# Underrated Video Games



## erasercrumbs (Dec 17, 2009)

Are there any games that you feel were treated unfairly by the gaming press, or just flew under the radar? Cult classics, diamonds in the rough, and all-around bad games that you can't help but enjoy despite their awfulness...list them here! Please?

My entry would be Samba de Amigo for the Wii (I've never played the Dreamcast version, though I hear it's great). I've never had so much pure, childish fun with a rhythm game in my life. Samba de Amigo takes the clumsy goofiness of discovering the music game genre for the first time, and spreads it out through the entire game. I've spent countless hours playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero over the years (with only a minimal increase in skill), and most of that time has been spent with my brow furrowed, trying to grumble and curse my way into achieving a new high score. In Samba de Amigo, hitting the new high score is the last thing on my mind - I'm too too busy flailing around like a drunk aunt to worry about numbers.


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## anonomousguy (Jan 27, 2010)

Vampire Bloodlines was a very good game, but the company that made it went out of business 'cause it didn't sell enough. It's a shame when that happens.

Fallout I think is kind of underrated being that most of the newbies to the franchise only played Fallout 3 and look at the classic games as old pieces of trash with bad graphics.

Freedom Fighters... I hope they make a sequel. That game had potential. Story, characters, music... I loved it.


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## TheCanadian1 (Sep 14, 2009)

On Gen1 Xbox... Run Like Hell and The Thing... Both were very good games and had some frightening moments. I absolutely loved them!


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## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

comscar said:


> Vampire Bloodlines was a very good game, but the company that made it went out of business 'cause it didn't sell enough. It's a shame when that happens.


This was a very well done game. Story, voice overs, music, everything was great. The gameplay was seriously lacking, though. There was a lot of glitches and collision problems that made the game hard to play for me. 
They really need to make an updated version of this game.



comscar said:


> Fallout I think is kind of underrated being that most of the newbies to the franchise only played Fallout 3 and look at the classic games as old pieces of trash with bad graphics.


Yup, Fallout 3 is **** compared to fallout 1.


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## Ambivert (Jan 16, 2010)

Legend of Legaia is one of the most underrated RPG's...ever


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## sacred (May 25, 2009)

i thought viking battle for asgard was a bit underrated.


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## origami potato (Jan 9, 2010)

Cubivore, Chibi-Robo, De Blob, Okami... 

My gaming taste seems far different from everyone else here. *gulp* :|


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## NotRealName (Feb 28, 2010)

Dark Sector. Had really cool features and was really fun. You have to give it a try if you haven't.


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## bezoomny (Feb 10, 2007)

I liked Wind Waker, I dunno what everyone else was going on about.


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## Squid24 (Nov 23, 2009)

comscar said:


> Vampire Bloodlines was a very good game, but the company that made it went out of business 'cause it didn't sell enough. It's a shame when that happens.


I loved that game, the haunted hotel is one of my favorite levels of all time.

_Republic: The Revolution_ is a bad game, repetitive, you have no control on the political dealings that are at the center of the game (you just have someone do it automatically), the 3D environment is useless. It's really a bad game based on a good idea, but I really enjoy it despite it all. There are so few games about politics that I have to take what I can get.

Also _Gabriel Knight 3_ got bad reviews I think, but I liked that game a lot (despite the horrendous voice acting) as a 3D point and click I hoped it would be the beginning of an era, but it turned to be closer to the dying grasps of the genre.

And since I'm talking about game types that don't find a market, I have to mention _Grim Fandango_.


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## 2Talkative (Nov 1, 2007)

Blue force


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## Cepp (Feb 8, 2010)

Second Sight, a third person action game by Free Radical. You use psychic powers to get through the game, tons of fun, I beat it on normal and hard back when it came out and was disappointed there wasn't a higher difficulty for me to go through, quite rare for me. It's currently on sale for £1.69 on the Steam store.



comscar said:


> Vampire Bloodlines was a very good game, but the company that made it went out of business 'cause it didn't sell enough. It's a shame when that happens.


