I saw Ryse: Son of Rome pop-up on Slickdeals (I guess the in-game currency is free now), and it reminded me that I really dug that game and no one else really seemed to.
It was FAR too easy on everything but the hardest difficulty levels, and the gameplay was simple, but I thought the game looked and sounded amazing. It rang in the new generation as a showpiece.
The combat was simple in a way I could enjoy casually. It wasn’t mashy, but it wasn’t a character action game either. It was helped with a finisher system that let you choose a buff if properly executed someone (health, damage, focus, etc.).
The story was solid and I cared about the adventure and stakes. It wasn’t high art, but it was a fun popcorn story in the tone of Gladiator.
Lots of memorable moments, like kicking ladders from the wall, your fleet being sunk, battling through the woods, and fighting in the colosseum, never mind the naked oracle coated in blood, because why not.
What games have we all shat on that you folks like?
I really, genuinely love the Kane and Lynch games, both of them. I think they're well written, and I think the multiplayer is fantastic and unique. The gameplay was never the best around, but it was still pretty good. The first one has a lot of great variety in it's levels to keep the gameplay interesting. The level design, atmosphere and general style of Kane and Lynch 2 is some of the best in video games, even if there's a little bit less variety than in the first game. They are deliberately about unpleasant people doing unpleasant things without any sugarcoating, and I think that really turns a lot of people away, but it accomplishes what it sets out to do amazingly well.
Dead Space 3 is still a good game, it's just not quite as good as the other two. The microtransaction stuff isn't that intrusive, and the weapon customization stuff is pretty fun. Co-op is good and you don't really notice it's inclusion that much if you play singleplayer, far better than having an AI Sheva. It sucks that cutting off limbs is less important than in the first game due to enemy and weapon designs, but the second one was already moving in that direction by the end of the game, so it's not really that weird. The parts of the game where you're exploring the ships in orbit is fantastic, and the snow planet is still decent if less interesting.
Similarly, just because Dark Souls 2 is the worst souls game doesn't make it bad, it's still a really good game.
@brackstone: I bounced off the first Kane and Lynch, but Kane and Lynch 2 is in my backlog ready to be played once I find the time. It sounds like they went for something with the sequel.
Vampire Rain. As a big stealth fan, I found it pretty satisfying to ghost my way through the game. I also found the atmosphere kinda creepy, despite the bad voice acting and ridiculous story. I can understand why people would get frustrated though. Your weapons are worthless, there's a limit to how many stealth kills you can do and it's the epitome of trial and error.
I also like a lot of eurojank games despite their flaws. They aren't as maligned, but the Risen series, Two Worlds, Gothic, Technomancer and the like are fine by me.
If we're going with games that got somewhat shitty reviews (5-7) then I enjoy most of Suda 51 & Yoko Taro's games. I feel like they do enough differently to be excused for their generally sub-par gameplay. (Nier: Automata being the exception)
Probably the worst reviewed game I enjoyed was Devil's Third. It was shallow, ran badly and didnt look great but it had a lot of B-movie style charm to it. It felt like a mashup between Kill Bill and Big Trouble Little China, it's fucking weird.
I also enjoyed Ride to Hell: Retribution but that game was a bit too buggy and broken to defend.
I don't know if I'd call it maligned, really, but Star Wars Episode I: Racer has been on my mind since the team's recent Nintendo 64 stream. Maybe it was the point of my life I was at when I played it (somewhere between 11 and 12, if I recall) but I found that game and its systems to have a lot of depth and a ton of charm. Say what you will about the prequels or even about Podracing, but it made for a truly compelling racing game that I rank among the system's best.
To answer the question more directly, I think it's interesting how few "so-bad-it's-good" video games exist. It happens all the time with movies, because that's a passive form of entertainment. The onus isn't on the viewer to drive the thing to its conclusion.
