Well that was much better than expected.

[GrimTuesday]

I'm sure many of you have, at one time or another dismissed a show or game or various other... things, only to later find out that, much to your surprise, they are actually pretty fucking good. I've been on a huge sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural kick lately, but kind of ran out of things that I hadn't watched in recent memory. So just kind of looking through various lists of good TV shows that fit into those genres, and came across the recent adaptation of Teen Wolf. Now, I liked the original movie well enough, it was cheesy as one might expect but it was good fun, but the adaptation didn't interest me in the slightest, due in large part to the fact that it was being made by MTV.

To make a short story even shorter, I have come to really like this show despite my innitial misgivings. It has a nice blend of characters, and while I normally dislike shows about high schools attended by people in their early to mid twenties, this show actually works, due in large part to the fully developed characters.

So what sort of things surprised you?

 

[Bertylicious]

Being Human was a lot like that. The story is ludicrous and transparent; a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost share a house and have wacky hi-jinks whilst riding the wave of populariy of franchises like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twilight. The style was a simple sit-com set up that was utterly formulaic.

I fucking loved it. God help me but it is true.

 

[shrekfan246]

A Song of Ice & Fire.

Now, obviously the series must have had something really pulling about it, or they never would've turned it into an HBO TV series, but it's one of those situations where I didn't think it would live up to the hype around it.

It did.

Still refuse to watch the show, though. I've got enough things to watch as it is.

 

[Eamar]

Sounds stupid, but Portal.

I came to it pretty late, as I only got seriously into gaming besides WoW when I came to university, and I think the sheer number of people going crazy about it and being all "OMFGZOMGBBQ you HAVE to play it" actually put me off, as I figured there's no way it could have been that good. I felt like I'd been nagged into it when I eventually did play it.

Obviously, I was wrong

A Song of Ice & Fire.

Now, obviously the series must have had something really pulling about it, or they never would've turned it into an HBO TV series, but it's one of those situations where I didn't think it would live up to the hype around it.

It did.

Agreed.

I have an aversion to most fantasy books because, as someone who was raised on Tolkien and is a complete addict, I usually find other attempts at the genre to either be pale imitations or just plain not as good (in my opinion). Boy am I glad I finally gave ASOIAF a shot though!

Same goes for the TV show actually, though I don't think it's as good as the books.

 

[Drummodino]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

I went into it knowing absolutely nothing about it other than @Legion had an avatar came from it. They have pretty good taste in anime so I stuck with it, even though the first two episodes were... not very appealing.

Boy am I glad that I did. If you're an anime fan, or even if you're not, I highly recommend it. It's basically the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the magical girl genre, but better.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I went to watch the Lego Movie a few weeks back with a few of my mates that I knew from University #UniLads

Not the friday nights out that we used to do!

I have to say that sitting down to see the film I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but I doubted Lego could find a way onto a film screen successfully. Also, I was wondering what backstory or anything they have to go on with Lego (it reminded me of the time when they said the film Battleship was based on the 1-on-1 game 'Battleship', which I just laughed at the idea that they could even suggest that a film could be based on that).

I thought during the first ten seconds that the film was going to be played completely straight and I feared what I had gotten myself into for the next hour and a half.

After these ten seconds though, the tone completely changed and I loved the film from that point up until the very end. I was very surprised and I will get it immediately when it comes out on blu-ray/3d/dvd.

Great film.

 

[DEV1ANTGAMER]

Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

I went into it knowing absolutely nothing about it other than @Legion had an avatar came from it. They have pretty good taste in anime so I stuck with it, even though the first two episodes were... not very appealing.

Boy am I glad that I did. If you're an anime fan, or even if you're not, I highly recommend it. It's basically the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the magical girl genre, but better.

So much of this. I started watching the anime on a bet I lost, cringed through the first two and a half episodes thinking I had been suckered into watching a Sailor Moon ripoff... then everything changes and it becomes one of the best animes I've seen since Full Metal Alchemist.
Thought the ending was a bit of a cop-out, but meh, it wasn't Mass Effect 3 bad. Then again, it's not like there's really ANY series, games, anime, whatever, I can think of that have manage to be super "different" with their endings and not disappoint HORRIBLY.


On the same vein as Madoka Magica, Avatar the Last Airbender is really good if you can make it through the first season. Noteably it has some of the best female characters I've ever seen in an animated series... shame it's sequel, Legend of Korra, tried to take it too far and ended up turning the main character into another "dude with boobs" action girl who had none of the depth of Katara or Toph from the first series. Also kind of a cop-out ending... but dangit, I was happy at the end.

