Have you fallen in love with a game recently that no one else seems to get? Well, here’s your chance to tell us about it. Hit us up with a game from the last 2 years that you feel hasn’t gotten the love it deserves for today’s podcast. The cutoff point is 6PM PDT.
Red Faction: Guerrilla
Agreed, somewhat. It was appreciated enough to warrant a sequel.
Seems to me like the Battalion Wars games kind of got lost in translation.
Metro 2033 flew under the radar quickly, which was unfortunate because it does a lot of things right. The atmosphere in that game is amazing, the way the world feels completely alive yet is slowly dying at the same time. Characters talk over each other, which is how things happen in the real world. But you never hear that in games.
Just Cause 2.
I’m really not sure why I never picked it up again, it just got put t one side and began to collect dust.
Metro 2033
Heard about it from Rebel FM, saw a couple reviews, and was one of five people I know of that even bought it.
Tilt to live on iPhone.
Never hit the top 25 charts but thought this one was absolutely perfect for it’s device/market.
Simple, challenging and brief enough to fill a gap.
Tilt to Live is FANTASTIC. It’s my favorite title on the iPhone. And yes, I am holding it above Pix ‘n Love Rush, though that’s an okay game.
Tilt to Live has style, humor, and probably the most well realized mechanics I’ve come across with an iPhone game.
It’s free people. Download it!
A Boy and His Blob.
I’m feeling you kifftopher, A Boy and His Blob was an awesome game. Also, Muramasa the demon blade was really fun.
There are a few games on the Wii that have great art direction and animation (especially Muramasa.) I just wish games like A Boy and his Blob and Muramasa sold more so more developers would make such beautiful games…
Deadly Premonition, no doubt. People are way too dismissive of it. If graphics snobs could get over themselves, there is a very interesting, bizarre story and really fun characters. Any Twin Peaks fans would adore it. Oh and Persona 4. People love Persona 4 but I feel too many folks just go JRPG LOL and ignore how truly great it is. That game actually ruined other JRPGs for me, I mean it is the closest thing to a Japanese made Scooby Doo RPG that will ever exist and it is just as awesomely strange as it sounds. Nothing else can really compare.
Love,
Oh-chi-chair-ni- (In Russian it means dark eyes, at least that is what the Russians tell me)
I was going to say Deadly Premonition, as I adore it, but I think after the GiantBomb guys did their duel endurance runs of it, the internet community started embracing it.
True, but it still needs more love
The more the better ^_^
BR all the way
It’s all about VJ, man.
Assuming that anything in the current console generation counts as “recent” I’m going to say Zack and Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure. I know Anthony loves it as much as I do, but it got very little press, sold very few copies, and ended up in bargain bins after about two months. And yet it was the best point and click adventure I’ve played since the late 90s and the best use of the Wiimote I’ve seen to this day. I think they shot themselves in the foot with the cutesy IP and fucking terrible name.
I thought Alan wake deserved a little more attention. It’s a great game, especially far as creating an immersive environment. But I could easily be wrong :/
For me it would have to be Blur. I’m not even that big a racing fan but I feel it delivers on the promised mix of Mario Kart and PGR. Just a shame that so few people bought it, even this early the numbers online for it aren’t as good as hoped and I fear for the lasting appeal online if the numbers start to dwindle over time.
I agree. It’s impossible to play online in any game mode except the default one simply because there aren’t enough people playing them. I’ve never seen more than a couple thousand online at a time and that’s a damn shame.
Even though you guys mention this game about every other episode, I’m going to say Dead Space: Extraction. I bought this game just a few weeks after it launched and had a blast! The co-op is enthralling and kept my roommate and I playing for hours. The remake is the only reason I’d ever touch PlayStation Move.
I wonder how many other Wii games will get a second chance on the Move?
FEAR 2
I fucking loooooove Rockstar Table Tennis, which reviewed well but sold like shit. It’s one of the best things Rockstar’s done. It has a surprisingly deep system, with a bunch of ways to add spin to your rallies, use varying levels of power with each shot, and a cool “counter-attack” mechanic that you can use to throw your opponent off. It really nails the feel of playing ping pong, and it’s easily one of the best sports games out there. It also makes you feel like a competent badass when you’re actually god damn terrible at it. It’s on Xbox Live’s Games on Demand for like $20.
Red Faction: Guerilla got a lot love but I think the multiplayer was passed by. The shooting was solid, and the backpacks gave it a unique twist. Often games that become darlings (RF:G, Transformers,Splinter Cell etc) have their multiplayer largely passed over, which is a real shame.
