Games you like that critics hate

[babinro]

While not hated by reviewers. This is probably as close as it gets for me because it's simply considered good and also unknown. I personally love the game and happily place it among my top 10 games of that generation.

I'm sure I loved a ton of NES and Commodore 64 games that were considered terrible. But I wouldn't know how they were critically received at the time.

 

[Pearwood]

God Hand - This game got HAMMERED by reviewers but I LOVE(D) it.

I just picked it up off PSN, I'll agree it looks alright. Not seen anything yet that really makes me love it, I'm not much of a fan of the Western setting but I did literally just start it. Controls are a bit dodgy but it's nothing deal breaking.

For me it's just stuff like Clive Barker's Jericho, stuff I know is bad but it's bad in that kind of horror movie way where it's just funny.

 

[-Samurai-]

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days is up there as one of my all time favorite games, it's just so much mindless fun, that I will agree is very short but hell I still like the game-play and the lack of a better term "dark" story line you follow them through.

I love both Kane and Lynch games. They're great for split-screen co-op. The controls are a tad clunky, but once you get around that, it's all good. Great voice acting from the main cast, too.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Pretty much every 3D-next gen Sonic console game (with the exception of Sonic '06 and the Storybook games). Critics tend to bash on how Sonic controls, the prescense of a story, the inclusion of his friends, or how many shameless comparisons to it's platforming rival Mario that it makes (Sonic Colors sucks because it "TRIED" to like Super Mario Galaxy? Really?!).

I enjoy all the good bits of the Sonic titles and I feel like the latest installments are building up to bigger and better titles.

 

[blizzaradragon]

Mine is really easy. All the Digimon games have low Metacritic scores except Digimon World DS, and that one is a 71 so it just barely is over the standards. I have yet to play one I don't like, with the closest being Digimon World 4 which was a slight like.

One from more recent games is Cross Edge for the PS3, although I can see that being scored low since it appeals more to a niche market and MANY people haven't even heard of the games they used in the crossover.

 

[CrazyDave DC]

Deadly Premonition. What do you think, Zach?

 

[aksel]

Duke Nukem Forever. I mean, it wasn't THAT bad. And the original games weren't even that good to begin with. But yeah, everyone, including critics, hated the game. I had fun. End of story.

 

[AgentNein]

hooboy have I got a few of these under my belt.

Bubsy 3d for the Playstation. First for real seriously 3d platformer I ever played (one of the first in fact, if not the first?), which just goes to show sometimes it's better to wait for Mario to come out and do it right and totally rip him off.

Yet I still really dig it. Graphically I think it holds up better than a lot of these older games, strictly cuz of how basic and simple the art design and geometry of the levels is. And the actual game mechanics weren't THAT horrible? I'm not sure why I enjoyed it really. BUT I DID.

 

[ChickNaney]

I don't usually disagree with game critics when it comes to bad games, but I had to disagree with them when it came to Two Worlds [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Worlds_%28video_game%29], probably best known as "that-one-game-that-tries-to-be-Oblivion-and-fails."

I'll admit, the game has zero originality, boring visuals, broken mechanics, and one of the worst user-interfaces ever to grace a video game; but I'll be darned if it wasn't really fun to play. I found that what it lacked in polish, it made up with it's vast amount of content and the freedom it gave players; it pretty much let you do anything you wanted to.

If I had to summarize it, Two Worlds is essentially the video game equivalent of a B-Movie, a shameless imitation that can occasionally end up being more fun than the thing it's trying to emulate. And, like most B-Movies, it got a sequel, and from what I've heard from friends, it's just as fun as the first game.

Basically, this. But the funny thing is is that I never ran into any glitches. Ever. Everywhere I see someone talk about it, they always say it freezes up, there's things glitched out the ass, so on and so forth, but I never ran into anything of the sort. I also preferred the first's single player over the second's.

