What are some underappreciated Gems?

[saleem]

Hostile Waters. Released in 2001. Praised to heaven by the critics, but no-one bought it. But it's brilliant. It's an action/strategy game. You have several teammates to order around and you can pilot a unit yourself.

I absolutely loved that game, very similar to battlezone as well. I believe you can pick it up off gog.

 

[Coffeejack]

Freelancer. Nobody I know has heard of it, which makes me sad.

 

[shrekfan246]

de Blob and de Blob 2, both criminally ignored games. Colourful, simple and fun, I amazed that in this time when people are complaining about games for being grey and brown and pretty generic to play and then these come along and people don't buy them. For shame gamers, for shame.

That's how 'gamers' work these days. The entire argument is pretty pathetic, anyway, because even Call of Duty uses more than two colors, people just like to use "Grey and brown" as an analogy for "thing I don't like because I think it's boring/bland/generic/all of the above." It really annoys me. If you think it's boring or bland, say so. Discussing it in terms of the color palette does absolutely nothing productive for your argument, because I can pull out screenshots of tons of FPS' in the past five years that have massive amounts of color (and I have, twice, on these very forums).

OT: Sounds a lot like Continue? from NormalBoots.com, except with PC games instead of NES/SNES/Genesis games. How old are we talking, here? The 90's? 2000's? I never really had much in the way of a modern PC back then, so I didn't have too many different games to play. (Not to mention the fact that I was too young to pay attention to or care about the awesome new games! being released.)

More to the point, I suppose, I know that the games were received pretty well and most people who've actually played them seem to like them, but I hardly ever see anybody bring up the Star Wars: Dark Forces series in lists of "Great Star Wars video games". Dark Forces itself is a DOS program, so you might need DOSBox to run it, and Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight is a pain in the ass to get running (there are a few mods around the web for it), but Jedi Knight II is recent enough to still run on modern systems.

For more shooters there's Heretic/Hexen, though I don't know how easy it would be to get them running. Or Marathon, which I believe Bungie distributes for free, though I'm not sure if that's Mac-only or if they provide the PC version too (haven't checked the website in a while). Or Shadowmaster, which I don't actually know how good it would still hold up because it's been years since I even saw the game.

Wing Commander was always pretty fun as an arcadey-space-dogfighting-sim.

Worms/Worms 2 are humorous turn-based artillery games.

Star Trek: Starfleet Command/Starfleet Command 3 were always pretty damn fun as a sort of light-management space-combat sim.

EDIT: Betrayal at Krondor. Fantasy-RPG with a party-based system, nobody ever talks about it. So there you go.

And then there's always a bunch of point-and-click adventure games, which I can't name because my little six-year-old mind would always get pissed off by the ridiculous adventure-game-logic those people used in creating the games. And I never really had any.

I mean, some of those titles might be pretty old and people currently in high school would've never heard of them, but generally anybody who was into gaming in the 90's knew what they were so I don't know whether they qualify or not. And besides, most of the titles that a lot of people didn't know back then were absolutely terrible.

 

[Jhooud]

The first Force Unleashed [http://store.steampowered.com/app/32430/?snr=1_7_suggest__13] got a lot of flak for not being Jedi Knight and some (imho minor) gameplay issues. The character models in the cutscenes are a bit on the wrong end of the uncanny valley (the eyes *shudder*), but I think are pretty solid (oldmanrant hell of a lot more compelling than the prequel folks /oldmanrant). The game's out on Steam and a lot of fun with a 360 controller.

 

[SodaDew]

Super Powers for the PC. It's a turn based (kind of) strategy game, which instead of controlling your troops you basically are the leader of the country and you control funding for different things and how many units are built and where. You do control attacking,just not the battle itself. Your goal is to survive...most times the game ends with Russia nuking the world or the US becomes a Monarchy and decides to kill Canada.

 

[Flatfrog]

In point-and-click adventure world, Diskworld Noir was a brave attempt to do some new things with the genre, including a couple of really innovative ideas and some great storytelling. A shame there were some bits that really dragged.