Even though Alan Wake was received well by critics, I don’t think it got the attention it deserved by the public. For a new IP I thought it was a great immersive experience. Even if it took ten years to make…
I have two.
Call of Jaurez: Bound in Blood. The game kind of came and went and nobody really talked about it much, but I thought it was an entertaining shooter. It lacked polish and had some rough edges, but the history buff and shooter fan in me enjoyed it.
Darkest Days. Oh man this game was fucking terrible. So terrible it was almost good. The story was laughably bad but the concept was interesting. I love the idea of traveling back in time and fighting historical battles with futuristic weapons. The shooting is actually competent but the level design (invisible walls galore) and AI were horrible. Still, I found the game strangely fun and satisfying. Again, the history buff in me found it interesting.
From professional video games sites wii games are criminally overlooked. games like No More Heroes, Endless Ocean, MadWorld, and deadly creatures have the quirkiness of old Sega games but were too different for mass appeal.
Civilization Revolution, LOL for the DS, and the darkness are others
I was thinking of the Darkness as well.
the act of watching tv with your GF, made what happened later way more impactful.
darkness rules,i heard a sequel may be coming
If we were to go back over the ages, then this list would be really long. But if we only looking at this year’s releases, my call would be Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising. I think it just goes to show how far RTS and PC games have fallen by the way-side but it was definitely one my first half highlights. It continued an already great game, added more units and its multiplayer is a blast to play, not to mention it could even appeal to/drawn it new players as well. The fact that it will be overshadowed by the upcoming release of Starcraft II is another reason why so many people will forget about it.
Retro Game Challenge, No More Heroes, and Splinter Cell: Conviction. Splinter Cell seemed to receive a little more hate than it should have. If I hear one more thing about Deadly Premonition, I will slit that persons throat via the internet.
Shatter: The soundtrack is excellent while being an interesting take on the Arkanoid formula. I can’t recommend it enough
League of Legends!!!
No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle.
It did every thing a good sequel is supposed to do. It stayed true the original game’s core concepts but improved where it was necessary such as streamlining (see: “doing away with”) the open world, making better side missions, and increasing the amount of profanity (always a good thing!) Yet, despite all this, the game didn’t get much fanfare and I’ve already seen it available for $19.99. A game this good quickly relegated to the bargain bin? What a world we live in!
Yeah that was a damn shame about NMH2
It was such an improvement over the original and yet no one seemed to care 
i have 2
1.brutal legend
2.bullet witch
i know bullet witch is not recent but i just rented it a week ago and i am enjoying it greatly.its like the EDF 2017 of shoot em ups. and i thought brutal legend had its flaws but it seems everyone just cant look past them
Bullet Witch might be the worst Xbox 360 game released. Its all of the mediocrity of Prototype’s world mixed with the combat of Darksiders with none of the fun (plus a super shitty camera). I really cannot impart how disappointed I was with Bullet Witch.
Seems recent can cover 5 years ago, so here’s my vote for The Matrix: Path of Neo. Don’t go into it with expectations of a God of War clone, per-se, but it definitely kills Enter the Matrix in every way.
In terms of games this year….did Green Day Rock Band get much attention? Granted, I exported the songs, but I wonder how many people actually bought it, or how many hated on it.
Demon’s Souls.
While it can be argued that Demon’s Souls was considered a success for what it was and even received much love from critics, I feel like most gamers passed it by due to the focus on it’s difficulty. I am the type of person that gets easily frustrated and angry if I feel like a game is being cheap, but I never felt either in my various playthroughs of DS. That’s not to say that I am super awesome at games or anything (I tend to play most games on Normal) but with DS I always felt in control and every death felt justified.
I think that the biggest hurdle for gamers in Demon’s Souls is getting over the idea of “dying” in the game and realize that although you lose souls everytime you “die”, there are many opportunities to get more souls to improve your weapons and level up.
I have played games for over 25 years and my list of favorites has stayed the same for at least a decade. But then Demon’s Souls came out of nowhere and easily surpassed games like Super Metroid, Phantasy Star IV and A Link to the Past to become my favorite game of all time. It just pains me to see how many people refuse to try it just because of it’s perceived difficulty.
*thumbs up*
You sir, know your shit
I got Demon’s Souls way back when it was first released, but I guess I just bought into the hype of how difficult and frustration it was, because after the first two or three bosses, I kind of just stopped playing.
Then, rather recently, I picked it back up and started playing it again from the beginning, sinking probably like 60+ hours into it. I am now of the opinion that it is one of the finest rpgs of this generation. I would have done myself a great disservice by leaving it on my shelf to collect dust.