Come back to us Troika


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## erasercrumbs (Dec 17, 2009)

origami potato said:


> Cubivore, Chibi-Robo, De Blob, Okami...
> 
> My gaming taste seems far different from everyone else here. *gulp* :|


I really liked Cubivore. It was such a weird idea for a game, I have no idea how it was ever greenlighted. It's the only game I've ever played in which an exclamation of "My hump is getting bigger!" could be considered a cause for celebration.

Another game that I feel never received the attention it deserved was Gladius for the PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube. Definitely one of the best strategy RPGs ever made, and it can be had quite cheaply on eBay!


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## shadowmask (Jun 22, 2009)

Demon's Crest for SNES. It's a spin-off of the Ghost's 'n Goblins series in which you play as Firebrand (aka Red arremer, the most irritating enemy in the game). The gameplay is similar to the Megaman X series, except it features an overworld map instead of a stage select screen. There's tons of power-ups to find, three different endings, and a hidden boss notorious for being one of the most difficult in video game history, all set in a hauntingly beautiful gothic atmosphere enhanced by some of the best graphics and music of the 16-bit era. It's definitely in my top ten list.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence was another widely lambasted game I really enjoyed. I thought the combat system was deep for it's time and fun, and I loved the level design unlike most people. I don't know why this game was so heavily criticized, I think it proves that CV can be done well in 3d.


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## bowlingpins (Oct 18, 2008)

Grim Fandango.


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## Ambivert (Jan 16, 2010)

2Talkative said:


> Blue force


Hell yea! That's the cop game right? I miss those old school classic point and click adventure games.

more good ones include Goblin and Legend of Kyrandia. Hooray for hardcore never ending dungeons you must map out with high chance of dying repeatedly and hitting a dead end only to restart your game!


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## Belshazzar (Apr 12, 2010)

bowlingpins said:


> Grim Fandango.


A good example of a game that got great reviews but was a commercial flop. Kind of surprising too, since Tim Schaefer had released the popular Monkey Island games, and, well, it was awesome.

Same thing happened with Thief and Thief 2. The series was the grandaddy of 3d stealth games, but poor sales unfortunately put its developer out of business.

Also, Act Raiser for the SNES was great. It was a sim game and platformer in one. But no one seems to own the thing. And I'd like to see a game that uses the Quest64 battle system. The game itself was crap all around (nearly plotless RPG, broken leveling, terrible level design), but I thought the battle system was pretty fun and innovative despite the fact that it was broken. However, it would be easy to fix -- just make it so that taking all your levels in the water element wasn't clearly the best choice.


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## nemesis1 (Dec 21, 2009)

Darksiders.


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## Scrub-Zero (Feb 9, 2004)

Sky Blazer.

A must play.






And Shadowrun. The music and ambiance in this game is just amazing. Great story and gameplay too.


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## Infexxion (Jun 29, 2009)

Alpha Protocol, which was recently released.

I don't regret picking it up for $60 2 days after it came out. Yes, the crouching animation is funny. Yes, it is buggy, and yes the graphics are out of date. But they're releasing a patch to fix some of the bugs, graphics aren't everything, and it's down to $40 now so I recommend it to anyone who enjoys Mass Effect/Dragon Age/The Witcher/games with choices as you can really alter the story.


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## david86 (Feb 24, 2009)

I'm not sure if these games were a hit back then but I definitely had fun playing them.


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## erasercrumbs (Dec 17, 2009)

Batman Returns for the SNES. One of the most ambitious movie-based games ever made. It was brooding and cinematic before such traits were commonplace in video games. Big, beautiful sprites in the grand 16-bit tradition, and a haunting soundtrack.

Check out the delicious intro!


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## Tristram (Feb 9, 2008)

comscar, you're right, Freedom Fighters is excellent. One of my favorite Xbox games, barely mentioned these days.

Beyond Good and Evil was critically praised, but few people ever played it. I just started a new playthrough a while ago and I have to say the game has aged remarkably well. Pretty much the only things I didn't like about it were that it was too short and ended with a huge cliffhanger.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. Play it.

I think the criticism aimed at Assassin's Creed was far too harsh. The game did pretty well sales-wise, but I suppose industry people had such high expectations that anything less was going to be a failure. I can see how some people might get annoyed by the repetitive combat for instance, but I was just too busy being in awe of everything to really care.


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