Most underrated games

[Pargulan]

Most underrated games

Hey there!

I wonder if you guys have found some games you think are really great, but for some reason not as known as they should be. Therefore I want this thread to be some sort of inspiration for others.

Also, try to keep it simple, if you've found a game you think is underrated, just tell us a bit about it ( but don't spoil anything )

I myself consider "Alan Wake" one of the most underrated games of all time. The story is amazing, the whole idea behind the mystery-adventure is brilliant but sadly hardly anyone of my friends knows about it. That's a shame and I hope you guys have heard about it.

Also there are 2 other games I would like to highlight. One is "The Void", which really twists with ones mind. It's hard to describe, but I guess it's some sort of adventure ?!!?

The last one is "Sacrifice". A strategy-game that's interesting by design, as you command one wizzard and a bunch of monsters at once. It also has a (bit short) but great storyline.

So, what do you consider "UNDERRATED" games ?

Cheers
Pargulan

 

[volsung]

Expeditions: Conquistador. An excellent strategy/RPG hybrid that brings shame to most big budget productions. It features fantastic writing and narrative, perceptible decision making, good turn-based tactical combat, and a highly unexploited setting. This game is considerably more strategic than games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and more about role-playing than games like Skyrim.

King of Dragon Pass. I only discovered this game recently. It's somewhat dated (1999) but it is also unique. A narrative driven game that can only be described as text-strategy. It has all the elements of a good strategy game: trade, politics, production, resource, troops and financial management. It features fast and brutal combat scenarios. It has a fascinating setting based on Runequest, creating a wild world of clans and tribes, crude magic, violent raids, and the intervention of the deities. The thing that makes it unique is that it all plays through static scenes providing rich descriptions and choices through text, with a background illustration.

Will add more if I can.

 

[ReptilePZ]

I've already mentioned this game a couple of times on the forum: 'Knights of Honor'

It's an RTS where you take control of a single European kingdom from the Middle Ages. You can hire marshals who lead your armies into battle, spies that either protect your royal court or infiltrate that of the enemy, traders who increase your wealth and scout out the kingdoms they're trading with etc. It came out in 2004 and was developed by 'Black Sea Studios' (now 'Crytek Black Sea'). The game is very similar to 'Total War' and 'Europa Universalis' and has a really nice visual and audio design. Diplomacy and kingdom management aren't as deep as they are in 'EU' and the battles aren't as good as they are in 'TW' but it ends up being a very nice combination nonetheless. It definitely had a lot of potential but, unfortunately, the studio never continued the franchise and instead went on to create the rather mediocre 'WorldShift.'

Either way, it's a game I always go back to every once in a while and is one of my favourites in the Strategy genre.

 

[volsung]

BTW I don't think Alan Wake is underrated. It's OK rated. Let's be honest, it's nothing spectacular. Basically, it's the "troubled writer with writer's block" theme all over again, who goes on a trip to find himself. But instead, he enters Twin Peaks There's log lady, err.. I mean lamp lady, and all sort of tacky metaphors involving light and darkness. It is entertaining though, I'll give you that. But for the action game it is the action scenes are extremely repetitive and bland. Essentially it's light, dodge and whack for the entire game.

I actually enjoyed the semi sequel (American Nightmare?) more than the original game. The plot at least tries to be original, and it somewhat achieves that Twilight Zone sensation.

 

[vivaxardas2015]

In no particular order

Alan Wake
The First Templar
Silent Hill Downpour
GOT RPG
Dante's Inferno
Enslaved

 

[duskey]

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. Such a beautiful RPG plagued by being buggy and clunky, but had amazing writing, design and voice acting.

 

[Jack_in_the-Green]

Enslaved and Vampire: Bloodlines are some of my favourites "underrated" games of these last years.