 

[the December King]

Oh boy...

The Big Lebowski.

I didn't hate the movie when I first saw it, I just didn't feel the same passion that alot of folks have for it- I couldn't understand the praise. It was funny, poignant, and well crafted, but that was where my appreciation ended. NO real lasting impression on me.

Went back and watched it, on a whim, a month ago...

And now I can see. It is all of those things, and is quietly brilliant for them.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Attack on Titan for me. I somehow missed the hype, the loud fanbase, the countless fan videos and shopped funny screenshots until I got bored one day and just thought "hey that Attack on Titan thing, that was supposed to be good I think i'll give it a go"

Suddenly best anime of 2013, probably the best Shounen anime... ever and it's Game of Thrones on a particularly shitty day when it comes to the death count. The manga especially. Yeesh.

I hadn't watched a single battle anime for years then AoT comes along and knocks it out of the park. I guess the amount of slice of life comedy animes I was watching until then made me forget what a good Shounen anime looked like.

 

[DanielBrown]

Diablo III left me extremely disappointed in less than a week after it released. Quit playing and didn't look back until a friend of mine told me about the expansion and the 2.0 patch. Decided to give it another go and fuck has it improved since Jay Wilson was in charge. It's getting close to what I actually wanted, though it still has some issues that need attention(like BoA legendaries and the horrible rates of actually getting anything useful), and the expansion seems to add a whole lot more! I don't feel it's 40 euros worth more however, so I'm still undecided as to if I should buy it or not.

Also as mentioned above; Game of Thrones.
I had no intrest at all in the series and for a long time thought it was the same thing as The Hunger Games(still don't know what that is!) for some reason. Got the game through a bundle and it was fucking awful, which turned me off even more.
After I got a trial for HBO Nordic, however, I decided to watch it just because nothing else intrested me and I have always liked medieval settings after all.
Well, turned out to be fucking awesome. Boobs, dirt and battles! Every episode was of movie-like quality and I finally begun to understand all the memes out there! Unfortunetly the trial wasn't long enough for me to watch three seasons. Missed out on the last two episodes. -_-'

Spoiler: It also gave us this

 

[Danial]

Spec Ops: the Line.

This game had ZERO right to be what it was, i was expecting another Gears of Duty clone with a the same Sickeningly pro american story that every war game seems to have to have by Law, Boy was I wrong.

While the over all gameplay was about as average as i was expecting, the amazing story (i know its a take on an already existing story), great voice acting, well defined protagonists and enemies and the fact that it had the BALLS to do a good take on the horrors of War, PTSD and question the usual pro War shoot em dead cus they're Brown/Asian/Russian/Different then White male Americans Creepiness that has REALLY put me off most War games.

It's probably the best Modern War game since CoD4.


Oh and Top Chef, I have no idea why i like that show but i bloody do.

 

[Autumnflame]

Ironman. i had doubts of RDJr ability to play the role successfully. but was masterfull

The quality of the southpark game. was far better than i imagined.

The walking dead and Wolf among us from tell tale both far exceeded my expecatations

 

[an annoyed writer]

Oh boy...

The Big Lebowski.

I didn't hate the movie when I first saw it, I just didn't feel the same passion that alot of folks have for it- I couldn't understand the praise. It was funny, poignant, and well crafted, but that was where my appreciation ended. NO real lasting impression on me.

Went back and watched it, on a whim, a month ago...

And now I can see. It is all of those things, and is quietly brilliant for them.

This, so much this. At first view, it comes off as strange, occasionally schizophrenic, and oddly paced, but upon subsequent viewings the film's elements seem to come to life more than before, and it starts to show some real intelligence behind even the little things. It's sorta like how Yahtzee describes the second playthrough of Bioshock Infinite: "Ooooohhh, so that's the significance of the four gay blokes!"

 

[Avalanche91]

Southpark Stick of Truth. Not following the development of the game and only casually watching the show I expected it to be yet another terrible lisensed game. Though the combat was a bit on the easy side, the story, dialogue and overal world perfectly capture the show and made me laugh out loud multiple times.

Captain America: The First Avenger. I expected an obnoxiously patriotic movie, which kinda misses the point in Europe, but it turned out to be a pretty good movie.

Persona 4: Oh right, another JRPG with forced social mechanics and graphics that wouldn't even be allowed to shine FFX's boot? How did this suddenly become one of my favorite games ever?

