Purely subjective of course; here's some of mine. Feel free to post yours.
NINETY-NINE NIGHTS: There are certain genres that rarely review well, and one of them seems to be the action-RPG button-masher. This game got trashed by the critics, and certainly in fairness it is a repetitive, often mindless game, full of bad voice acting and home to more than one unfortunate programming decision. That said, I LOVED THIS GAME. Dashing down into a distance-blurred-but-rapidly-focusing onslaught of hundreds upon hundreds of enemies, turning yourself into a colorful tornado of blades, fire, and magic blasts, and watching the ragdoll corpses hurtle off confetti-like by the dozens -- is pure, bright, eye-popping, arcade-style fun. I also love games where there are tons of character customization options (as well as numerous selectable characters), and hundreds of random items to collect and tinker with. I know not all of them make that big of a difference really, and that many aren't necessary at all, but it's just one of those things I enjoy. The graphics in this fairly early 360 release are also quite beautiful, and even if the stages overall lack a little imagination, the game has an atmosphere that wins me over. I can laugh off the goofy story and atrocious voice acting -- I play games for the fun of playing games, not for a great plot, so that aspect doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when they encumber a fantasy game with an obnoxious neu-metal rock soundtrack, so N3 also gets points for a tasteful, ambient/pseudo-orchestral score, which even includes some Vivaldi. There's no question this is not a game for everyone, but all I can say is I played it start to finish, maxing out all 7 characters and beating the game, and I had an absolute blast (pretty much) the whole time.
My love of this game despite the poor reviews makes me think I need to give KINGDOM UNDER FIRE: CIRCLE OF DOOM and maybe even DARK MESSIAH OF MIGHT AND MAGIC a chance. I didn't pay much attention to them on release due to poor reviews, but I tried the demo to KUF earlier tonight, and I think it might actually be up my alley.
TWO WORLDS: This game was similarly demolished by the critics, and it's a damn shame, because a somewhat sluggish frame rate aside, I think it's easily as good as Oblivion, and in some respects, better. One of the key problems with this game is that it makes a terrible first impression. From the get-go everything about it screams "B-grade game"; jaw-droppingly cheesy opening music, laughably bad voice acting, an initially confusing menu and interface system, and a graphics engine that always feels like it's struggling to keep up. I bought this one upon release, and during the first half hour of play, I thought it was going straight to eBay. But I was at least enjoying the relatively beautiful visuals of the world, and I have a thing for RPG sandbox games that let you wander off to do whatever you want, so I stuck with it and gave it a chance. After about an hour I was actually getting pretty intrigued -- and by the end of my first afternoon of dedicated play, I was completely sold. Two Worlds is AWESOME, and sorely underappreciated. There's no question it's a big clumsy PC-port-feeling sort of game -- I like to think of it as Oblivion's Big, Retarded German Cousin that the whole family feels a little sorry for -- but in a way that's what's great about it. It's not seamless, but to the audience it's intended for, it delivers. The size of the world is absolutely huge -- probably a good deal larger than Oblivion -- and you are given no direction at all. There is an ungodly amount of weapons, armor, potions, spells, magic ingredients, etc. to be collected in this game, most of them randomly generated, giving it a refreshing twist of DIABLO. You can also make your own spells, potions, and jewels -- you can modify and combine weapons -- you are offered complete level-based control over a wide variety of fairly interesting skill sets -- and you can ride a demon-horse! I just found mine off in the wild somewhere. Even the game's flaws, like your protagonist's cheesy voice-acting, become sort of charming if you give it a chance. Some of his lines are so absurd that they're funny, and after a while you just learn to roll with it. TWO WORLDS is an incredibly deep, PC-style RPG -- and though it may be a little rough and glitchy in certain respects, it's far more stable than, say, GOTHIC 3 for PC. If you're into PC RPGs and like a big sandbox open world to explore, I'd urge you to give TWO WORLDS a chance. It's better than a lot of people think.
PERFECT DARK ZERO: With games like Halo 3, Gears of War, Lost Planet, and the Orange Box now on the market, PDZ does feel a little unnecessary to go back to now, but for as much shit as it gets in online forums, PDZ is IMO a very solid and perfectly enjoyable FPS. In fact, I prefer it to most of the Tom Clancy FPS's ... maybe I just prefer the more science-fiction based atmosphere, I dunno, but I prefer this to Prey also. Anyway, I loved PDZ. It's a long, tough, good-looking game, with a very interesting array of weapons and an intriguing balance of straightforward FPS characters and Hitman-like stealth characteristics. The graphics are quite good for a launch title, and the levels are very diverse. While technically linear, the levels have a looseness and openness to them that is refreshing and, at times, gives you numerous options for approaching a situation. I'm not sure why this game is usually shit upon -- it was actually rather well-reviewed -- but I say it's good stuff. I paid $30 or $40 for it and felt it was worth every penny -- you can probably get it for $15 or so now.