To that end, I think Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero veers so narrowly close to "so-bad-it's-good" territory. Everything from its lumbering controls to its awkward aesthetic to its worse-than-public-television cutscenes combine into a near-perfect piece of shit. It's truly a monolith of laughable design and it offers comedic timing, unintentional or otherwise, that will have you in stitches.
@cure_optimism: I forgot about Spiders & Piranha Bytes, I do tend to enjoy their work. Vampire Rain might be one of the worst games i've ever played though.
I think the tide has turned a bit on this one, but a lot of people had bad things to say about Matt Rorie's Alpha Protocol. A fair amount of that was due to it playing like an RPG instead of a shooter (why didn't I hit that guy, my crosshair was right on him?), but it was also fairly buggy as well. I absolutely loved the premise and I feel like they did a good job with the story and dialog overall. I really wish they had added it to Backwards Compatability on the XBOX One, especially since Microsoft bought Obsidian, but alas it was not to be.
Here's a hot take: Army of Two (all of them) were fun as hell.
Now, some caveats. I played through all of them with my brother and we're both pretty quick to make jokes with each other. The games in question were just easy enough filler of activity to do something together while still having fun. Nothing about the games, outside of perhaps it's bro-tone for some, is all that bad. The shooting is competent enough, the levels are fun enough. Nothing about Army of Two stands out as horribly bad or amazingly good. It's just good enough. But I have a really fond place for those games because I had so much fun playing through them with my brother. Also, I had fun picking a face mask and modding weapons into ridiculous monstrosities with crazy paint jobs.
@pezen: The first Army of Two is great! It was a capable Gears clone with a few tricks up its sleeve. It was elevated by being incredibly stupid, but the game felt like those who made it were going for something really edgy and cool. It had this accidental charm to it, not unlike 50 Cent: Blood in the Sand.
I didn’t get past level one in the sequel...the vibe immediately felt like the developers were trying to get in on the joke, which killed it for me.
EDIT:
The dialog and air guitar shit was atrociously amazing:
Phantasy Star Universe. The dialogue is cheesy. The story, well, it's there. It's anime as all hell. But it was a fun loot driven pseudo-MMO during the 360 era.
I don't think this needs defending. Sure, nothing can replicate the arcade version other than being in an actual arcade, but the N64 and current PC versions on Steam and GOG are still pretty good; basically up there with Diddy Kong Racing and F-Zero.
My go-to is Lightning Returns: FF13. It's just simply a ton of fun. Great soundtrack, story so-bad-it's-good, flexible structure, a lot of terrific looking armor and nice customizability, and perhaps the best RPG combat system of all time.
I sleep sound at night knowing there is like 2 GB users that also like the game. :D
Not in the mood to defend them much, but I will say I also liked Ryse and what I consider it's PlayStation counterpart, The Order: 1886. Both too linear and too short, but I enjoyed them. They weren't great overall, but still good and would have loved to see a sequel to both that improved on the aspects that were lacking. They were (perhaps still are) some of the best looking games on consoles to date. I really liked RE6; I think it's a great game and played it many times through with each character. I did it enough on the 360 version that I couldn't actually manage to find the motivation to do it on the remaster, but I played through about three characters. I guess Dark Souls 2 did get a lot of flak from Souls fans, but yeah I think that game is just as good as any of the other Souls games. Some other games are Alien: Isolation and The Division 1 which are some of my favorite games this generation. They definitely have their fan base, just as DS2 did, but it felt like some were pretty darn harsh on them.
@ntm: I liked Ryse a lot, The Order enough, and had A LOT of fun playing Resident Evil 6 co-op.
I thought RE6 was really cool and ambitious, if not a little silly. Dark Souls 2 is the Souls game I’ve spent the most time with, and have the most adoration for. I also love Alien Isolation.
I liked the Division until the live game aspect took over and it kept changing. Unwilling to relearn the game, I just never played it, or its sequel, again.