I did the same thing pretty much. I stopped after a few bosses and moved on to a bunch of holiday releases and it was a couple months until I went back to it. Then after I finished it, I immediately started in on NG+. I don’t even like to think about how my life would be different if I had never gone back to it
BANJO-KAZOOIE: NUTS & BOLTS.
FORVAR.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4d-RZuB3ImY
Also, Rainbow Six Vegas 2.
ALSO also, lol @ Ryan Scott. xD
“Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer” for the DS. I’ve put over 250 hours into this Rogue-like game. I love how difficult it is. Not very many people stick around after they find out how much time goes into learning the monsters/traps/and tricks of the game. I love it.
Definitely, Alan Wake for me. Fuck you Red Dead with your mass market appeal and endless marketing budget. Honorable mention for Crackdown 2. I am the only one on my friends list that has the game. WTF?
Ironic post is ironic.
obvious poster is obvious
Redundant statement is redundant.
Fuck you recursion!!!
yay for Alan Wake
Itchy pubic lice is itchy.
Settlers 7
Makers of fantastic Anno series(Blue byte) took over this series and finally made a GREAT Settlers game.
Gorgeous visuals, great interface/accessibility combined with city building/resource management and new victory point system where players/AI fight over map specific victory conditions.
Victory point system can make the game very competitive and intense since player needs to have 3-6 victory points to win and most conditions can be contested thruought whole game.(like conquest most sectors -victory point can shift between many players during the game)
Even Ubisoft DRM doesn’t ruin the game.
Lost Odyssey is the game for me that I loved so much but just didn’t do as well I would of hoped. It’s still my favourite RPG of this generation.
Punch Out on Wii didn’t seem to get the love it deserved. Review scores were very good, and it got a bit of chatter on a few podcasts, but general public (in Britain anyway) didn’t seem to give two shits about it. That game was unbelievably fun. Once I’d finished the game sideways controller style, me and my brother played the motion control version as a sort of pass and play fuck about just for shits and giggles. Cheers to Tyler for the guide, I wouldn’t have got very far without it.
Too Human. Any game can be ignored as being a technical or mechanical disaster, but I’d say that a setting as alienating and unusual as Cyber-Norse is unique enough to merit interest, which of course it did not receive. While Sony Santa Monica is permitted to stuff Greek Mythology up its own ass and shit it back out for the God of War storyline, Silicon Knights actually preserves all the characters extant in the original myths despite completely re-skinning them. Baldur the light-bringer and the traitorous Loki are true to their millennia-old form, and the beginnings of Ragnarok are plainly recognizable. I pine for its continuation.
I’m with you… just barely meets the 2 year requirement but I loved this game.
This is the closest a 360 game has come to the hack and slash/loot collection joy of Diablo 2. I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since D2 and consoles still can’t accurately replicate that experience.
Sid Meier’s SimGolf.
Oops, Well SimGolf isn’t exactly new. (2002). But It is incredible.
Not that recent- The World Ends With You. It does a lot of things I wish every jrpg would do, the music is great, it looks great, the combat is a fun challenge and the world is interesting. A must play, and in a magical future where game club still existed, it would be a great choice.
So new it’s unreleased – Monster Tale. It’s the new DS game from the Henry Hatsworth guys, and since I loved HH I’m super curious about it. It was there at E3, but it seems like nobody went to see it. Actually, I’m not sure why Majesco went to E3 at all, because I never heard anyone talk about any of their games.
Metro 2033
It has a lot of charm and it is has decent shooting. What puts it over the edge is the overall oppression that seems to permeate out every Russian work. You feel like everything is hopeless and that nothing will get better. It’s great.
Need For Speed: Shift
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns.
This one can be disputed since the Fire Pro games are fairly popular in Japan but in the US they have always taken a back seat to the WWE wrestling games mostly for their looks.
But honestly those sprites are amazing to look at. Over 300 wrestlers with 500 edit spots to make any character you can think of from historical figures to wrestlers from all over the world. Thousands of moves and some of the deepest AI for any game just made me fall in love with it.
Granted that isn’t really a recent game but I can’t really think of one.
Mirrors Edge
That game was much better than I had expected because it seemed that the games press had a reverse boner for that game. I ignored it for a while and eventually picked it up for £5 in a sale and have not had that much fun for that little money since drinking shit cider and sniffing poppers in the pub as a 16 year old.
