Under rated games you play?

[kyogen]

NON-popular is a little vague, OP. Are we talking raw sales figures, fan devotion, being a popular scapegoat, being a lesser-known IP (internationally, at least), or something else? Ah well. Here are a few I play regularly that might qualify for different reasons:

Nier (PS3)--brightly lit, often colorful, very funny, and absolutely grimdark story and action
Hunted: The Demon's Forge (PS3)--not too deep but still fun fantasy action, has characters and a world with enough substance to develop in further games (but inXile and Bethesda won't do it), really enjoyable voice acting

Mystery Dungeon 2: Shiren the Wanderer (DS)--an outstanding console roguelike, remake of a SNES-era game with great graphics and music, no franchise baggage weighing down its gameplay (unlike Pokemon)
Final Fantasy III (DS)--a little clumsy in its use of DS-specific features, but very playable, nice story and graphics

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (PSP)--popular in Japan, but I don't live in Japan
Tenchu: Shadow Assassins (PSP)--takes the story in an interesting direction, controls adapted rather well to the PSP, and there's still all the usual funny, quirky, and messy stealth action of the series

Thief series (PC)--all the challenge and silliness of Tenchu plus a steampunk aesthetic and Benny the Guard, extremely popular in its day but it's an older franchise now (GOG has all three games for a good price)
Risen (PC)--fans of Gothic know it and Risen 2 released recently, but it's a unique take on the Western fantasy rpg genre (mechanics as well as story/setting) and a nice change from Tolkien/D&D-inspired stuff

 

[DanteLives]

Colin McRae Rally 2.0. Saw it in a charity shop a week ago and picked it up as i had played it around 10 years ago. Highly acclaimed with gaming magazines but on an 80 on Metacritic.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Not so much underrated as more of a cult following, but the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series. For such a buggy set of games, they've managed to make an FPS RPG Survival Horror Hybrid better than any other game I've played.

The setting just drips with an oppressive atmosphere, and yet, for all the harshness, it presents a world that feels so lifelike and appealing that you almost want to go to Russia yourself. But then you realize its full of giant mutants that want to suck your brains out, and violent empathic beings that scorch your brains.

 

[MetalDooley]

A Boy and His Blob the 2009 Remake. This game is fun, feels more put together than the original and looks pleasant.

Plus the hug button is quite possibly the most pointlessly adorable thing I've ever seen in a game

 

[ParanoidEngineer]

Deus Ex.

Oh wait.

well you could say Deux Ex: Invisible War

that would be under-rated right?

No, just- just no...

There is no such thing as "Invisible War", you made it up.

Please Lord say you made it up...

 

[malestrithe]

A Boy and His Blob the 2009 Remake. This game is fun, feels more put together than the original and looks pleasant.

Plus the hug button is quite possibly the most pointlessly adorable thing I've ever seen in a game

Can't speak for everyone, but it certainly made me feel better everytime I did it.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

God Hand. Japanese Spaghetti Westerns mixed with Bruce Lee martial arts movies, and punching demons in the dick.

I fucking love that game.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Vanquish.
If you say it's bad you're just wrong. It's a fact of life.

God I enjoyed that game. The flow was amazing. Action-packed and fast.

 

[Shuguard]

Monster Hunter portable 3rd(PSP) (loved it because i had a chance to solo every monster including the hardest endgame monsters).

Hero's might and magic VI(PC) (never played the previous ones, yay for steam sales).

Record of Agarest War(360) (fun jrpg strategy that is basically FF tactics but with a slightly more primitive combat system, but has it's fortes).

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Currently it's Dead Island & Fallout New Vegas.

Both great games that had some serious hype behind them before being released and shot down by impatient gamers. I agree that a game shouldn't be released with dozens upon dozens of game-breaking bugs but bugs CAN and WILL be fixed if you could at least show a little bit of patience. Now Fallout New Vegas plays rather well and although Dead Island still suffers from a fair amount of bugs it still holds up as a very addicted very entertaining game.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Pretty much these games-
Gotcha Force
Phantom Crash (I think)
Metal Arms: Glitch in the System.