@nutter: I don't know, I played The Division 1 a lot, but the time span between going back sometimes was quite a while so many updates had come to the game and I never felt like I had to relearn that much; it just felt like there was a lot more to it with some changes for the better, like weapon upgrading/customization. Not sure that it matters a whole lot, but this is coming from someone that played it 99 percent of the time alone. The Division 2 is better now than at launch in my opinion; it was pretty disappointing to me until I hit the end game content, and that in and of itself is really disappointing, but at this point, it is my favorite game of the year so far. Considering that they're probably not updating the first game, maybe you should check it out again? Really great atmosphere, a fantastic soundtrack, interesting enough story. I also just like the gameplay a whole lot. Two's shooting is slightly better though since enemy animations are more realistic. Sorry, that got off-topic a bit.
+1 for alpha protocol, though I think at this point this game has pretty much achieved cult classic status and isn't nearly as maligned as it was when it came out.
Quantum Break: it feels like that game came and went and if people talk about it today they'll just make some derisive comments and move on. But to me it is absolutely another great remedy game, and not a lesser one compared to Max Payne or Alan wake, which I also love to death. The production values are insane, the story and characters (especially Beth) are intriguing and the gameplay is as far removed from standard third person shooter fare as you'll get from Western developers. I even liked the TV show parts, though admittedly I don't watch a lot of modern TV, so my standards here might be lower than for some people. But to me this game epitomizes that remedy always reinvent themselves with their games. they might have some similarities (e.g. they really like slowdowns and obviously they are all third person shooters), but they feel totally different in the way they play, from each other and from the rest of the industry. Before I played QB I thought I'd rather want Alan wake 2, but afterwards I was glad they made that game instead, because it really felt fresh and different again.
I’ll second Quantum Break, it’s not great but it’s fun and the TV shows are silly fun.
Dragon Age 2 is maligned for good reasons, but it’s still one of the most interesting western RPGs around. As a spin-off with more than 9 months development time it would’ve been amazing. I think it’s still super good, as a small-scale RPG with a small city and good characters I really liked it. It also has some of the best/least-cringy Bioware romance around (but also some pretty bad ones).
Resident Evil 6 is a pretty great co-op adventure. It's not subtle or masterfully paced or anything, but if you're the kinda person who digs over the top japanese action games, it's hell of fun. Last boss had four or five transformations. You know right from your reaction to that statement if you'd dig it or not.
Personally it was a way more fun movielike thrillride than Uncharted 2 ever provided.
@ntm: You know, thinking about it a little more (I haven’t thought about The Division in some time), I think it was two things.
1) A lot of end game gear rules changing a few months after release
2) Playing with some friends of friends who were power-leveling by using glitches to skip most of a stage
I think it #2 killed my desire to deal with #1. Sometime, you peel the curtain back far enough on something, strip out the story, adventure, window dressing, and you don’t like what you’re left with. It’s weird, but what really killed it for me was the realization that this group was bypassing the game to level in the game. What’s the fucking point, I thought. I think that’s when I quit and never came back...so maybe it’s not the game’s fault.
I played through Quantum Break twice, and watched all the TV footage in the process. It’s not Alan Wake, but I dug it quite a bit.
Dragon Age 2 is one that I adore (aside from the dungeons), in that it tells the story of a town and a family. I also enjoyed the system where if you leaned into certain dialog choices repeatedly, normal dialog would be flavored like that choice. It made my charmingly sarcastic Hawke’s tone more even.
I’ll add that while I don’t remember the story in Dragon Age Inquisition, I loved seeing my Hawke make an appearance. I got very attached to Hawke as well as the Inquisitor, so seeing them together was cool. Did the Origins Grey Warden appear if he lived? Mine died.
@nutter: You can sum up the series as "bad people do stupid violent things and suffer the consequences" and Kane and Lynch 2 definitely doubles down on that idea.
Story and character-wise, they're actually kind of similar to Max Payne 3, but less poetic and without any internal monologues. Gameplay isn't nearly as good either.
