is a 10 dollar game.

I think Binary Domain needs more credit for starting up as a Gears of War knockoff, but then ramping up and going places. The game also had branching stories and a karma system that was smarter than "kill innocents for bad karma".

@csl316: @changethel1ghts: @chaz934: Absolutely agree with you three. COD: Infinite Warfare, The Darkness and Asura's Wrath are all fantastic and overlooked.

• The Darkness 2
• Shadows of the Damned
• Thirty Flights of Loving

I'll echo the sentiments of Asura's Wrath, The Darkness, and Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher's Bay.

The ones I have to add might be a bit contentious.

A few licensed games really surprised me: Rango treads the normal "remember the movie?" territory and then you can tell the devs had enough to please the license holders and went a little nutty with the game, and it's a blast. Terminator Salvation was surprisingly enjoyable (bumping down the difficulty, and the game's short length, helped). The Warriors is absolutely astounding and builds out on the fiction of that movie in some awesome ways. I also really enjoyed Peter Jackson's King Kong The Official Game of the Movie (despite its title and the fact that I hated the movie) on both Xbox and Xbox 360.

After a bad first impression, I ended up really enjoying Bodycount; once I realized that game was secretly a 90's arcade run n gun shooter and I needed to never touch the left trigger (the design decision to have LT root the player in place and only be able to lean was a bad one) and just run like crazy and circle strafe my enemies while pouring gunfire into them.

Earth Defense Force campaigns are pure joy, and chaotic messes. They are great fun.

@egonvonholz: it certainly is!!

@monosukoi: I dropped off TW2 campaign compared to devouring every part of TW3. TW2 was solid, but I think maybe the world didn't grab me in like TW3 did. The campaign for that starts off very strongly though.

I'll echo the post before about Mafia (1). I think it got some love at the time, but my memory of it is really strong. Something stands out about a firefight in a barn if I recall. That game was cool. Mafia 2 had potential and, story wise, I liked where it went, but it felt off for a big part of it.

I was disappointed in Resistance 3's campaign, but overall I loved the hell out of that series!

All three of the Shadowrun games put out by Harebrained (though Returns less so) have great campaigns, significantly better than any others from the isometric revival of the past several years (other than The Banner Saga games, which I think have gotten some of their rightful attention).

Sunless Sea also has an incredible campaign, with some of the best descriptive writing I've seen in a game. You need to disable iron man mode in the options though; that game was not meant to be a rogue-like.

Heavenly sword, i think it gets overlooked because of how short it was at the time but it was really well done imo.

The first infamous was real good as well, it got some props but probably forgotten because of the mediocre sequels.

@blastr85: I'd have to disagree with that completely, Rime was a complete and utter letdown and did not earn it's ending in any way.

I'll second Asura's Wraith pretty amazing stuff though you need to buy the DLC to get the ending which is pretty underhanded but absolutely worth it.

I will give Killer is Dead a mention in here since I already saw Shadows of the Damned. It wasn't a well received game but I enjoyed it quite a lot. Also have to say Zone of the Enders 2, since it's about to get released again. Oh yeah and if you enjoy combat racing games Jak X is also going to be released for PS4 hopefully sometime soon. I recommend checking it out.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Battlefield 1's campaign. The war stories format was cool, and it had a good mix of action set-pieces, varied gameplay, and genuinely affecting moments.

Hollow Knight

Brothers in Arms 1 & 2

Disney's Hercules (PS1)

Final Fantasy VIII

LA Noire

Prey, The Evil Within 2

Prey (2017) and Hollow Knight come to mind as games that were generally given very little attention this year.

everyone please give Prey a chance if you can get it on sale or whatever. I'm replaying it on Nightmare mode going for the "only alien skills" achievement and having a blast. It really does provide an atmosphere and world worth exploring every nook and cranny. I'd recommend going in cold if you haven't already read reviews/interpretations/etc. as the world exploration is superb.

Just finished No One Lives Forever again. That's a great & witty campaign that kept entertaining me throughout the entire game.