I recently picked up Majesty 2 during that ridiculous Steam sale and it has been really great. It’s a different take on the RTS. Instead of controlling your units directly you give offer rewards for completing tasks and the AI takes over. Giantbomb had a quicklook but I haven’t seen anyone else talk about it much. Not even the PC Gamer guys.
Otogi and Otogi2 for the original XBOX…
Rollercoaster Tycoon
Being a Star Wars fan may cause me to be biased, but I was thoroughly entertained by SW The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes for the 360. I haven’t even watched the TV show, yet I was interested in the story and found the gameplay to be decently fun (especially for the audience at which it was aimed for). But man oh man did all the gaming press poo poo it (besides John Davison. That man just knows his stuff).
Ninja Blade for the 360.
I first heard of it when one of my friends got it the day it came out, but I snobbishly ignored it as I felt that if I hadn’t heard of a new game it probably wasn’t very good.
After hearing my friend go on about how good it was and seeing it was only £5 brand new in my local games store I decided to pick it up.
I have to say that I ended up really enjoying it. It didn’t have the level of polish that games like Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden have, but it but at no point did it frustrate me like they did.
I’m going to use a pre-emptive strike on Transformers: War for Cybertron. Among almost all the people I know most of them have no idea that game even exists.
Add ‘Singularity’ to that list.
For me it has to be The Saboteur. Picked it up recently for £20 and absolutely loved it. Really enjoyed the destruction within the game; no greater pleasure than stealing a Nazi officer’s uniform, strolling up to a tank, planting 3-4 stick of dynamite and blowing it to hell. Also liked the feeling of oppression the game conveys using the black, white and red colour palette in the Nazi occupied areas.
I thought The Saboteur was very underappreciated too. The biggest mistake they made with that game (besides the crunk ass Nazi’s after setting off an alarm) was adding any color at all, besides the red for blood, and yellow for lights. Just imagine if they had had a day and night cycle in the Nazi-controled black and white areas.
99 nights. this is a game that reviewers hated for what it was. Hack-n-Slash. And granted it may have not done alot to differentiate it from all of the dynasty warriors sequels,spinoffs,and clones. but that’s fine by me b/c I haven’t played one since the DW2 (which I returned promptly b/c i though it was going to be a fighting game like the first one.)
99 nights is the perfect case of reviewers getting burned out on agenre b/c they play every iteration of every game. The game was mechanically sound, allof the character son screen looked amazing, and the gameplay (for me) was new. Yea you could beat it with one button but then “you’re palying it wrong”. Though it wasn’t required to beat the game, it did have various moves and combos, and a deep battle system for those that wanted it. I enjoyed the story and the voice acting as well.
Crap, this games is more than 2 years old, huh? I meant to say 99 nights 2. Yeah that’s it. the 99 nights 2. (which Anthony just so happend to give a 4.0 , honestly I can’t comment b/c I haven’t played it so I can’t say how I feel about that)
I guess Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. I picked this up during the steam sale and it was a lot better than I had been expecting. I jumped into Arma 2 pretty heavily with some friends, and that’s all well and good, but even if OpFlash is made by a different studio, it’s a lot better for pick up and play sessions. My friends and I were sort of surprised that there are usually only about 2 games going online at any given time on the pc version. Total ghost town.
Raw Danger, the sequel to Disaster Report. It was a sort-of survival horror, where you had to survive this flooding city. No monsters, but there was a conspiracy and a serial killer. You got to hop between a bunch of different viewpoints, every character having their own special ability, the only one of which I remember is the bellhop who could hug people.
Ratchet & Clnak Future: A Crack in Time
whoops I meant *Clank not Clnak
I had a lot of fun with X-Men Origins Wolverine.
Dragon age origins. I know a lot of main stream gamers overlook hardcore RPGs, but this game was done very well. It had great vo and dialog. The story was awesome, and it was a real treat to play. Over 60 hours on just my first play through, this was my favorite game of 2009.
Depending on how recent we are talking I would say Valkyria Chronicles was really ignored…it is probably the best thing out of Japan this generation and yet I feel because it came out when it did in the PS3 life cycle it got pushed to the side of everyone’s mind.
i whole heartedly agree, we’re lucky were getting the sequel
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories…great use of Wii controls, intriguing story, surprisingly good ending…game managed to be tense and creepy without any actual threats and the psychology stuff was really well done…I hope other developers are taking notes on the things that this game got right
Man, I just bought some Dynasty Warriors game at Gamestop for eight bucks. Those games are one of those games that aren’t good, but are way too much fun. Brings me back to my middle school days of spending an entire Saturday playing at my friend’s house.
