Gaming gems you almost didn't play

[imperialreign]

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

When I picked it up from the bargin bin for $10 back in late '07 (yeah, bargin bin after 6 months on the shelf), it was simply cause I was looking for something different, and had grown tired of my usual FPS haunts (FEAR, Doom3, Quake4, etc.).

It's let to countless hundreds of hours of gameplay and modding for me over the last 3+ years.

 

[Jmurray21]

Assassin's Creed for me. I played it at my cousins and i was terrible at it. I had really bad gaming experience with the game.
I got myself an xbox that years Christmas and saw it on sale preowned for 30 bucks.
I thought to myself why not and bought it along with BF2 Modern Combat.
I loved it. Assassin's Creed is now my favorite game series alongside Mass Effect.

I went to my cousin's place the next year and I finished the game for him. Start to finish in six hours.

 

[thenumberthirteen]

Star Trek: Bridge Commander. I saw it once in a shop years ago, but given the massive amounts of Star Trek Shovelware I didn't buy it. Then a couple years ago I looked up all the Star Trek games to see how many awful ones there were. I read the Wiki article on BC and was intregued. A couple months later I found a copy in a bargain bin (I love small games retailers) and it is now up there with "Birth of the Federation" as my favourite Star Trek game, and I still play it all the time. Thanks mainly to the strong modding community that keeps on adding awesome new features and ships.

Is it like Freespace 2, just seen from the Commander's viewpoint instead of an individual pilot's? Cos if it is then that's reason enough for me to buy it.

I haven't played Freespace so I'm not sure what you mean by that.

 

[Thaliur]

The Orange Box for me. I still don't really care about TF2 (just because I don't like online shooters) and the only Valve products I knew so far were Half-Life 1 (which I found just awful when I played it) and Counter-Strike, combined with Steam, I just wanted to avoid it completely.
Also, Portal seemed just like a ripoff of Narbacular Drop.

The I bought it...
And it was AWESOME! I loved HL2, I loved Portal, and I liked the TF2 design and "Meet The..." Videos (still missing the Medic though...), but still never actually played TF2. It might also be awesome, but as I said, I don't like online shooters.

 

[SentryGun]

battlefield bad company 2, i just bought it... is nice

 

[SoranMBane]

I almost didn't play Call of Duty 4, figuring it would just be a generic "realistic" shooter with too much of an emphasis on multiplayer and no meat to its story. Then I watched Yahtzee's review of it, decided to give it a whirl, and now I consider it to be one of my favourite games (it's #4, specifically, right after Half-Life 2, Portal, and Dead Space 2). It's also one of only three games that have actually managed to make me cry.

 

[Xanian]

The Suffering

It looked stupid...sounded stupid...and all of the reviews seemed to have people starting on Nightmare mode. It was on sale for 5 bucks and I figured, "Eh...5 bucks is worth an hour or two."

Played that game twice. Loved it. Real atmosphere building and the little psychological hiccups were interesting instead of distracting. Have to play it on normal to get a real feel for the game, though.

 

[darth.pixie]

The series of Divine Divinity. I hadn't heard much about it and I started playing it when those sort of graphics were heavily outdated. I now love it and count it as one of my favorite series.

 

[muffincakes]

Tales of Symphonia. When I first saw the cel-shaded style it was a huge turn off, and as one of the only games I've played that has enough story and character development to really draw me in, I would have been missing out on what is now one of my favorite games.

 

[Penguinness]

When I was little we wanted to buy Kirby's Dreamland for the gameboy, except it came in a pack of 3 games and not seperately. My mum didn't want to buy this, but eventually gave in. In this pack of three was the gaming gem of all gems - Zelda: Link's Awakening.

 

[KingKamor]

I never would have played Tales of Symphonia if I hadn't seen a commercial for it. I flipped on the TV one day, it was on some random channel, and it was at a different time in the day than usual since school got out early. It was the only thing that tipped me off to the box art at Gamestop that weekend. I haven't ever seen the commercial again since that day. Now I'm a devout Tales series fan.

I also never would have even heard of Ocarina of Time if my next door neighbor hadn't let me watch him play it.

 

[01011001]

I brushed off Arcanum for a long time purely because the graphics didn't meet my standards, months later I gave a try on a friends recommendation and it became my favourite all time RPG.

 

[Tipsy Giant]

Mega Man 2, I had had a NES back in the 80s but had never played or heard of the series till 00s, now I rebought a NES and have completed it 20+ times, perfect platforming and shooting, just perfect

 

[John the Gamer]

Thief 2 and Psychonauts. I learned of them through Yahtzee.
I loved them both, though I never managed to finish Thief 2 (stuck in bank level) still a great game, but I'm not the kind of person for stealth gameplay.

 

[Togs]

Diablo 2- Id just gotten my 1st computer and desperately wanted a game to play on it, I had chosen the sims but when I went to buy the store didnt have it in so instead I picked up the game with the coolest boxart.
Ten years later and Im still playing it and still have the original copy.

 

[BringBackBuck]

snip with the fancy picture

Best Star Trek game = NetTrek

Spoiler: Also not a cut scene - Actual game play!

 

[gl1koz3]

I went on looking at some games when I ran out and stumbled upon Mass Effect. I didn't care to get into it, but got totally hooked mid-game.

 

[Nayr]

Two for me. Tales of Symphionia, which my brother rented when I was 14 and I orgiinally thought it was bad, but it is with phantasy star online my favorite game. As well PSO my brother bought from a friend and I never wanted to play since he was so much higher level than I was. So I decided to stop crying and played it continuosly. I never want to leave Ragol!

 

[DeadProxy]

Psychonauts.

I only played it because my fiance had a copy.

Drives me nuts, that game, but it's so much fun and brilliance!

Awwwww i was gonna say that
Was curious about it the moment i heard about it (3-4 years ago maybe) and then maybe 2 years ago i found a game site that offered it for download for free, so i was totally for it.
Played it, got to the final level but never beat the game...stupid escort mission in the meat circus >.> but gooood its a great game.

I guess when the game is about jumping into peoples subconcious, you get a glimpse at what the imagination really has to offer, and they show it in that game.

Tales of Symphonia. When I first saw the cel-shaded style it was a huge turn off, and as one of the only games I've played that has enough story and character development to really draw me in, I would have been missing out on what is now one of my favorite games.

ooooh damn, thank you for reminding me of that one too, definately one of my favourite games i've ever played. Walked into a rogers video store one day and saw it, rented it cause it looked nice, beat the game in 4 days cause i had to return it on the fifth...ALOT of my waking hours were spent playing this game and i dont regret it at all. I was also somewhere around 10-12 years old when i played it too, very nice x3

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

I almost missed out on Okami, didnt have a ps2 when it was released, but then I almost sold my wii. Then I saw that is was coming out for it, so I kept it a little while longer until I beat it, then sold my wii. Such a great game.