 

[CMD_Obvious]

Startopia was a pc game around 2001 or so about maintaining a part of a space colony from others doing the same, and it was really diverse and the gameplay was intricate and brilliant.

my own little relic of an age long gone to gaming

 

[wetfart]

The Aveyond series, the second is my favorite, immediately leaps to mind.

Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes also deserves a little love. The sequel was NOT as good as the original.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

I think 'God Hand' deserves a LOT more love then it normally gets.

Listen to this person. Game was crazy fun. Of course all of the Clover studios games were crazy good. So naturally that's why Capcom closed them down. They're just plain ol' crazy.

Just because I have to say it whenever asked, I'm going to throw Dead Rising out as a suggestion. Don't know if it was particularly unappreciated or not, but I love that game so whenever someone asks for recommendations it is my "go-to".

 

[bluerocker]

I thought Neir was good, if somewhat baffling. The graphics were pretty awful but the music was awesome. The story was bizarre but I couldn't stop playing until I had finished it.

Damn, you beat me to the punch there. Man, I can't put that game down. Wonderful story, engaging characters and beautiful soundtrack. Everything I could want in an action RPG.

Op, if you don't want to play it, there's a wonderful LP of it over here [http://lparchive.org/NIER]

 

[Jason Rayes]

Hostile Waters. Released in 2001. Praised to heaven by the critics, but no-one bought it. But it's brilliant. It's an action/strategy game. You have several teammates to order around and you can pilot a unit yourself.

Not to mention it was narrated by Tom Baker

 

[Commander CC]

I'm not sure if they are under appreciated as they have a sort of cult following, but I was really glad to try out the games by Spiderweb. The Geneforge games in particular was really good, with a cool premise that was kind of like Fallout meets Pokemon. The Avernum series was also cool, although it was more about combat than the story- to cite a more popular analogy, if Geneforge was Baldur's Gate, then Avernum would be Icewind Dale.

I also found myself getting unexpectedly caught up in the Blackwell series of adventure games after getting them in a sale on GOG. They are pretty simple and the story is relatively straightforward, but it is pretty well written and the characters are likable. They even have commentary tracks and it was interesting to here how such a small operation goes about making games. I haven't played any other games by the same people yet, does anyone know if Gemini Rue or Resonance are any good?

 

[Baralak]

Since I actually read the OP and knows he wants PC only...
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy is rather unappreciated. By myself as well, since I haven't installed it, even though I own it. Jim Sterling loved it, though.
2008 Prince of Persia is on PC, and a really good game. I don't know why everyone hates it.
Serious Sam 3: BFE is a great shooter if you like them old school, and really isn't talked about much.
Shogo: Mobile Armor Division is a classic PC FPS with one nice gimmick: You're a transforming mech. That should speak volumes.
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone was a fun hack n slash that was on PS2, Xbox, and PC.
Septerra Core: Legacy of the Creator is a western-made, PC exclusive jRPG, and a pretty good one at that.
Every game I listed is on either Steam or GOG.com

Some of those sound pretty interesting(especially the mech one, for obvious reasons), but yeah, the main reason people didn't like 2008 PoP was because, as a normal game it was enjoyable, but if you judged it as a Prince of Persia game it was pretty bad. It was a Prince of Persia game of course, so it was judged as such.

I just realized you specified PC and since I can't delete my post I'll just say sorry about that and maybe you could do the original Fable. It seems to get shunned alongside its less than stellar sequels and I know a lot of people didn't know what Fable was until Fable 2 happened.

in an attempt to kinda do like Unskippable, except gameplay is included, and not as funny(Modesty or Truth? Truth, probably truth).

Going by their Atelier Meruru video that I was unfortunate enough to click on, that's probably not difficult. I did like their older stuff way back when they first started, maybe they're just bad with JRPGs.