Call of Duty: World at War. I just recently played World at War after buying the Call of Duty pack during the recent Steam sale, and I can’t get over how great the single player campaign is. In one week of playing I have just about finished my third play through of the campaign, while I have only played through COD4 twice and MW2 once. I grew up a career Marine Corp Brat, and from graduated high school in Japan, so I was excited to finally play as a Marine against the Japanese in a WW2 shooter. The Russian campaign was definately not a let down either. Every time I hear that Russian battle cry it gives me chills. I know the game has sold a lot of copies, but I always heard about the hate for Treyarch, and after playing this game I can not understand where it came from, other than the fact that the game wasn’t COD4.
I have to agree. Although it doesn’t match up to the story on the original, Bioshock 2 was an excellent game with greatly improved mechanics. I was especially blown away at the point later in the game where your view of Rapture changes(if you know what I mean.)
Bioshock 2 my favorite game of the year so far too. Better then the the first and has great multiplayer. But for some reason it got shit all over.
God Hand, Okami, Viewtiful Joe, Too Human (say what you will, i loved it) DEFCON,world in Conflict, Demigod…. i can go on..
Yes, Okami. If any game needs a next gen sequal, that would be it.
Dark Void didn’t exactly wow the critics but I loved it! This is coming from a guy who really liked Bionic Commando (PS3/360). There’s just an air of nostalgia that comes with these 3D character action games. If given a little more time to clean up the story and polish the cut-scenes, I think DV would have garnered more praise. Also Capcom sucks at marketing.
It’s past the two year mark but day of defeat source is my pick. Purchased it during steams July 4th special. Nothing ground breaking in today’s terms but enjoyable in the way all of valves games are. Worth thr few bucks I paid for it.
Ghostbusters
This game had its fare share of problems and the game suffers when it strays from the source material. But being able to play through scenes and sets from the movie brought me back to my childhood, and that’s a good thing.
The Darkness.
With great style, memorable characters and some of the best story telling in a game over the past few years, The Darkness deserved much more attention than it received when it was released in 2007. (I know 3 years sorry).
The orange box. always find it hard to get a game of tf 2
Here’s a couple off the top of my head:
(1) Dark Sector. Good game, but overshadowed as a Gears of War rip-off. Quickly found its way into the bargain bins.
(2) The Saboteur. Fantastic game. Overshadowed by the closure of Pandemic, but truly worth a play. Some of its stuff was outdated pre-release (ie: climbing up buildings), but it was still fun….and can easily be found for $20 now. This game also looked substantially better on PS3 than 360, as Pandemic did some awesome work with a brand new anti-aliasing techniques.
(3) The Godfather 2. A really overlooked game. I’m not sure why this game go so much hate compared to the first one. It had a few problems, but provided an interesting retelling of the 2nd movie and gave people more of what they enjoyed from the first. I was really sad to see it go down so fast. Another $20 game that’s awesome (and an easy way to get 1000 Achievements or a Platinum trophy)
I think the biggest thing with Godfather 2 is that they added way too many things to the game and everything suffered for it. The first I loved the death but this one I had a hard time getting into.
Darksiders outside of its release window it seems to fallen off most people lists.
Dude I played that a couple months after it came out. I found it to be an above average game but it frusterated the fuck out of me because I played it on hard my very first time, and the difficulty of it just ruined it for me. I can see that it’s a great game but I got all cocky and played it on hard so I could get that platinum trophy. fucking trophies (and achievements). It doesn’t help that it has a shit framerate, at least on the PS3.
I really loved The Saboteur after picking it up at a bargain price. Perhaps that factored in, but it tries something different rather than go for the easy ‘GTAIV was less over the top, let’s Saint’s Row this shit!’ and in doing so succeeds more than it fails.
Oh and if you are gonna put strippers in your game, burlesque is best.
The 360 version of Supreme Commander 2 was basically completely ignored , even though it was probably the best rts ever on console…
Other than that, Sacred 2, Tropico 3, viva pinata 2, and Prince of Persia 2010 all deserved better sales.
Dead Space: Extraction was critically overlooked. I’m not saying critically as in, by critics, the game sits at a comfy 8.2, but it was truly launched to the wrong audience. It’s sales were staggeringly low in its launch month, something like 7,000 copies, right?
It’s a crying shame because it’s the best lightgun shooter and a damn good game regardless of genre. The atmosphere, mechanics, narrative, and cast were exceptional.
Wii was simultaneously the best and worst platform for this game. The audience wasn’t there but the tech was. I really hope it gets the praise it deserves through Dead Space 2.
A game no one knows or remembers anymore: RISE OF NATIONS!
