Great games you found by accident

[Squilookle]

When I first got a computer I decided I needed a flight combat game for my joystick, so on a whim I picked up TIE Fighter. Then in 1998 I got my first console and figured I'd need a shooter, so on a whim I bought Goldeneye. Thinking of getting a driving game, I was over at a friend's place and he showed me Driver.

Gaming in general has been struggling to live up to them ever since.

 

[CleverNickname]

Assassin's Creed, oddly enough. It came free with my graphics card - before that I never paid it any attention, when it was just the first one it wasn't a huge "phenomenon" yet, I hadn't seen any reviews, I don't know if I even saw a trailer.
Now I'm a big fan of the series, and I even have a much greater appreciation for the genre - which I think bears mentioning, seeing how I was just some shooter-playing PC gamer. And I didn't think for a second to play it with keyboard/mouse. "Where is my gamepad" was the first thought when I saw the disc

 

[Fimbulvetr3822]

the original Suikoden on PS1, found it without box or manual and being used as a tea coaster by a friend about 10 years ago. He told me that he didn't like it and would sell it to me for 50p if i wanted it. Best 50p ever spent, even if i could only get about 10 hours in before the damage to the disk became to much and it crashed. I found an emulator copy a few years ago and was finally able to finish it

 

[Beffudled Sheep]

Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Star Wars Republic Commando.
After I got my original xbox I went to a gamestop looking for games and saw the two sitting next to each other on a shelf. I went "star wars? And Both for 20 bucks total? Hell yeah!".
They are both now two of my favorite games of all time and I am deeply saddened by their lack of sequels

 

[AbstractStream]

Monster Hunter. I got into the Monster Hunter series because of the cover. I thought "oh hey, look. Dinosaurs and dragons." I bought it and have never looked back.

 

[dimensional]

Valkyria Chronicles didnt see any advertising for this game bought it on a whim for 15 pounds and proceeded to play it to death easily my favourite game this gen and second favourite game ever now. Really Sega should have marketed the crap out of this game over here instead of just slipping it out I didnt even see any reviews anywhere until a fair bit later there was a demo available but most people I know dont bother wasting time to download demos to games they havent heard anything of.

 

[Rangerboy87]

Legend of Dragoon for me...was just hanging around Wal-Mart when I saw a demo of it going and thought "hey why not?" Played it, thought it was pretty fun and put it on the Christmas list (I was only a boy at the time).

It's now one of my favorite games of all time and one of the very few ps1 games I still go back and play to this day. It's just that much fun. I have always said that game is what made me a gamer.

A close second would be Driver...played it at a cousin's house but couldn't get through the parking garage test...found it in the Wal-mart bargin bin bout a year later and it's probably the only other PS1 game I still play. The PS1 era was when I really developed as a gamer.

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

As a kid, I found a demo of Heroes Of Might & Magic 2, and fell in love. The series may have gone downhill a bit, but it's still a wonderful game to play. Grid-based strategy combat with spells, towns to be laid siege to, a variety of units and so on. Never played anything else quite like it.

HOMM3 was great too, but it's never really been the same since the first three games. I've been really pleasantly surprised by the newer King's Bounty games though, which are somewhat similar. I wasn't expecting much of them at all, because they were made by some Russian developer I'd never heard of and kind of bizarrely pulled the King's Bounty name out of nowhere almost 20 years later (where the original King's Bounty is what the first HOMM was actually based on/inspired by). Turns out they're not at all your typical crappy cash-in reboot and are way more fun than the recent HOMM games have been. I feel like I ripped them off getting the first one for a dollar in a sale a couple years ago completely on a whim, but I guess it did get me to buy the sequel and its expansion after that...

 

[Switchblade1080]

1. Guilty Gear - (The very first one)...it was both a unique and bloody anime-styled fighting game.

The Instant Kills in that game are better than it's sequels, I know the combat is imbalanced, the modes of play are short...but the game's style alone was it's greatest saving grace.

2. Demonstone - Mind you, this wasn't as great as Guilty Gear...but its still great. It was SO by accident in fact, that I didn't bother looking for screenshots (We don't have an Internet Connection at the time)...the game isn't much, but for what I played it on (An old Pentium 4, with 384 MB RAM)...the game LOOKED great, and I enjoyed most of the psuedo RPG elements of the game.