 

[suitepee7]

dark souls. i thoroughly disliked my initial experience of it, it was near unplayable and the controls sucked ass. i also wasn't a fan of how stamina worked, never having played a game with that kind of system... after patching it and having a little determination, i love it.

also firefly. never watched it until 6 months ago, before that i just saw it as something which was probably alright, but really overhyped. turns out its fantastic, and now i'm one of those who wish more were made

 

[remnant_phoenix]

Iron Man

I only went to this movie because all my friends were seeing it. My recent experiences with superhero movies like Spider-Man 3 had soured be a bit on the genre and I was never interested in the Iron Man character, but well, you've probably seen this movie and there's nothing more I need to say here.


Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

I was never into CoD at all. I was working video game retail as the CoD craze was just starting to boom (2008-2009) and I decided to give the most recent CoD (which at the time was World at War) a spin. I really didn't see what all the fuss was about and ignored the series altogether after that.

Then I made some new friends who told me how much better Infinity Ward was at crafting compelling campaigns. Then I discovered Zero Punctuation and saw how even a hater like Yahtzee extolled the virtues of CoD4's campaign. So I decided to give CoD4 a shot and am I ever glad I did. It actually turned out to be one of my favorite video game stories and one of the stand-out experiences of the 7th-gen. It's a shame that none of the successors have lived up. Yes, I did give MW2's campaign a shot and as soon as Russia INVADED THE EASTERN SEABOARD OF THE U.S. I recognized the campaign for the ridiculous pile of wank that it was. I haven't given CoD the time of day since. (Yes, I know that most who play CoD are multiplayer-focused gamers; I am not one of those people.)


Warm Bodies

My wife really wanted to see this movie, but I thought that it looked really dumb. I saw it as an obvious move to try and capture some of the Twilight audience, I was burned out on the zombie genre (and still am, really) and the trailers portrayed the movie as having a certain "Shaun of the Dead" zombie movie parody approach that is REALLY not my cup of tea.

After my wife gave up on getting me to watch it with her, she decided to rent it herself and watch it on her own. I happened to be in the living room, using the coffee table to go through CCG stuff, and I ended up really getting into the movie and enjoying it.

I was right that it tries to cash-in on the Twilight fans, but only from a marketing standpoint. In terms of the feel and atmosphere of the story, it really has a lot more in common with Beauty and the Beast. Also unlike Twilight, the acting from the leads is legitimately good (for the record, I think Robert Pattinson is actually a legitimately good actor, he's just horrible in Twilight) and Teresa Palmer is much more appealing than Kristen Stewart. Also, to re-visit the dead horse for another kick, Palmer's character is a genuine, independent, and strong female character, unlike Bella who (you should already know everything I could say here).

The trailers grossly misrepresented the movie, taking a one-shot, hokey "pretend to be a zombie" gag and highlighting it as if those sort of gags would be a big part of the movie.

And as for the whole "I'm sick of zombies" thing, the movie was compelling enough as a genuine love story for me to transcend that, which further speaks to its quality.

 

[Casual Shinji]

The Last of Us, actually.

It's hard to imagine given how much I love it now, but before it came out I was really sceptical. I had sorta gotten burned out on the Uncharted formula, especially after how weak the third game was, and all the pre-release hype surrounding Ellie was really getting on my nerves. Seeing as it's Naughty Dog I knew it would hold some quality obviously, but I was very much ready to have Lee and Clementine nail it to the wall. Surprise, surprise that it turned out to be one of the best games I'd played in many years.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Oh boy...

The Big Lebowski.

I didn't hate the movie when I first saw it, I just didn't feel the same passion that alot of folks have for it- I couldn't understand the praise. It was funny, poignant, and well crafted, but that was where my appreciation ended. NO real lasting impression on me.

Went back and watched it, on a whim, a month ago...

And now I can see. It is all of those things, and is quietly brilliant for them.

This, so much this. At first view, it comes off as strange, occasionally schizophrenic, and oddly paced, but upon subsequent viewings the film's elements seem to come to life more than before, and it starts to show some real intelligence behind even the little things. It's sorta like how Yahtzee describes the second playthrough of Bioshock Infinite: "Ooooohhh, so that's the significance of the four gay blokes!"

I third The Big Lebowski. Maybe it has something to do with learning to "stop worrying and love the (non) plot".

 

[Grimh]

-snip

Yup, what I was gonna say too. I loved Uncharted 2 but didn't get 3 until way later and when that was a much weaker (still good though) I was just not into what Naughty Dog was doing by then.
I didn't even get TLoU until like a month after it's release and hearing how people proclaimed it to be the Citizen Kane of gaming wasn't really helping actually. But I did eventually get around to it.
Man did I love it.
It's up there among my favorites of all time.