I think FF XIII got shit on a bit too much. Its cool if people don’t like it, but it’s not a bad game. It’s just drastically different from its previous iterations. But look how different XII was from X. It’s definitely the worst of the ones I have played (save X-2). I kept an open mind and found it to be the stylized fantasy adventure I have come to expect. Even if most of the development team’s decisions were wrong. Kudos for them for having the balls to change it up. I can’t imagine that being easy for a Japanese company.
The Darkness, great game with some interesting gameplay mechanics and story.
I have two gems that are appreciated, but not enough.
Red Dead Redemption: Easily the best Rockstar game to date; the Single Player story is easily the best story in a game this year and in any Rockstar game, and the multiplayer is fantastic, fixing everything that was wrong in GTA4 multiplayer and keeping what was so great about it. The use of autoaim in competitive multiplayer also is incredibly balanced, allowing lock-on to target something, but requiring analog aiming to follow the target. The co-op and open world exploration/gang hideouts also make the game the closest thing to a console MMO.
Deadly Premonition: After the first couple of hours of laughing at how cheesy and weird the dialogue is, you’ll discover an peculiar adventure game with an interesting open world and great pacing. The dialogue and characters will grow on you, and you soon realize the Voice Acting is actually really good. Even though controls and graphics won’t impress, it is the only game I’ve been fully been immersed in to the extent that I could fish in-game for hours and have a total blast doing so.
Out of all the games to pop up over the last few years, I’m always surprised at how few people recall what a fucking cool shooter Everyday Shooter was. Geometry Wars, Super Stardust HD, and Ikagura always have tons of loved heaped on them, but as far as the most unique shooter on any platform, I still consider Everyday Shooter to be the most original and captivating shooter this side of Rez.
Also say what you will, but the Ghostbusters game was universally forgotten. The half co-op/half competitive multiplayer was a ton of fun and the story was silly but ultimately enjoyable.
Oh and Shatter, I fucking love that game.
Hard to say, but I really like the combat in Dante’s Inferno. The combat isn’t better than God of War, but it’s much deeper. More moves and Stratagy in how you move Dante around the battlefeild. But enemies you fight are very unappealing and there is not much variety. I would love to see a sequal, but have the game take place in and open world where the quest is 20 hours long and theres much more time to learn the combat
Frontlines: Fuel of War – some great level design.
Mini Ninjas – awesome in pretty much every aspect.
Divinity II – enjoyed this more than Dragon Age (a lot more).
Time Shift – nice graphics, great pacing, fun time manipulation mechanics that kept the combat fun the whole way through.
Oh wow, Divinity II? I passed on that one after reading reviews (I know, I should know better than that by now) but have been thinking about picking it up. Games I’ve played recently have been seriously lacking in dragons.
I also have Frontlines and Mini Ninjas sitting on my shelf, still in there shrink wrap. Thanks for the motivation to crack ‘em open.
Wanted and Bionic Commando: Great to rent. Very quick campaign with interesting mechanics and a crappy story for both.
BF1942. Loved that game but it sort of fell by the wayside. Saints Row 2. Never seen a game hits it’s target audience better.
CoD:WaW: Treyach didn’t deserve the crap they got for this. While it was a clone of one of the best games ever made it was still competent in it’s own right and to many people crapped on it.
Stalker: One of the most atmospheric games made. Similar to Fallout with a difficulty curve on the insane level.
Jade Empire: After all the praise Mass Effect’s gotten I have to remind people that this is Bioware’s first attempt at action combined with a RPG. People crapped on it for being short but by today’s 6 hour shooter standards that’s not really valid. Has a great story with Bioware’s trademark decision making.
The Stalker series is one of my favorites too. I unfortunately don’t not have the time to really explore Call of Pripyat. I’ve heard is the best of the series and more importantly, the most stable. It’s definitely a series that is more about the world than anything, but on the other hand can have some extremely unnerving moments and interesting story that trusts the player to find their way with the clues that have been given.
I speak more from my experience with the first game, than with Clear Sky. For every improvement the prequel made, it introduced an even worse one. The series has also seemed to divert from the (AMAZING) underground sections, that have instilled more fear into me than any other game I’ve played.
Star Wars Battlefront games…is it me or does it seem that people look back on those badly.everone that i hear talk about them say they were bad games
I bought You Are Empty for $2.48 on Gamersgate yesterday, and played through most of it that day. I love it. There are a ton of different enemies and they all behave differently, lots of guns, and cool environmental art. It’s like a semi-modern game in the style of Quake 2-just a straight-forward fun weird ass FPS.
