Your personal biggest underrated game of all time

[braens894]

Mine has to be Dark Reign: The Future of War. It came out around the same time as Starcraft and Command and Conquer so it was pretty well ignored by most RTS gamers. The one element that grabbed my attention was the AI of your units. You could send them off to scout, harass and seek and destroy but then control variables like health tolerance, independence and pursuit range. So I'd set a bunch of air units to harass and place them on a low health tolerance, they'd scout the map for me, shoot enemy units until they ran out of ammo or took 50% damage, return to base, repair and bomb up, then rinse and repeat. This allowed me to spend more time building up a main force to attack rather than having to micromanage a ton of units.

Whoops, a bit long there, but I haven't seen another RTS do it since and it was such a good idea.

 

[Exius Xavarus]

As the OP has stated, mine would have to be Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. I had flaws, I found something here and there to complain about, but it's a great game overall and amazingly fun.

One thing I absolutely loved about the game was the way it weaved the separate categories together as it did.

Wanna be a Battle Mage? Might and Sorcery and BAM have fun!(this is easily my favorite combo, btw)

Wanna be a Magic Thief? Sorcery and Finesse, BAM you're a terror in the shadows and a nightmare in the open.

Wanna be an Agile Warrior? Might and Finesse, WHAM you're an instant flood of blood.

What's that? You want to be a combination of all three? DO IT! Instant Jack-of-All-Trades.

Or you can just go purely down one path! It's all fun!

I thought Amalur was a beautiful world filled to the brim with life. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and I actually wanted to do the side quests. The music was a joy to listen to, as well.

Sly 2: Band Of Thieves.

Sly 2: Band of Thieves is an excellent game. I couldn't go without buying the Sly Collection for my PlayStation 3. Although the first Sly is my favorite of the three and I'm stoked for Sly 4.

 

[FFP2]

Sly 2: Band of Thieves is an excellent game. I couldn't go without buying the Sly Collection for my PlayStation 3. Although the first Sly is my favorite of the three and I'm stoked for Sly 4.

I've never played the first one, and I regret not buying a PS3 purely because of the Sly Collection. Not excited for 4 though. Not devloped by Sucker Punch, way too many playable characters and worst of all- Nolan North is in it.

OT: I saw one person mention FF X-2 and I gotta agree with him. It's my favourite FF and I just love how lighthearted it is. That, and you play as three girls in bikinis

 

[Exius Xavarus]

Sly 2: Band of Thieves is an excellent game. I couldn't go without buying the Sly Collection for my PlayStation 3. Although the first Sly is my favorite of the three and I'm stoked for Sly 4.

I've never played the first one, and I regret not buying a PS3 purely because of the Sly Collection. Not excited for 4 though. Not devloped by Sucker Punch, way too many playable characters and worst of all- Nolan North is in it.

OT: I saw one person mention FF X-2 and I gotta agree with him. It's my favourite FF and I just love how lighthearted it is. That, and you play as three girls in bikinis

Sanzaru Games has always been a part of the Sly trilogy, however, so I'm not worried about them developing Sly 4.

 

[uzo]

Mount&Blade: Warband, one of the best games. Has a good modding community, great mods, good concept and I still heard people say it's not good. I can't believe them...

True, true.

I'd like to second that, and also extend it to Napoleonic Wars. Personally, I think people just get the shits when a single bullet or bayonet/sword hit will more often than not kill you. That, and that it takes 2o seconds to reload a musket during which time you stand painfully immobile on a battlefield with cavalry pounding towards you. These are the things I like about M&B.

A further bonus is that, considering M&B's age, quite literally almost anyone's computer will run it and run it well. The problem with WotR is you need a freakin' awesome machine for it to run well ... and for everyone else with just a bog standard machine, well ... you're just arrow fodder for people with good machines.

Can't wait for M&B 2. Just hoping the AI/path-finding is bumped up, and we have somewhat better tactical options. Imagine M&B where the map is more useful - at the start of the battle a set up period where you could arrange your deployment a la Total War, and then jump into it !!


Oh sweet Jesus I think I need to change my pants ...

 

[TheSteeleStrap]

Whenever people talk about great PS2 games, they never seem to talk about Area 51, which is a shame. It's one of my favorite shooters ever.

 

[adamsaccount]

Id have to say lotr the two towers on the gba, but then its such an old system it might be highly praised and ive missed it

 

[Iwata]

I'm going to go with Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. That game was hilarious. The only people I know who played it are the ones I let borrow.

Hey, you played it as well?!

Yeah, that was a pretty fun game. Mediocre in terms of gameplay, but the humour went a long way in making it enjoyable. Plus, you get Neil Patrick Harris as the main bad guy.

 

[Judgement101]

Silent Storm. It's a turnbased RPG type thing set shortly after WWII. It's really fun but the plot twist made me mad.

 

[iTuneSpark]

Mine would be Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne. Seriously, this is probably the best game in the Max Payne trilogy. The shooting and bullet time mechanics are exciting and work really well, the environment is appropriately dark and depressing, and the story is well told and genuinely heartbreaking. While it is kind of short, it's still an amazing experience from beginning to end.

If you have a Steam account, then I would implore you to check it out.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Mind you, I'm only half way into the game (I think, from what I can tell, ~8 Colossi left), so maybe something changes at some point, but I'm not seeing it yet. So far, Journey knocks SotC right out of the ballpark at pretty much every corner.