Those games aren't popular to see the lights of days of a sequel.

 

[OldDirtyCrusty]

God Hand

I would love to see a remake. I really liked the mechanics but it hurt my eyes.

Dead Island

Yay, best zombie game for me. Just finished it 2 months ago.

Vanquish.

Didn`t it get good/great scores everywhere? Don`t know anything about the sales but Vanquish is awesome, fast paced oldschool fun packed into an tps and it works.






Punisher- this game is still my favorite Marvel game.
Garth Ennis used a funky Marvel Knights mix as story and Thomas Jane delivers the voicework for F.Castle. Grab your enemies, use them as shield, throw them or shoot them. This was new back then and i still love it.

Ultimate Spiderman- my second favorite Marvel game.
The swinging animations where great and i loved the look and presentation. The story by B.M.Bendis was entertaining/good too.

 

[hazabaza1]

Vanquish.

Didn`t it get good/great scores everywhere? Don`t know anything about the sales but Vanquish is awesome, fast paced oldschool fun packed into an tps and it works.

Jim tends to shit on it but who cares about Jim anyway.
Even with the good scores it's sales weren't too great though, I think. Don't get much talk about it.

 

[Antari]

Mercenaries 2

Fun Fun, more fun than Just Cause 2!

[Flame Shield Engaged!]

No need, your right. Just Cause 2 had an awesome map, but pretty much everything else left alot to be desired. Unfortunately in my view, mercenaries has the opposite problem. Great everywhere, except for maps. Wish they would do a team up. But that will likely never happen unless a publisher smells money.

 

[Mozza444]

Hunted the daemons forge.
Picked it up for £5 on the weekend because me and the girlfriend are skint. It's actually a very good game. I can understand that from a solo play it would be an average game but its hard to find any form of decent co-op these days.
Story is decent and the combat is well done, cover based shooting with a bow and arrow along with sword fighting is something i haven't seen before.

 

[keiji_Maeda]

I'll stick to my elitist Background in console nerdery and say Wild arms 1&Suikoden 1

Also, Rise of legends, steampunk units fight it out with stargate like mechs powered by evil crystals that have subverted alladins low-tech cousins?

I think i bought this game twice......

 

[verdant monkai]

Final Fantasy 13-2, I thought it was very good and mended 90% of the problems 13 had, also has a bitchin soundtrack! The ending was a huge pile of ASS though...

Have they still got the same battle theme? you know the one that scars itself onto your soul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfu0XBf8kmk ?

I play quite a bit of Dynasty Warriors, when feel like being an Asian killing machine in the form of a young boy in what looks like pyjamas crossed with a dress crossed with a bowl of fruit, who would be indistinguishable, from almost every hot girl you can think of.

 

[Kae]

Well, again I will sound like a broken record, but Shadowman, seriously that game is amazing, waiting for GOG to re-release it though, and Re-volt, my favourite racing game of all time, seriously I like it more than F-Zero and I love F-Zero, go find a copy of that right now and start playing it!

 

[faspxina]

Hunted: Demon's Forge and Lost Planet 2.

Not excellent games, but decent enought to pick it up from the bargain bin. Also, both have a nice couch co-op multiplayer component, that's starting to vanish these days.

 

[faspxina]

Hunted the daemons forge.
Picked it up for £5 on the weekend because me and the girlfriend are skint. It's actually a very good game. I can understand that from a solo play it would be an average game but its hard to find any form of decent co-op these days.
Story is decent and the combat is well done, cover based shooting with a bow and arrow along with sword fighting is something i haven't seen before.

Although we probably won't be seeing a sequel anytime soon, I'd like that the "cover-based shooter meets fantasy hack and slash" concept is used in other games. Hopefully better executed.