8 Ridiculously Underrated Games

[TheSYLOH]

I played DS3 with a friend and its pretty bad, mostly boring but this is purely subjective. By the time we got to the planet we wanted to quit but we kept going just to spite the game and say we finished the slog.

The thing about DS3 was not that it was a good survival horror game. To the contrary it's an absolutely atrocious survival horror game.
The fun of DS3 was crafting the most ridiculously overpowered weapons imaginable.
It out Borderlanded Borderlands.
Running around with an functionally unlimited clip chain gun with underslung rocket launcher, is the kind of mindless fun that I enjoyed greatly.
And the fact that the game tries to scare you, while your one shotting everything with a double barreled stasis sniper rifle just reinforces that you're getting one over the developers and is a far more gratifying power fantasy than most games out there.

 

[maddawg IAJI]

Bioshock 2 wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near as awesome as Bioshock was. We brush it under the rug because its the annoying middle child, not as innovative or as different as the original nor as different and enjoyable as Infinite. It was just Bioshock with a weird multiplayer system tacked onto it.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

For me it has to be:
Prototype - there still isn't an open-world superpowers game that lets you eat people and turn into them.
Prototype 2 - definitely the best sequel I ever played, because while playing it I never found myself missing anything and found it to
be an improvement on all levels.
Crackdown 2 - People hate this for some reason even though it has more weapons, more toys, 4-player co-op, a city full of zombies,
more vehicles (helicopters!), more thought put into the story, and more abilities (wingsuit + ground pound are awesome)
Fable 3 - Has more content, choices, and story than Fable 1, still regarded as worse than Fable 1. Lolwut? Plus, it had a much more
nuanced villain than Fable 1 and 2. And that sequence in the darkness after you get shipwrecked was leaps and bounds above
anything offered in Fable 1 and 2 as well (a main villain who you beat twice, stilted voice acting, everyone just ending up
wearing/doing the same thing because only numbers matter in 1, so everyone just wore plate armour and levelled up strength).
Dragon Age 2 - It got a 5/5 on The Escapist. People still have a conniption whenever it's name begins to be uttered.
Brutal Legend (still) - Only the trv and kvlt would understand why it is the greatest thing to happen to gaming.
Postal 3 - yes, it has utter and blatant contempt for the player. yes, it is completely unoptimized. yes, the controls suck ass. yes,
it's still gloriously offensive in the best way.
Bulletstorm - skillshots really need to be more prevalent in shooters because that was so fun.

 

[BeerTent]

Evil Genius is a fantastic game. My only qualm with is is that it didn't have a "free build" mode (that I could find anyway. Help an evil genius out?). It's a lot more fun if you have a cat that just KNOWS when you're playing it and likes to sit on your lap as you do so.

Closest thing I got to a "freebuild" mode is an exploit.

In the tutorial, there's a point where you need to bring a maid over to train your worker to become a valet. The game gives you world map access for this. However, the World map is a tad broken. You could make hallways of lockers for your minions, and send every last one to places to steal cash. It gets to the point where if you idle long enough, you can have billions of dollars. EDIT: And not a single agent of justice will look sideways at you.

Is it Freebuild? Well, no. But I've found it to make the game more fun.

 

[snekadid]

I played DS3 with a friend and its pretty bad, mostly boring but this is purely subjective. By the time we got to the planet we wanted to quit but we kept going just to spite the game and say we finished the slog.

The thing about DS3 was not that it was a good survival horror game. To the contrary it's an absolutely atrocious survival horror game.
The fun of DS3 was crafting the most ridiculously overpowered weapons imaginable.
It out Borderlanded Borderlands.
Running around with an functionally unlimited clip chain gun with underslung rocket launcher, is the kind of mindless fun that I enjoyed greatly.
And the fact that the game tries to scare you, while your one shotting everything with a double barreled stasis sniper rifle just reinforces that you're getting one over the developers and is a far more gratifying power fantasy than most games out there.

See, I can understand your point, but personally I still disagree because the enemies weren't threatening at any point. Making a great weapon to blast crap enemies is setting up 100 dominoes that at the end just fall over and don't spell or activate anything. It was absolutely crap survival horror and we didn't go in expecting otherwise. We got it in the EA humble bundle and thought "O well, COOP, lets give it a try" and it was just so boring. The only interesting part was the carter insanity sections and that's because as Isaac I had no idea what was going on and that was fun. Otherwise it was blast enemies that didn't have a chance and if they managed to hit us use the endless supply of medkits they force fed us.