 

[AgentNein]

Another: Rule of Rose. I'm a survival horror fan, and for the most part design decisions that are labeled as "bad" in these games don't really bother me. I say that if it lends itself to the mood you're trying to evoke it can't be objectively bad. And I was weened on Resident Evil. No problem navigating those games really.

With all of that said, Rule of Rose is pretty bad even by my lax standards for survival horror. It's a guilty pleasure for real. It's got a pretty amazing story that makes concrete sense by the end (not that I mind the ambiguity of say, a Silent Hill, but sometimes it's refreshing to get something that has fairly concrete answers by the end).

 

[way2sl0w]

I'm really liking Resident Evil: ORC so far (54 on metacritic). It's getting a lot of crap for bad mechanics and AI but it doesn't bother me and playing as the bad guys for once is so satisfying. No more trying to save hostages only to have them run in front of my bullets and give me a game over. I even bent my no day 1 dlc rule for this game.

 

[Wuffykins]

Well, seeing as Alpha Protocol has been mentioned extensively I can skip that and add this to the pile: The Monster Hunter games for the PSP.

Basically most (thankfully not all) of the reviews I've read for Freedom, Freedom 2 & Freedom Unite came down to one simple conclusion: No auto lock for the camera instantly equals bad game. I'll admit it was quite amusing to read the reviewers' reasoning on said subject, but it's when I learned to ignore journalistic reviews of games and instead go by general word of mouth by fellow players.

Hell, it's what got me to buy Alpha Protocol in the end, and I regret nothing.

 

[Waaghpowa]

I wouldn't say critics hated it, but they said it wasn't all that good.

NeverDead. I thought it was fucking awesome aside from the occasional frustration.

 

[skywolfblue]

Bioshock 2 Hated by most of the critics out there, but I thought it was downright fantastic.

Enslaved Maybe not hated, but definitely underrated.

Dead Space 2 The greater majority thought it wasn't as good as Dead Space 1, but personally I thought it was amazing.

Dragon Age 2 Well, I don't really ~love~ it, but it's a decent game and doesn't deserve the huge volcano of hate that was thrown at it.

 

[C2Ultima]

For me, Kirby Air Ride. I loved that game, but it was considered to be an unremarkable "meh" sort of game.

 

[lacktheknack]

Myst V: It came out, was damned with faint praise, vanished into the ether.

But I REALLY freaking loved the tablet-drawing mechanic. It was different enough from the last games that it completely non-derivative. It was also the first (and only) game to make me wet myself in terror.

 

[TehCookie]

Duke Nukem Forever. Sure it wasn't great or epic like everyone expected but it was a generic FPS starring Duke Nukem. What else did they expect? Not saying it should have gotten fabulous scores for that but it doesn't deserve all the hate it gets.

 

[isometry]

I thought Champions Online was a great 'spritual successor' to City of Heroes. Fans and critics not so much, so the game kind of languished in its second year. CO was an MMO that tried to innovate beyond WoW: action combat with up to 20 skills and few cooldowns*, open skill selection instead of trinity classes (so the number of builds were endless, and top players were always discovering new combinations), and every player on the same server.

*and full Xbox 360 controller support for all those actions. I would liken it to playing a fighting game, but a little bit slower and using shift keys instead of combos (i.e. X, Y, B, lefttrigger + X, rightshoulderbutton + B, dpadleft + Y, etc). I haven't played any other game with as many actions using the controller, and also having fully customizable controls.

 

[Gir1yG4m3r]

Y'know, I don't think I've ever been in that position.

The closest example I can think of is Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. It got a very lukewarm critical reception. (Metascore of 75, which is low when you remember that hardly anything scores under 70.)

Even then though, I can see why it got reviewed poorly. It had some severe issues. I just love it for the ending and epilogue.

...

PS. In before, "All critics are hacks who take bribes".

It had some bugs and it was near impossible to play on my computer, but I love that game to death. Yes, the ending made me start bawling literally.