Another that I keep talking about like beating on a dead horse: Velvet Assassin

Based on a real historic British agent, Violet Sazbó, the female protagonist will have to engineer sabotage missions behind enemy lines, rescue Resistance members or assassinate top Nazi leaders.
The controls are a bit clunky, but the art design is absolutely beatiful, the story very interesting (many games are "about" the 2nd World War, but few replicate the horrible ugliness of it like this does). As you're supposed to be an undercover operative, gunning down your enemies is not encouraged by the game, and youre probably gonna have yourself killed (much as it happened in the original Thief). The best way is to attack your enemies from the rear with your knife and perform a silent kill...

The game has sooo many historical details down, like the SS "Dirlewanger" Division that committed terrible war crimes during the reppression of the Warsaw Rise in 1944.

For those that really enjoy STEALTH and History buffs... Highly reccomended.

 

[soldiergeralt]

red orchestra 2. instead people heap unwarranted praise on that buggy mess called arma 3.

 

[Blothulfur]

Ultima, I know it's strange to declare a game series with so much universal acclaim as underrated but it is, one of the reasons I was not particularly impressed with BG when it was released was because it was a huge step back from the Ultima. On a few megabytes of data Richard Garriot and his firm made a game series that pushed the medium forward in massive leaps and bounds, a living world that you could interact with, npc's who led their own lives which you could observe and remember, the ability to sit on chairs and sleep in beds, play the instruments that lay around the gameworld, a number of methods of teleportation, in depth companions who would interact with the world and you, bloody romances if you wished them, the ability to forge a Demon Sword, nine levels of spells that affected many situations not just combat, one vast seamless world map that had no loading times, massive dungeons and ridiculously enough I could go on.

Since then games have gone downhill, no innovation just content deprived, feature restricted and dumbed down more and more. It's fucking depressing that we've allready seem the height of our mediums glory and are now watching its meteoric descent from the heavens, and people dare to speak of going back to the old model as regressing, no it's trying to get out of the reverse we've been stuck in for twenty years.

 

[Blothulfur]

Dopplegangers have infested this place.

 

[Cs__sz__r]

No knowledge of Arma, but red orchestra is "technically" no better. Got it on release day and not three weeks later my account was hacked. Got into a game that had all cheat preventions and yet some dude levels me all the way to the max. I immediately uninstalled it and contacted Steam customer service explaining that I had not cheated and nothing was done. Did have some good fun while it lasted.

 

[misho8723]

Vampire : Bloodlines
Call of Cthulhu : Dark Corners of the Earth
Cryostasis
Alice Madness Returns
Call of Juarez series (Cartel didn't happen)
The Last Express
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Deadly Premonition
the Metro series
Split Second
Singularity

 

[gregski]

Enslaved: Oddyssey To The West

 

[Smiling_Jack1]

Hey there!

The last one is "Sacrifice". A strategy-game that's interesting by design, as you command one wizzard and a bunch of monsters at once. It also has a (bit short) but great storyline.

A thousand times this. This man has good taste.

 

[Glaroug.531]

Wii Sports Resort. Say what you want but there are great times to be had

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I didn't know VtM Bloodlines was underrated. It's a great RPG, one of my favorites. How do you measure the "underratedness"?

 

[Aaden]

I didn't know VtM Bloodlines was underrated. It's a great RPG, one of my favorites. How do you measure the "underratedness"?

Hardly anyone beyond the core gamers knows it, much less appreciates it. And even among core gamers, it has a mixed reputation - many still have a broken bugfest in mind.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

@aaden: Patches including the community ones fixed it a lot. I didn't specifically follow how much known it is, but it's usually known to those who are interested in the RPG genre, at least in my experience.

 

[soldiergeralt]

No knowledge of Arma, but red orchestra is "technically" no better. Got it on release day and not three weeks later my account was hacked. Got into a game that had all cheat preventions and yet some dude levels me all the way to the max. I immediately uninstalled it and contacted Steam customer service explaining that I had not cheated and nothing was done. Did have some good fun while it lasted.

no such cheat exists. either you installed a hack or it was installed on your system by someone else.

 

[Luxorek]

Witcher One - 86 on Metacritic seems to tell us it was actually quite well received, but there doesn't go a day where someone doesn't ask a question "Should I play the Witcher games?" and gets "Sure, but skip the first one".