3. ********** - I forgot the name of one game where you play as one of two giant mecha (colored red and blue respectively) (No, not Gundam...its a Side-Scroller as well), the red one was more of a vehicle with it's use of engines to navigate, explosive military weapons (Think Metal Slug with a Jetpack). The blue one however was more akin to playing as Zero from Megaman X (Laser blade, double jump(?)), regardless the game was TOO awesome for my too old PC (So old it can only hold 2 Gigabytes)

4. Theatre of Death - The MSDOS game IIRC, more of an extremely twisted game of Cannon Fodder. I enjoyed the game a lot though...but there are some character profiles that simply explain...a little too much (That's an understatement, I'd be struck with a warning if I gave an example).

5. Duke Nukem - You better believe it, I actually DIDN'T know this game existed on my father's PC. And FYI; it was the time when I assumed that PC games only consisted of Minesweeper, Freecell, Hearts, and Solitaire so its a surprise that I'd see a game of THIS magnitude.

 

[MBurdock]

Gladius - got it at a previously played bin in Blockbuster. I spent hours and hours on that game. I love turn-based strategy games and I wish there were more of them on the current consoles.

 

[Overusedname]

Every game from my childhood, the dark ages before the internet as we know it.

And before I knew game magazines existed.

My dad got me a very obscure little game known as 'Gaurdian's Crusade', just because I saw that you can raise a baby dragon-pig thing.

I named it after my dog, and played it with him in my lap.

Good times, yo.

 

[sextus the crazy]

I had no real interest in TF2 before my friend gave me a copy for the PC for my birthday. 5 years later and 230 hours in, I'm glad he gave it to me.

 

[Sirtety]

The Punisher for the Xbox.

I walked past it in a store and had no clue the game even existed. Picked it up on a whim and it turned out to be awesome. Any game which lets you use a live rhinoceros to impale a criminal is great in my book.

 

[The]

I was just looking around on Youtube a couple of years back, when all of a sudden I see "Meet The Spy" on the homepage. Curious, I looked at it, and looked at the rest of the TF2 videos afterwards. I then got it later on.

 

[Palmerama]

Eat Lead: The Story of Matt Hazard! Saw it in Game for a fiver & looked at the back & stated that it was a spoof of the last 25 years in gaming. I was interested & bought it.
While it doesn't fully live up to that statement, I found it to be a superbly written, witty third person shooter that brilliantly takes the piss out of shooters. THe gameplay can be a bit basic but I just put that down to it being a low budget game. Even the achievements are funny! I definately recommend this.

Bioshock was one. Didn't really understand the hype behind it & only seeing the Big Daddy for promotinal stuff I ignored it. When I got my 360 I neded games so I bought it along with Devil May Cry 4, Too Human & Hitman Blood Money. It's the only one I still own! Was completely hooked from the moment I entered that lighthouse!

My overall one would have to be FAllout! My firend gave me his copy & installed it on my hard drive & I was hooked the moment I left Vault 13! Such an awesome game, hilarious, tactical, and a well crafted story. I still play it at least once a year & the same goes for Fallout 2 (which has to be the best rpg ever made in my opinion).

 

[Krantos]

Warlock: Master of the Arcane.

Best 4x strategy game I've played since GalCiv2.

Fun, addictive, and engaging. They really nailed the "Just one more turn" feeling.

 

[schtingah]

Dark Messiah & Beyond Good & Evil for me, picked them up from a garbage bin and loved them both to bits.

 

[SonicWaffle]

As a kid, I found a demo of Heroes Of Might & Magic 2, and fell in love. The series may have gone downhill a bit, but it's still a wonderful game to play. Grid-based strategy combat with spells, towns to be laid siege to, a variety of units and so on. Never played anything else quite like it.

HOMM3 was great too, but it's never really been the same since the first three games. I've been really pleasantly surprised by the newer King's Bounty games though, which are somewhat similar. I wasn't expecting much of them at all, because they were made by some Russian developer I'd never heard of and kind of bizarrely pulled the King's Bounty name out of nowhere almost 20 years later (where the original King's Bounty is what the first HOMM was actually based on/inspired by). Turns out they're not at all your typical crappy cash-in reboot and are way more fun than the recent HOMM games have been. I feel like I ripped them off getting the first one for a dollar in a sale a couple years ago completely on a whim, but I guess it did get me to buy the sequel and its expansion after that...

How difficult are they to run? I mean, I've got a PC these days which could probably run HOMM2, but anything more modern than that may cause it to explode...