So I record a video of a some gameplay I enjoyed, including a clip of some hilariously bad voice acting/animation during one of the two conversations in the entire game, and post it online, and get responses ranging from “That looks like a bad version of STALKER” to “That looks like the WORST FPS EVER”.
The negative comments are from a forum I was talking about it in, not Youtube comments btw. Nobody cares about Youtube comments.
Actually talking about that reminds me of another game I really liked that most people outright hated: Shadowman. Most people played the PS1 or N64 versions, which had the very brown/grey textures downrezzed and terribly compressed, and the equally bad sound effects compressed to fuzzy further terribleness. But on PC, they were “adequate”-ish. Enough not to ruin the game, which was a really fun Zelda style action adventure through voodoo hell. I’ve played through it three times, it still holds up, as long as you aren’t too terribly bothered by too much brown (shouldn’t be a problem if you’re a modern gamer) and bad sound effects (just turn ‘em off).
Civ Rev and Defense Grid. Both are excellent strategy games, and both are rarely mentioned. Civ Rev seems to often get over shadowed by Civ 4, and I don’t think many people bought Defense Grid.
I’m late to the game, but I’ll have to say I have a few: Super Stardust HD and Dawn of War II.
Super Stardust HD never got the kind of press that Everyday Shooter or Geometry Wars did. No IGA award, no 1up coverage (minus Garnett dropping it during 1up Yours), and no demo for the longest time. I bought it on a whim years ago, and showed it to some friends who had never heard of it today.
Dawn of War 2 is a RTS that is really trying to shake the genre with radically different play mechanics from the Starcraft template. They took things further towards micro-management with the removal of base-building mechanics like they had in Company of Heroes. It may be the podcasts I listen to, but I hear more talk about the latest Command and Conquer (despite its popularity, it needs to die), League of Legends and, of course, Starcraft. It saddens me that DoW2 is mentioned in passing. It’s a game that’s part of everyone’s vocabulary, but no stories or hype seems to surround the game or upcoming patches.
Excuse me while I weep and refresh the forum page of the DoW2 league I’m in. Heyo GWJers.
All RTS games are mentioned in passing. It’s a very unpopular genre for console gamers. I know Anthony appreciates RTS titles, or at least Company of Heroes, but yeah….considering all genres: sports games, shooters, what have you, RTS games are the least popular. Add to that the fact that it’s mostly a PC niche….speaks for itself.
I really got hooked on Far cry 2. The free roaming it did was unlike anything I had played up to that point.
That’s another one I forgot. Farcry 2 was a pretty damn good game. If I could change anything, it’d be so that you had the ability to stealth more than you were aloud. The enemies were too “aware” when you were to start picking them off with a silenced whatever.
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning is a $1 XBL Indie game. It’s a fantastic 8-bit parody of JRPGs old and new, has a lot of laughs and great reference humor.
And it’s a dollar. For 6 hours of hilarity and some fairly interesting mechanics that spice things up.
Check it out, it’s awesome.
Since I’m past the cutoff (I think) I shall disobey the rules of this subject. My underappreciated game is KOTOR II. Obsidian did a frakking amazing job with what they were given. Now the game was buggy but they were forced to release, so I can look past that and ultimately I think at it’s core it is a better game than KOTOR. It’s like a really, really good apple that has some wormholes in it. Get past that wormholes and it’s awesome, get hung up on them and it’s a crap apple.
NO. This game was bad. Had some neat ideas but an unfinished storyline and the same mechanics make this game a failure. The core of the first was story and the dialogue system. The story and dialogue with crew are a mess in 2.
Blur really blew me away, I pretty much only play it as a 4-player split-screen game but even with my non-hardcore gamer friends it keeps us up till the early hours. I hate NFS and most other racers but something about the balance of Blur keeps me comming back, deserves a second look.
I’m a little late here but I have to say Black. A lot of people liked it but its lack of multiplayer stopped it from reaching the critical mass that it would have needed to become a major franchise.
Another one I would like to dig up from my retro bag is Space Megaforce for the SNES (Super Aleste in Japan). This is one of the best shmup’s ever made IMHO but it never gets mentioned on any best of lists I have read even though in my book it is just below the divine near perfection that is UN Squadron.
Dude I had Space Megaforce for the SNES..that game had awesome graphics and music. It was short but sweet.
“Space Megaforce!…presented by TOHO”
Red Faction Guerrila, it bugged out on me so many times it isnt funny and i really wanted yto love it it just never made me want to play it, the problems were with the console not the disk, buildins werent spawning and things just didnt work.