RE5 and 6 are two of my most favourite games of all time. Mafia 3 is very very good. Kane & Lynch 2 is great for what it is, definitely wasn't worth the full price at release but get it cheap now and it's a really good and quick 4 hour romp. Ryse is a fantastic game i will be revisiting soon. I didn't mind the 2nd half of Devil May Cry 4 re-using levels as everything else was so phenominally good. Everyone likes to poo-poo Watch_Dogs for various reasons, but i liked the main character, the side missions where i could get my Jason Bourne-esk stealth on, and thought the graphics were excellent. The pro Tekken community hates Tekken Tag 2 but but for a casual player that game was phenominal, stuffed to the brim with content, an excellent implementation of tag mechanics, has one of the hypest intros ever, and has the best fighting game soundtrack of all time. RIP Kunimitsu. I love the Dynasty Warriors games up to 8. I love the Earth Defense Force games. Operation Winback is a unique gem ahead of its time (think third person shooter Dark Souls).
That's all i've got at the moment, i was tempted to put Binary Domain but that's just a good ass game all around.
I... can't really think of a good example. I really don't bother to play games if they don't get review scores in the 8 or 9+ range. I'm probably missing out on some gems I would enjoy, but there are enough well-reviewed games to keep me occupied so I generally don't take a risk on the others.
The closest I can think of, perusing by Steam list, is Quantum Conundrum, which seemed to get a somewhat mixed reception but which I loved. Also Twilight Princess, which got great reviews but seems to be retroactively maligned somehow. Still one of my all-time favorites.
Dragon Age 2 is maligned for good reasons, but it’s still one of the most interesting western RPGs around. As a spin-off with more than 9 months development time it would’ve been amazing.
The sad thing is that, because of the response it got on release, that game will always be overlooked, even though I think developers stand to learn quite a few things from it, especially Bioware in its current incarnation. To be fair, I wanted a game that followed in the footsteps of Origins, so I too was ultimately disappointed by DA2. I'd like to revisit it at some point though.
I don't know if maligned is the right word, but I liked Hotline Miami 2 a lot, whereas I felt like many thought it deviated from the original in the wrong ways. Dennaton tried to experiment with the characters and encounters, which resulted in a less consistent but more exciting and memorable game. I really appreciated that Hotline Miami 2 repeatedly forced me out of my comfort zone.
Advent Rising. Planned as the first game in a trilogy, the game ends on a cliffhanger that never gets resolved, as the other games were never made. There are hints of a deep and interesting lore. The action was actually fun, although I'm sure it wouldn't hold up now.
@boozak: Lol yes, It's pretty bad. It takes a special kind of weirdo to get enjoyment out of Vampire Rain. 2007 was a weird time for 360 exclusives.
@bladeofcreation: I loved Advent Rising back in the day. It was almost like the precursor to Mass Effect, but sadly the epic story they had planned was dead on arrival. Stunning music too.
@tds418:I'm right there with you. I thought I hated Sonic Adventure 1 & 2 after revisiting them on the 360 years ago. I tried it again on Steam and once you get used to the finicky controls and absurd story, it's actually decently fun and nostalgic.
Pretty much everything everyone has put in here I agree with. I guess I'm a sucker for mediocre games.
@cure_optimism: Yes! I've never really thought of it as a Mass Effect precursor, but you're 100% correct. It was definitely more Mass Effect than Halo.