I'm not saying it's impossible to have fun playing it, just that it is not an underrated game. It got exactly what it deserved in terms of acclaim considering DS 1&2 were such great games(regardless of genre).

 

[RyQ_TMC]

As for Beyond Good and Evil, surely not THAT underrated? I haven't played it myself, but never heard less than glowing references.

Yeah, "underrated" isn't really a good descriptor. It got glowing reviews all around, but there wasn't well marketed, and it didn't sell. It also famously got released at the same time as the Sims expansion pack, so it serves as immortal reference for anyone making the "people be stoopid and easily amused" argument.

I was one of the people who bought BG&E at launch, on the strength of a gushing review, and I THINK a game demo.

 

[Toadfish1]

Lemme guess, this will contaqin a bunch of games that were rated highly by critics and thus are not overrated by definition, but did, in fact, undersell, and the writer thinks those two terms are synonymous.

Oh, what a complete non shock.

You want to know what an actual underrated game is? The Order 1886. By definition - its rated higher by its players than it was by critics so it is therefore by the meaning of the term rated under its actual value.

 

[Dr.Susse]

Wow Sid Meier's Sim Golf......That game was good.

Haven't thought about that game for a long time now. I think I got it for free when Pizza hut was doing one of their weird game deals for buying some variety of pizza.

Funnily that same deal got me into Ice hockey.
Every time I watch the Red wings now I have to yell DATSYUK! every time he touches the puck.

 

[FogHornG36]

I like the idea of alpha Protocol, the game itself is a flat as cardboard. I enjoy the rpg stuff in it anyway, wish they would do another one, maybe a little more born conspiracy, or Tom Clancy

 

[rgrekejin]

Bioshock 2 wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't anywhere near as awesome as Bioshock was. We brush it under the rug because its the annoying middle child, not as innovative or as different as the original nor as different and enjoyable as Infinite. It was just Bioshock with a weird multiplayer system tacked onto it.

True. When the most remarkable aspect of your game is a piece of DLC, you know your game was pretty unremarkable. The only place I see Bioshock 2 really get any good press is when people talk about how to do DLC right, and 'Minerva's Den' comes up.

 

[ffronw]

I agree with a couple of these. "Impossible Creatures" and "Evil Genius" are quite underrated. However, if I may add a couple that I feel are underrated. "Folklore" One hell of an action RPG, with two equally bad-ass characters, and a great story (That I'll be revisiting after I'm done with "Legend of Dragoon"). Shy that, I can't think of any other game that is underrated...

I hear a lot of people talk about Folklore. Gonna have to look that one up.

 

[Dantos]

For me, the thing that bothered me about Brutal Legend was that it seemingly was more marketed as a zeldaesque adventurey hack n slash, and it was for a little bit when I first played it. Then the RTS kicked in for the 2nd part, the majority of the game, and I hate RTS. If it had stayed as the open world hack and slash, I would have enjoyed it a ton more.

Brutal Legend was the game that taught me to always, always read more into games that seem interesting, and never buy on release.

Beyond good and evil is something that Ive always heard was good, I keep meaning to pick it up during various sales, but never seem to.

 

[zombiejoe]

This is a fantastic list, real spot on. These games need more love!

EDIT: And I just gotta say, though I've said it before, Bioshock 2's multiplayer was not only underrated, but one of the best examples of multiplayer narrative I have ever seen. Titanfall wishes it could have been as good.

 

[verdant monkai]

Sid Meier's Sim Golf... yeah
Because Golf and Sims game need more focusing on.

In my opinion one of the most underrated games around is Shadow of Memories/Shadow of Destiny on the PS2. Its got bizarre adventure game logic and takes a little time. But its a wonderful take on the solving my own murder mystery genre.

 

[Elementary - Dear Watson]

Whenever I see 'underrated' I always think of Enslaved: Oddessy to the West. This was an awesome game too, but was dwarfed by other releases. Then I saw that randomly the 'commandments of Doodad's' CM comic was linked to this as 'related content'! Probably because of the word 'underrated'.