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NINETY-NINE NIGHTS: There are certain genres that rarely review well, and one of them seems to be the action-RPG button-masher. This game got trashed by the critics, and certainly in fairness it is a repetitive, often mindless game, full of bad voice acting and home to more than one unfortunate programming decision. That said, I LOVED THIS GAME. Dashing down into a distance-blurred-but-rapidly-focusing onslaught of hundreds upon hundreds of enemies, turning yourself into a colorful tornado of blades, fire, and magic blasts, and watching the ragdoll corpses hurtle off confetti-like by the dozens -- is pure, bright, eye-popping, arcade-style fun. I also love games where there are tons of character customization options (as well as numerous selectable characters), and hundreds of random items to collect and tinker with. I know not all of them make that big of a difference really, and that many aren't necessary at all, but it's just one of those things I enjoy. The graphics in this fairly early 360 release are also quite beautiful, and even if the stages overall lack a little imagination, the game has an atmosphere that wins me over. I can laugh off the goofy story and atrocious voice acting -- I play games for the fun of playing games, not for a great plot, so that aspect doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when they encumber a fantasy game with an obnoxious neu-metal rock soundtrack, so N3 also gets points for a tasteful, ambient/pseudo-orchestral score, which even includes some Vivaldi. There's no question this is not a game for everyone, but all I can say is I played it start to finish, maxing out all 7 characters and beating the game, and I had an absolute blast (pretty much) the whole time.
My love of this game despite the poor reviews makes me think I need to give KINGDOM UNDER FIRE: CIRCLE OF DOOM and maybe even DARK MESSIAH OF MIGHT AND MAGIC a chance. I didn't pay much attention to them on release due to poor reviews, but I tried the demo to KUF earlier tonight, and I think it might actually be up my alley.
TWO WORLDS: This game was similarly demolished by the critics, and it's a damn shame, because a somewhat sluggish frame rate aside, I think it's easily as good as Oblivion, and in some respects, better. One of the key problems with this game is that it makes a terrible first impression. From the get-go everything about it screams "B-grade game"; jaw-droppingly cheesy opening music, laughably bad voice acting, an initially confusing menu and interface system, and a graphics engine that always feels like it's struggling to keep up. I bought this one upon release, and during the first half hour of play, I thought it was going straight to eBay. But I was at least enjoying the relatively beautiful visuals of the world, and I have a thing for RPG sandbox games that let you wander off to do whatever you want, so I stuck with it and gave it a chance. After about an hour I was actually getting pretty intrigued -- and by the end of my first afternoon of dedicated play, I was completely sold. Two Worlds is AWESOME, and sorely underappreciated. There's no question it's a big clumsy PC-port-feeling sort of game -- I like to think of it as Oblivion's Big, Retarded German Cousin that the whole family feels a little sorry for -- but in a way that's what's great about it. It's not seamless, but to the audience it's intended for, it delivers. The size of the world is absolutely huge -- probably a good deal larger than Oblivion -- and you are given no direction at all. There is an ungodly amount of weapons, armor, potions, spells, magic ingredients, etc. to be collected in this game, most of them randomly generated, giving it a refreshing twist of DIABLO. You can also make your own spells, potions, and jewels -- you can modify and combine weapons -- you are offered complete level-based control over a wide variety of fairly interesting skill sets -- and you can ride a demon-horse! I just found mine off in the wild somewhere. Even the game's flaws, like your protagonist's cheesy voice-acting, become sort of charming if you give it a chance. Some of his lines are so absurd that they're funny, and after a while you just learn to roll with it. TWO WORLDS is an incredibly deep, PC-style RPG -- and though it may be a little rough and glitchy in certain respects, it's far more stable than, say, GOTHIC 3 for PC. If you're into PC RPGs and like a big sandbox open world to explore, I'd urge you to give TWO WORLDS a chance. It's better than a lot of people think.
PERFECT DARK ZERO: With games like Halo 3, Gears of War, Lost Planet, and the Orange Box now on the market, PDZ does feel a little unnecessary to go back to now, but for as much shit as it gets in online forums, PDZ is IMO a very solid and perfectly enjoyable FPS. In fact, I prefer it to most of the Tom Clancy FPS's ... maybe I just prefer the more science-fiction based atmosphere, I dunno, but I prefer this to Prey also. Anyway, I loved PDZ. It's a long, tough, good-looking game, with a very interesting array of weapons and an intriguing balance of straightforward FPS characters and Hitman-like stealth characteristics. The graphics are quite good for a launch title, and the levels are very diverse. While technically linear, the levels have a looseness and openness to them that is refreshing and, at times, gives you numerous options for approaching a situation. I'm not sure why this game is usually shit upon -- it was actually rather well-reviewed -- but I say it's good stuff. I paid $30 or $40 for it and felt it was worth every penny -- you can probably get it for $15 or so now.
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