People have been very mean to my buddy Gabriel Knight 3, even naming it the game that killed adventure games. Especially the cat moustache puzzle gets a lot of hate. But man, that game actually does a decent job of telling you what you need to do. You step out the hotel, realize that the bike rental place is open for the first time (because people ride off on their bikes as you exit the hotel) and you know that the only bike left is reserved for your buddy Mosely. So naturally you have to pretend to be him to get access to the bike. How do you make yourself look like him? Maybe wear his jacket, maybe hide your long hair with a cap. Maybe put on a fake moustache. How to get the fake moustache? Let me look at my inventory with tape & a water spray bottle. Now let me follow the cat that runs towards a little interactive hole in a door. Cmon people , this ain't that hard to figure out! Especially because you're not allowed to leave the little town before you can solve this puzzle, which means that there are only about 8 screens to walk through. The puzzle that should get people mad is the one that requires you to be able to form & understand a sentence in latin. Or the one where it's not clear in which orientation you're supposed to draw lines on your map based on ancient texts. But i guess not many people have encountered that late-game puzzle. Annoying sure, but i played Grim Fandango right before this one and that one stumped me way more often. A rope with 2 distinct clicking points? The poetry slam mic in that game that makes it look like there's an actual puzzle to be solved there, but it's just a red herring? The safe that has the front turn around as you turn the crank, making you believe that it matters but you actually have to take the hinge off and look at that instead? Adventure games sometimes have a puzzle that frustrates, but that doesn't mean it's not worth playing at all! No one will hold it against you for using a guide at times to get the story rolling.
Gabriel Knight 3 is one of my favorite adventure games. No other game captures the feeling of being on holiday in the french countryside the way that game does. It taking place in an actual real life place (Rennes-le-Chateau) and revolving around a real life mystery makes the whole thing feel so much more interesting & engaging.There are people that go on vacation to this place after having played the game. In theory, games like Uncharted & Tomb Raider should give me a similar feeling, but they just don't achieve that at all.
This game starts with the 'what if mary magdalena & jesus had kids' question and then it comes down to that bloodline spreading around, and factions such as the wise men trying to find the 'next' jesus, while you have Priory of Sion & Freemasons supporting certain families as the true heirs of jesus. And naturally, with all this holy blood around the place, vampires realize they need to drink some of it to become immortal.
Whenever i finish the game, i find myself reading all these sites about freemasonry, Saunière & Merovingians. At some point i stumbled on a mailinglist of the Sinclair family (which is one of the supposed heirs of Jesus) talking about this stuff. It's just fascinating & interesting to dig into this stuff every once in a while. It's also a ton of fun to draw lines & patterns on a map, based on biblical verses. You feel so smart! Definitly a game that anyone that likes adventure games should play. And if you're not into the puzzles at all, just play along with a walkthrough. Or watch a lets play!
@wollywoo: Interesting. I let my gut bring me to games. If it seems cool, I’ll take a chance on it. I figure most games are competent these days, so the risk is low.
I guess keep an eye on this thread. Some great gems are out there that may lack the polish and budget, but are super interesting or offer unique, quirky brands of fun.
2008 Bionic Commando. The story is so bad that it’s funny, but more importantly I find the game fun as hell to play. The swinging and shooting feel great and when the music swells at just the right moment...magic.
Mirrors Edge: Catalyst was not very well received. Not maligned per'se, but definitely not as beloved by both critics and fans as the first one was.
I love that game. I think it's better than the first one actually, and I spent alot of time just running around in that world, doing time trials and such. May go back to get platinum one day, we'll see.
I'm partial to any game where you can (a) kill everything on the map and (b) completely break the systems to become vastly overpowered. This game has both. You can literally depopulate the map twice (the enemies and then their ghosts), and alchemy gives you vastly inflated stats with pretty much zero work.
It gets a special bonus for terrible writing and hilariously bad line delivery. It also has a terrible faux-Enya song at the title screen. It's bad. But it's also great.
Another one that springs to mind is Batman: Arkham Origins. Yes, it was the weakest of the Arkham games, but it didn't do much different than the almost universally acclaimed Arkham City. It's biggest crime seemed to be it was just more of the same. It bugs me how that somehow automatically equates to "BAD GAME" for some people, despite the previous game being considered good. Uncharted 3 found itself in a similar situation when that came out, although probably to a lesser extent.