Machinarium was a great game. It had charm, humor and was quite a challange, but that’s O.K. cause it has a guide built into it.
Flower is another one. I loved the story, scenary and the controls. It made me feel things that few games has.
Mass Effect 2
It’s gotten a lot of attention, sure, but not as much as it deserves. It’s the best game since Deus Ex in my opinion and I don’t think it’s been recognized as being so much better than almost all games in almost all areas of its production and design. Interactive storytelling is the future and this is the only game to have done it better than DX and will probably see as few imitators or good successors.
ME2 is my GOTY so far. Man that game is fucking good. But the year is only half way over.
Alpha Protocol.
Reviewers collectively shat on this game because it became the chic thing to do. If you give it a chance it is actually a fairly well done game.
No dude, it’s not. Everything about the game is terrible, the animation, the art, the characters, the voice acting (not terrible but far from good), the writng and especially the gameplay. Hell, even the pre-rendered intro sucks so much it’s like it’s taken from a Tomb Raider game 10 years ago.
Did I say the animation sucks? It really really sucks
Definitely “Darkness”. Great game with unmatchable atmosphere, that almost anyone I know never played or even heard about. And that’s damn shame
Zeno Clash. Really simple but mental and a breath of fresh air when compared to some stale FPS offerings. A must have.
Men of War – Great RTS that not enough people know about because it’s European and on a platform most people ignore. Sure the voice acting is laughable, but it adds to the charm.
The Experiment/Experience 112 – Again European game on PC, with a really interesting take on adventure games that tackles the idea of gaming as voyeurism as well as the separation between players and the world. Haven’t seen another game try this [for better or worse].
Also late I realize, but I found several overlooked gems after bingeing on Steam impulse buys last week.
The Void – A little clumsy on the controls, but this FPS hybrid has some very unique game mechanics involving the planting, harvesting, and managing of different colored energies.
Cryostasis – Once again the controls are not the best, but the unique heat=life mechanic and the opressive atmosphere of the game make this the most tension filled game I have played since the Penumbra series.
Trine – This is one of my favorite platformers of this console generation, and with the Steam sale I just had to buy again to try it on the PC. The game controls even better on the PC and the graphics and physics engine are even better than I remember. I can hardly wait for Trine 2.
I just got Darksiders from Goozex and I can’t put it down. Mix in some Zelda with the Apocalypse, the most adorable undead horse and some truly disgusting boss creatures and I’m sold. I even like the fact that it takes itself SUPER serious. Actually, I was sold the first time I heard the horn. Damn it would be cool to have one of those announce my arrival wherever I went. Like the Horn of Gondor, but infinitely more baddass.
I’ve two, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts for doing something creative instead of continuing the stagnation of a platformer franchise by adding innovation into it (fuck you Mario).
Another is the recently over looked Metro 2033, while not perfect in any respect they had a surprisingly thematically deep narrative and an atmosphere and level of immersion unique to video games.
I almost forgot about Killer 7, a very unique experience that I’ve guarantee that you’ve never played another game quite like it.
Since I’ve already fucked up and continued on when I originally said that I only had two, those art house games released for download are always quite beautiful. Whether it’s game journalists who think that if your not shooting something that it’s not a game or a typical teenage gamer who ascribes to that belief, they always are forgotten easily because of they’re brevity. Some examples are Braid, Flower, and Flow. While Flower and Flow maybe just tech demoes for a larger artistic experience and Braid may be an incredibly pretentious in it’s story presentation, I still think they’re some of the best games released this generation and represent an abstract, more mature future for games, if you’ll excuse this poorly written paragraph because it can’t amount to the greatness of all these over looked (and in some cases somewhat overlooked) games.
…no seriously though. the whole Killzone 2 theme is beyond ironic at this point.
Just change the 2 to a 3 and it’ll be relevant again.
It’ll become relevant, then, but remain ironic.
So no podcast this week?
Persona 4, never really heard of Atlus but i’ve been playing the game and watching giant bomb’s endurance run as i progress and its been a incredible experience. I never thought a jrpg could be this good, and the soundtrack is also fantastic. and of RebelFM recommendation during the steam sale i bought red faction guerrilla for 5$ and it is alot of fun as well.
I know I am way passed the submission point and no one is going to read this, but did anyone read the instructions. 90% of the games people mentioned here were games that have been extensively talked about on this podcast, market successes and/or review successes.
The portable versions of Disgaea, they are like digital crack for me. When ever I start one (currently on Disgaea 2 for PSP) I seem to spend every free moment outside of work grinding my characters.