Another forgotten gem that I like to revisit is Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis. This is the closest game there is to the actual franchise. The Forgotten Tales game is good, but I see that as more of an interactive story as opposed to a game. The ability to make your own park is exactly what you want in a JP game, and then saving park goers from escaped dinos with a sniper rifle is the other half of what you want!

I definitely agree with the ones on here I have played; which happens to be the first 5. The others I will have to check out.

 

[CaitSeith]

Impossible Creatures sounds like a game that really needs to be re-released or remade.

 

[LordLundar]

Closest thing I got to a "freebuild" mode is an exploit.

In the tutorial, there's a point where you need to bring a maid over to train your worker to become a valet. The game gives you world map access for this. However, the World map is a tad broken. You could make hallways of lockers for your minions, and send every last one to places to steal cash. It gets to the point where if you idle long enough, you can have billions of dollars. EDIT: And not a single agent of justice will look sideways at you.

Is it Freebuild? Well, no. But I've found it to make the game more fun.

Actually that was intended. Agents of Justice are not supposed to come in until after the maid interrogation part to allow the player to get established first. It's not even much of an exploit either as the idea was to give players a head start. They just underestimated how much players are willing to grind. Sid Meier's Pirates has a similar mechanic. Until you capture or sink your first ship your ship cannot be destroyed. This has led to players seeking out Henry Morgan who's the number one pirate and has a Large Frigate (which is the top combat ship until Ship of the Line class start to show up later) and 10k of treasure and capture the ship. This leads to getting a very powerful ship, a lot of money, and it tends to have a specialist on board. All of which gives a MASSIVE boost until late game.

Back on Topic. Impossible Creatures was a VERY interesting game but it was hamstrung by poor coding. I have played it with a system that is supposed to easily outstrip it's requirements and it still suffered from very heavy performance lag.

 

[Pyrian]

For me, the thing that bothered me about Brutal Legend was that it seemingly was more marketed as a zeldaesque adventurey hack n slash, and it was for a little bit when I first played it. Then the RTS kicked in for the 2nd part, the majority of the game, and I hate RTS.

Mixing genres: Devs want to attract fans of either genre, but instead get only people who are fans of both...

 

[Burs]

Sid Meier's Sim Golf... yeah
Because Golf and Sims game need more focusing on.

In my opinion one of the most underrated games around is Shadow of Memories/Shadow of Destiny on the PS2. Its got bizarre adventure game logic and takes a little time. But its a wonderful take on the solving my own murder mystery genre.

It wasn't really a Sims or a golf game, I always tucked in the same category as Rollercoaster Tycoon and just as fun if you like those types of games.


One game I personally think is underrated and really needed the spotlight was Capcom's "Mark of Kri" cool storytelling, cool mix of hack and slash and stealth for the old PS2 audience and a lot serious bloody dismemberment, and breaking bone sound effects which for 13-16 year old me was awesome back in the day.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

I've never dared try Alpha Protocol because whenever it's mentioned it is always accompanied with "buggy as h3ll"..
It sounds like I would have really enjoyed it if it wasn't for that though.

Beyond Good & Evil is a great game that I install and play about once a year.
Was looking forward to the sequel at the time, but I'm not exactly a fan of today's type of game..style..for lack of a better word.

Impossible Creatures is most definitely underrated (with it's expansion Insect Invasion).
The sheer number of possible combinations, and counters to those in turn, should make the Online battles constantly feel alive and shifting.
Needs a bit bigger stage and players at once though..hmm.
Perhaps I should install it again and feel that nostalgia pouring through.

---

I'm a bit iffy on what counts as an "underrated" game but..I'll mention some great but largely forgotten/ignored ones.

Project Eden. Action-Adventure that lets you use 4 character with different skills to solve and shoot their way through missions.
You are also able to play it with up to 3 friends, 1=4,2=2,3=1(2) and 4=1.

Hellgate: London. FPS with random loot drops.
Found a nice weapon when you killed that demon/opened a chest? Great! Time to mod it/upgrade it!

Ok..I remembered quite a few while writing up the above so it's list (string) time!
Ballistics, Outcast, Anachronox, Imperium Galactica 2, Re-Volt, Conquest: Frontier Wars, Harbinger and maybe also Startopia?