That's ok, there have been a few comments that missed it, but you raise an interesting point with Fable, while it is good, most don't know about it because of the shit sequels. Guess it kinda does deserve attention.
Their quality tends to wildly fluctuate, it's practically impossible to find someone who can say with a straight face that all episodes, or even most episodes, of Unskippable are consistently good/bad/average.

Just an fyi about Shogo: Don't go in expecting to play Mechwarrior or something. It controls a lot like a standard FPS did (remap those controls, it came from a time where using arrow keys to move was standard), but was just a fun FPS where you could get in and out of a transforming mech

Eh, it's not really under-appreciated as just about everyone who ever played it loves it, but you owe it to yourself to give Bad Mojo a whirl.

Also Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, available on GOG.

Shogo needs more love. And more online lobbies.

 

[Jason Rayes]

I thought Neir was good, if somewhat baffling. The graphics were pretty awful but the music was awesome. The story was bizarre but I couldn't stop playing until I had finished it.

Damn, you beat me to the punch there. Man, I can't put that game down. Wonderful story, engaging characters and beautiful soundtrack. Everything I could want in an action RPG.

Op, if you don't want to play it, there's a wonderful LP of it over here [http://lparchive.org/NIER]

I had the soundtrack stuck in my head for weeks, such a haunting theme. Suits the melancholy nature of the story.

 

[saleem]

Freelancer. Nobody I know has heard of it, which makes me sad.

There is no way that freelancer could be considered under rated. That game was awesome!

 

[VeryOddGamer]

Freelancer. Nobody I know has heard of it, which makes me sad.

I've heard of it, I've played it, I've finished it and I really liked it.
Seriously, that game had some awesome voice actors, (I'm copying this from TV Tropes, since I can't remember all of them) I mean it had Ian Ziering, Jennifer Hale, John Rhys-Davies, Cree Summer, George Takei, Xander Berkeley, Maurice LaMarche, Corey Burton, Jeff Bennett, Charles Shaughnessy, Tony Jay and the credits claimed it had Christopher Lee in it as well, but I can't remember hearing his voice anywhere. It might be some other Chris Lee.

OT: KOTOR 2, Republic Commando and Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of The Betrayer to be exact.
KOTOR 2 because storywise it was pretty damn good, (at least up until the end) Republic Commando was a solid shooter that really made you feel for your squadmates and Mask of The Betrayer was pretty much the new Planescape Torment.

Yes, I do like gushing over somewhat obscure games that I really enjoyed, why do you ask?

Edit: Damn, ninja'd.

 

[charge52]

Just an fyi about Shogo: Don't go in expecting to play Mechwarrior or something. It controls a lot like a standard FPS did (remap those controls, it came from a time where using arrow keys to move was standard), but was just a fun FPS where you could get in and out of a transforming mech

Eh, it's not really under-appreciated as just about everyone who ever played it loves it, but you owe it to yourself to give Bad Mojo a whirl.

Also Giants: Citizen Kabuto and Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, available on GOG.

Shogo needs more love. And more online lobbies.

It's been so long since I played anything Mechwarrior that I have no expectations. Except a cool rocket/missile launcher. I will be very upset if there isn't.

 

[AnotherAvatar]

Wow, the first post is what I was going to say: God Hand. That is totally unexpected in a most pleasant way.

I'll bust out some PC games in that case:
Outcast
Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines
Planescape Torment


Also, if you haven't played it, this game has gotten a nice amount of hype, but I like to give it more as war-shooters that I like for their story never happen: Spec Ops: The Line

 

[PunkRex]

Ok, if we're ignoring the rule about it being a PC game;

Gotcha Force


Just because I want to watch you squirm as you learn about it and try to find it and find out the lowest price online for a 9 year old Gamecube game is about 22 quid, and near 100 at the highest.

MWAHAHAHAHAHA

Rocking up with Samurai Shogun and Flame Ninja was soooooooooooo fun!

Also the Naruto Gekitou Ninja Taisen series, the only fighting games I actually had fun with.

The music, in particular, rocked the shit.