Man, after the huge amount of response we got to the thread about overrated video games, I figured we were just about begging to get this follow-up. I’d love to see something similar happen here as well.
Basically, I want to know what you guys think are the most underrated games out there. Games that for some reason or another seem to get overlooked by either gamers or the media on the whole. Or perhaps they weren’t overlooked, but just discounted outright or given an unnecessary amount of undue hatred.
For me, I have to say that Suikoden III doesn’t really get the praise I think it deserved as one of the best RPGs of the last generation. In this generation, Saint’s Row 2 was largely ignored in light of Grand Theft Auto IV, when it was probably a better spiritual successor to the series than GTA 4 was, even. 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand was a great shooter that more people definitely needed to play. Likewise, Viva Pinata was another underrated game still that got shoved under the rug because it appeared to be a kid game.
So what about you guys? What do you think are the most underrated games?
I’ve been playing through some of Prototype this week, and as with most sandbox games, it seems to do a few things really well, but a bunch of other ones in a largely mediocre way. Traversing the city is perhaps the best part of the game. Skyscraper running is so addicting I almost can’t believe it, so moving back and forth between objectives is actually more fun than even doing them.
When I was a kid, realism is all anyone wanted out of video games. Virtual Reality was the buzzword of the times. If an enemy acted realistically, that was amazing. If a character’s portrait in a cut scene looked anything like the real thing, we were in awe. As graphics got better, the dream became closer to reality. Games like Flashback and Heart of Darkness wowed gamers with photorealistic graphics, crude by today’s standards, but jaw dropping back in the days when Kurt Cobain was still smashing guitars.
As of now, I’ve finished Saint’s Row 2, Gears of War 2 and Left 4 Dead from the holiday pile of games. On the deck still are things like Chrono Trigger DS, Fallout 3, Penny Arcade episode 2, Portal “Still Alive”, Call of Duty World at War, Fable II, Little Big Planet and Mirrors Edge.
So I’m exactly in the position that i didn’t want to be in: I’ve got a bunch of games to play, and I’m dabbling a little in each one, without ever really jumping into one to finish it.
So after forcing myself to finish GTA IV last week and feeling slightly underwhelmed, I decided to grab Saint’s Row 2, having heard from several gamers that it is just maddeningly fun. I wasn’t too impressed with what I played at PAX, but that was an early build, so I gave it a go…
Even though I’m a bit of an XBox junkie, I’ve never actually played the original Saint’s Row for the 360, though I’ve consistently heard good things about it. The Saint’s Row 2 booth at PAX is almost impossible to miss, given that it’s got a giant gangsta’s head about twenty feet in the air, with 3 large HDTV’s plastered to the walls for people to play.