Aye, but don't forget that SotC predates journey by half a decade at least. But you're right, it doesn't change much, although I think some of the later Colossi have to be approached with very different mindsets to the earlier ones if you're going to figure out how to beat them. Been a long time since I played it though.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

Easy. It is also my favorite game ever: Little Samson for the NES.

The game was released when the NES was going out and the SNES was being born. So it was easily ignored. However, it's a great platformer. Simple story, incredible music, fun characters, nice difficulty curb...

Seriously, if you never played it, do yourself a favor and play it. It shows how a simple game can be plenty of fun.

Snip

Oh, I remember that one! In fact, I still got it! I remember thinking it was an original idea. Space pirates? Hell, yeah!
But, unlike KH, it felt like it was dragging on too much. A lot of time was spent from going from point A to point B, rinse and repeat. At least KH kept it short and interesting (At least per world) (Also, I know you did the KH referring to the combat). But still, it was an interesting game.

It did have that problem now and then, but I'm just glad someone else has played it.

 

[Kickingbear]

I absolutely adore Legend of Dragoon. I wish I was eloquent enough to do it justice here. I love it's dumb old RPG story and it's tired if slightly repetitive turn based combat. It's fun how for one character you need to get to the last part of the game to get him magic powers or you find that an annoying salesman you want nothing to do with anymore from the beginning of the game has the magic rock you need to get said powers halfway through the game. It's genuinly challenging at times as well and has enough fun, well made levels to keep you engaged and mastering the wierd addition combat system for way too long.

 

[1eyedjack]

Alright, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Chess. Yes, the game with the checkered board and the pieces that some people affectionately call "horsies" to the ire of everyone else. I started playing it again for the first time in years and I found that saying Checkmate in context is more satisfying than any headshot I've made to date.

However if we're going to narrow this to videogames then I'm going to say Artemis: Bridge Simulator. I've played with family and friends and have found very few party games surpass it. If you haven't heard of it please take the chance to look it up. I love this game and would love to see the community grow.

 

[FFP2]

Sanzaru Games has always been a part of the Sly trilogy, however, so I'm not worried about them developing Sly 4.

What do you mean?

 

[bafrali]

snip

Sorry it didn't meet your realism quota MR. Smartass. I will try to do better next time.

Your avatar gives you away BTW. King is naked my friend. Sooner we speak it out, the better.

 

[Snownine]

While not without its flaws, including monotonous dungeon design, Jade Cocoon 2 for the PS2 would get my vote. It is a cool Pokemon meets dungeon crawler style gameplay rpg with a neat battle system that allows a great deal of strategy. Not many have seem to have heard of it though.

 

[inquisiti0n]

had rly low expectations based on the reviews i read but turned out great

 

[Milanezi]

Rogue Galaxy, on the PS2. You got to be a pirate in space, some of the most interesting companions and worlds I had seen in a while when I played that game. Bosses were fun too and the visual style was unique for an RPG at the time. It didn't go with turn based battles either, enemies would pop up and you would battle them similar to a Kingdom Hearts kind of battle system in the sense that you run around, dodge and whack the enemies yourself, but in my opinion, with more to it. The plot was alright with a few, albeit forseeable twists and such, but it was a nice story, at least to me. No one else I know really played this game.

Never heard of it, but "judging the book by the cover" it does look freaking awesome O.O

OT: The Darkness, it got a sequel and all, but the first one was underrated AND overlooked and it just managed to be so much better than the source material (which was good, but not VERY good). It felt like I was playing a movie adaptation of the comic book, and things turned out for the better,

Spoiler

the scene of Jenny's execution was one of the few moments in any game I really felt sad, and also oh-so-very-pissed, the fact that Jackie kills himself right after just made things crazier, and the return was one filled with rage for that murderous sack of shit of his uncle. Better yet, I thought the game was about to end there, with a cliffhanger, but no, that was barely the middle of it

...

 

[Frybird]

(Hopefully) said already, but:

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories

The Third-Person pseudo remake of Silent Hill 1 (in that it shares the basic setup and some characters as the first game, but it's mostly a different game) wich released on Wii and PSP (i think), most people only remember it for replacing combat with very hit-or-miss chase sequences, replacing the rusty Nightmare World with a visually less impressive but more metaphorical frozen version and the disappointing monster designs. Or they don't remember it at all because it came out on the Wii.

While above points are, admittedly, valid, i still say Shattered Memories is a brilliant, largely underrated game.

As with series darling Silent Hill 2, the game's story did away with the greater mythology of the series in favor for a more psychological, surreal horror story similar to series inspiration Jacob's Ladder.
And in terms of gameplay, it was one of the most convincing displays of actually using the Wii's functionalities. Using the Wiimote as the InGame Flashlight was highly intuitive, the InGame Smartphone used the Wiimote Speaker well and also allowed players to make custom notes, and the puzzles used motion controls pretty well.

There are some awesome setpieces, like one where you are trapped in a sinking car in first person view and have to find a way out, or the general framing device, wich is set within a psychological therapy session wich makes some subtle changes to the games story as well as certain character and monster designs (It even takes note of the things you look at in the game and changes things accordingly).

It's also a very pretty game, replacing the games fog with a heavy snowstorm and showing off some amazing lighting effects. And i really like the VHS-Recorder Style presentation of the menus.

Finally rounding off things this was also the last Silent Hill Game with music by Akira Yamaoka and Elisabeth McGlynn, wich makes for an awesome Soundtrack.


All in all, it's possibly my favorite Silent Hill Game and one of the last great Horror Games. It's sad that many people did not (or could not) play it.