Your (underrated) GotY 2012

[2fish]

I am not sure what counts as underrated.

I mean many of the games I list have either sold well or gotten praise if not both, but I would not consider them the big games that everyone still talks about months after their release unless you go to a forum specific to that game.

FTL
Mark of the Ninja
Spec Ops the Line
Legend of Grimrock

None of these are games that completely slipped under the radar, but they did get overshadowed rather quickly.

 

[acosn]

SPEC OPS: THE LINE. I will not rest till everyone has played this game.

Honourable mention to Dragons Dogma.

Is it really that good? I see people occasionally write posts about it being surprisingly good but I've never had the urge to try it beyond a small demo I tried where I wasn't really impressed. Can you perhaps (if it's no bother) try to sell it to me?

As for mine, Mass Effect 3. Hated by all because of 15 minutes at the end of a 30 hour game. Yes the ending was bad but it didn't stop me having an amazing time up until that point, hell I got teary on more than one occasion during my play through.

The entirety of ME3 is a demonstrably bad game. The god awful ending is just what gets the most attention because it's especially bad. Generally speaking when you can't get the ending right (typically you already have this mapped out very early in story development) you've fucked over the entire plot because that's what is supposed to pull everything together into a coherent theme. So by fucking up the ending they destroyed the entire point to the story, and in an RPG (term used losely) that tends to be a big deal.

I respectfully disagree though I realise it's just a case of our differing opinions, it's just in many cases when someone says Mass Effect 3 is terrible the only evidence they tend to bring up is the ending and the rest of the game is never mentioned. I feel far to many people forget about the fun they were having up until that point, it's a shame you found the whole game bad though :/ out of curiosity which of the titles was your favorite?

First had the best plot, 2 had the best refinement of game mechanics, even if it did dumb it down a bit.

This is, of course, bearing in mind, that the entire trilogy is highly derivative of previous work in scifi, and the series as a whole is largely irredeemable. They're only good if you've never had any exposure to that style of game, and scifi in general.

 

[AldUK]

I am not sure what counts as underrated.

I mean many of the games I list have either sold well or gotten praise if not both, but I would not consider them the big games that everyone still talks about months after their release unless you go to a forum specific to that game.

FTL
Mark of the Ninja
Spec Ops the Line
Legend of Grimrock

None of these are games that completely slipped under the radar, but they did get overshadowed rather quickly.

I did really enjoy Legend of Grimrock, still have it on my computer actually. Never did finish it though, I don't think it's quite good enough for game of the year unless you're a seriously hardcore fan of the old fashioned RPG. (And I mean, Atari old-fashioned. Like Eye of the Beholder.)

 

[Kingjackl]

My underrated GOTY would be either XCOM: Enemy Unknown or Mass Effect 3. XCOM for being an awesome game, but likely to be forgotten in the run-up to 2013 due to being overshadowed by all the triple A shooter blockbusters like Halo 4 and Black Ops. Mass Effect 3 for being a fantastic game that everybody has only played the last 5 minutes of and nothing else.

 

[BernardoOne]

I wouldnt call Mak of the Ninja underrated when the metacritic for it is 92. As in, the average of reviews is 92.

 

[Lugbzurg]

I guess it doesn't count because SOOOO many people are talking about it but I'm not sure that Spec Ops: The Line sold that well so I'm gonna chuck that one out.

Because it really is just that fucking awesome.

That's just what I was thinking. And I'm seeing other people up there mentioning The Walking Dead, which I certainly don't think is underrated. Frankly, it seems overrated to me. People just won't stop yammering on about it. I'm hearing people go on and on and on about it completely out-of-context for no reason at all, even more so than Call of Duty!

On the other hand, there are people insisting that it isn't a real videogame. Excuse me? It has a win state, a lose state, objectives, a main goal, a set of rules, and it's an interactive piece of software designed for entertainment. Does it have something to do with it being a point-and-click role-playing game? If so, then would that mean that Monkey Island, Sam & Max, The Elder Scrolls, and Fallout aren't videogames, by that logic?

 

[Brainwreck]

Mark of the Ninja. Because everything.

 

[Westaway]

Fall of Cybertron, it's a great game no one seemed to notice.

It's pretty much War for Cybertron but worse in nearly every way- I think there's a reason it's been ignored.

 

[NZT48]

The Witcher 2 since it was released for Xbox this year.

 

[StupidNincompoop]

I completely forgot about one game that came out this year.

ZombiU. The one game that makes the wiiU worth getting.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

my GotY so far is Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP.

What's the appeal of that game? Did I completely miss something as it's the only game this year I've had to just stop playing and never touch due to being unfathomably dull.

Totally agree. It's an insult to both old school pixel games and adventure games.

 

[Entitled]

Katawa Shoujo. Because the escapist and 4chan are the only places that know about the game.

The Escapist and 4Chan being the only people aware of a game raises so many red flags about what kind of game it must be...

Exactly. And it's premise, genre, origin, and news coverage raise even more flags. That's why it's underrated, because people care more about the flags that their prejudices raise, than about the overwhelmingly positive reaction of everyone who looked behind these.

By the way, I think there were quite a few other fans it had, for one thing there already was a Visual Novel fandom outside of Escapist/4Chan to begin with, and it also gathered some readers every time a gaming news site tried to give it the Fox News Treatment, who tried to check it out for themselves anyways.

If it would be released now, as opposed to the past January, it would even have a chance to get onto some of the more open-minded and indie-favoring GOTY lists as "best story" or "most emotional" or in whatever categories.

 

[IamQ]

Katawa Shoujo. Because the escapist and 4chan are the only places that know about the game.

How the flying fuck did I guess right on what game this was? Seriously, I read like 3 articles a year ago, didn't even know the title, and I was still right.

...

Does this mean I have to buy it now? Or at least torrent it?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

XCOM was definitely not underrated.

CK2, Frog Fractions and FTL fit the bill here, although FTL got a lot of attention being the first Kickstarter finished, so that's debatable.

 

[Contradiction]

Dragon's Dogma
Did you really expect me to say anything else.
Flawed like all hell but absolutely amazing. Great combat and story, with a few twists and variations in both to keep them fresh. Easily Top 10 ever played and top 5 of rpgs
Keen for the sequel.

 

[xplosive59]

My vote goes to Katawa Shoujo. It's a masterpiece, considering its premise, history and budget of zero dollars.

At the very least, listen to the soundtrack. It's amazing. Easily one of my favourites, ever.

The soundtrack was done by Sebastien Skaf, he has over 100 songs on his youtube channel and most of them really good.


OT: Strike another one up for Katawa Shoujo (although it is not really a game), I also feel like Sleeping Dogs was underrated although still being a very big release.

 

[Baldry]

SPEC OPS: THE LINE. I will not rest till everyone has played this game.

That's a horrible thing to wish on people. There's so many better things to do with ones time.

Well if Spider Jerusalem say's something's a horrible thing it truly must be...