@karmosin: @cikame: @nutter: @fear_the_booboo:I clicked through to see if anyone had mentioned Dragon Age II and I was not disappointed. It definitely has it's flaws, but I love (most of) the characters and story it tells. Varric alone is worth any problems with the game. I also really liked having a voiced protagonist for the first time in the series. I loved my Warden, but having Hawke speak really added to my enjoyment of all DAII playthroughs. (Side note: On an episode of the 1099, Mike Laidlaw (former creative director) mentioned that the original name for DAII was going to be Dragon Age: Exodus and man do I wish they had gone with that. Stupid EA.)
I also appreciate the defense of Mirror's Edge Catalyst. I loved the first one and bounced off the second one after playing the trial. I do own the game (since it was on a deep discount on Xbox at some point), and I've been meaning to give it another shot. This reinforces that I really should get on that.
To springboard off the Dynasty Warriors (at least up til 8) defense, I will say that I love the Warriors Orochi games, especially as a DW/SW fan. Like it is this wild crossover fan fic where you get all these fun interactions between characters who would never interact due to timelines or faction lines and it just brings me so much joy.
Side note: On an episode of the 1099, Mike Laidlaw (former creative director) mentioned that the original name for DAII was going to be Dragon Age: Exodus and man do I wish they had gone with that. Stupid EA.
While I agree that Dragon Age 2 is underrated, Game: Exodus always has to be the third game in a series. Ultima III: Exodus established this in the early 80's, and was reinforced recently withMetro: Exodus.
Pretty good example is Megaman X 6. Though, I can't really defend it because it's a pretty broken and badly designed game, I only beat it in the MMX collection because of the rookie hunter mode. I just still like it even though it's pretty bad.
A better example would be Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. A lot of BoF fans don't like it because it's so very different from the other games, but I think it made up for it by being absolutely amazing, in both it's fantastic strategy rpg system that gets crazy hard, and it's fantastic and well presented story.
@electricbarrier: This can be said for any MM game, really. People speak ill of 5 and 6 classic for numerous reasons but to me, they’re both solid controlling, fun games that just feel a little different from the mechanics in 4 (which is the best, fite me).
7 also gets looked at as a clunky mess, but everything about the game save for Wily Stages was so charming to me. Really brought to life the wackiness the series has always been gung-ho about portraying.
@danthepostman: Oh yeah, I like MM7 a lot too even though people usually say it's the worst of the classic series. MMX7 though, well, no I mean that one is about as bad as people say.
wow, i just remembered I even had Ryse lol. It was an alright game.
I will say that the multiplayer in Mass Effect andromeda was still good, even the story stuff was just mediocre not really "bad".
Vanilla X-com 2 was great IMO, and the DLC just made it even better. I still don't know what people hated about that game (besides some technical problems)
I've been playing ME:Andromeda a lot lately so I think it's a case of Stockholm syndrome, but I really feel bad for the developers. On some of the planets, you can really see an attention to detail that obviously didn't come from someone who couldn't care less.
Point being, they worked so hard on this project only to have some Cheetos-fingered critic say the game wasn't good enough.
Granted, I played it after they patched most of the jank out and picked it up on sale for $20, but I enjoyed my time with Mass Effect: Andromeda. It's certainly has less of the interesting space politics between the races of the previous trilogy and I understand the disappointment around the main plot being more akin to a boilerplate, blockbuster-y, popcorn action movie. But I don't think it was something they couldn't have established or improved on in a sequel.
...It also had a lot of alien butt in it, which is always a plus as far as I'm concerned.
@cikame: I agree with you completely about RE 5 & (particularly) 6. I extracted a lot of enjoyment from those games, and while I saw many of the flaws others did, they didn't sour me on those games overall. That said, I haven't gone back to either at any point so I wouldn't lean in so hard to say that either should be considered great titles.
I think Dead Space 3 is the best Dead Space game. It's super long, has a ton of cool setpieces in it, and, for once, the co-op implementation didn't impact the single-player game at all (no dumb AI partner to deal with). I like it a lot!
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