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What games were released that you feel didn't get the exposure and general acclaim that they deserved? Give reasons if you can.

I'll start with a list

Planescape:Torment. I've still got this game and play it every so often. There is a lot of dialogue in places that can be off putting to some and the graphics are obviously a bit dated, but the world is very different from your cookie cutter fantasy type world.

The Longest Journey. One of the best point and click adventures I've ever played. Being european its also not afraid to use strong language, with frequent use of the 'f' word among other things. Again, a lot of dialogue which can become wearisome but the game is worth playing.

Beyond Good and Evil. It's another quirky game that just doesn't seem to have done well.

I'll post others later.

Jade Falcon wrote:Planescape:Torment. I've still got this game and play it every so often. There is a lot of dialogue in places that can be off putting to some and the graphics are obviously a bit dated, but the world is very different from your cookie cutter fantasy type world.

I've been looking for that one for forever. I can't find it anywhere. Planescape rocks.


I'm going to say Hitman 2: Silent Assassin. Sure, the franchise has done well for itself and Blood Money has all the trappings of a modern A-grade title, but SA suffered from being a little rough around the edges, and probably was never as popular as it should have been.

Natural Selection. Half-Life mod (All you people with HL who haven't tried it out yet, get it now at http://unknownworlds.org/ns/), Team FPS/RTS Hybrid. It's intense, lightning-paced, and involves more than just shooting things. It requires teamwork, terrific aim, situational awareness, quick thinking, everything. Alien gameplay is quite unlike anything else I've ever seen. I realize it's probably not a pioneering game, but I have to say it's probably the best of it's genre. It really has a high learning curve (which is probably why it's not as popular as it should be), but if you can just get into it you'll definitely enjoy it.

Shattered Union

http://www.2kgames.com/shatteredunion/

Turn based strategy game involving a future US Civil War.

I didn't learn of it til I saw it at Target, I got it and I found it to be a fun game

Conquest: Frontier War.

Absolutley fantastic game that was immersive and addictive as hell, especially on multi-player. It's a pity it was too much like Starcraft to be succesful.

Deus Ex. It may not have had the flashiest graphics and it may have been a little rough around the edges, but it's my all time favorite game

To date I've completed the game 62 times - the last time being around the start of this year. Hmm... whenever I find some time I might go for another runthrough

Deus Ex is in no way 'underrated' or 'unappreciated'. People wet their pants over it when it came out.

FedRebel wrote:Shattered Union

http://www.2kgames.com/shatteredunion/

Turn based strategy game involving a future US Civil War.

I didn't learn of it til I saw it at Target, I got it and I found it to be a fun game

Damn I thiough I was the only one who owned that game. Very fun indeed even if my tactics were an emulation of the infamous "Shep Solution".

Stark wrote:Deus Ex is in no way 'underrated' or 'unappreciated'. People wet their pants over it when it came out.

From what I've seen online and going by my personal interaction with other gamers, a lot of people haven't even heard of the game. Years after it had come out I was still talking to friends about it who were heavy gamers yet had never heard about it.

I know there's still a large, loyal following for it, but I'd still consider it to be only a fraction of what a game like that should have (comparing it to other FPS's out there).

Maybe it's age? When it came out, everyone I knew drooled over it for months and months, there was huge anticipation for the second game etc. It's a point it's not as popular as Medal of Honour: Jingoism, but among the people I know it's hardly a hidden jewel of a niche game.

EDIT - first game, second game...

I have a few games that had interesting features that should have recieved more attention: things like Kohan doing companies and attachable heroes back in the 20th century, Spellforce and it's 'RTS power' interface, etc. Not enough games steal ideas from niche games like those.

However, games like Freedom Force and Act of War are lots of fun, and there's not much love for them among Average Gamers.

Deus Ex easily falls under the same category as Fallouts do. Unlike the one's mentioned by Jade Falcon which have some of the smaller fanbases, Deus Ex got a sequel, was put onto consoles and is noted.

Was it given what the fans believe it should've gotten? Not really...but underrated?

Next you'll be saying that Baldur's Gate or Knights of the Old Republic were underrated.

Riviera: The Promised Land is one of my personal favorites, even if it is a bit recent.

Well DX isn't on the same level of being underrated or underappreciated as a lot of the other games mentioned here I'm sure, but IMO it still does fall into that category. Of course I'm so in love with the bloody game it could be more popular than Half Life and I still probably wouldn't be satisfied

Nomad, a sort of a cross between Elite and Star Control 2 released back in the mid-90s, is a game that I played to death back in the day but almost never see mentioned anywhere. Too bad, it was pretty cool.

Didn't Nomad use chocolate for currency? That game was cool.

There was no currency in Nomad, but chocolate was the first inventory item you got with any sort of significant trading value.

Vagrant Story. The unbelievable amount of customization you could put into your weapons (to make Dragon, Human, Ghost killers etc.) and the super neato combat/defense system is something I really haven't seen in any other game since. Outside of my circle of pals, most I've encountered don't know of it.

darthkommandant wrote:

FedRebel wrote:Shattered Union

http://www.2kgames.com/shatteredunion/

Turn based strategy game involving a future US Civil War.

I didn't learn of it til I saw it at Target, I got it and I found it to be a fun game

Damn I thiough I was the only one who owned that game. Very fun indeed even if my tactics were an emulation of the infamous "Shep Solution".

Eh. I thought it was rather mediocre. For a hex-based game, the real strategy was hanging around and massing units, then running over your enemies using legions of humvees backed by a handful of heavy tanks.

Command & Conquer: Renegade. Sure, the graphics are a bit funky, but it has solid gameplay and great music. I'm pretty sure that few outside the preestablished C&C community even know of its existence, much less actually played it.

I was also gonna mention Tales of Symphonia, but it's a rather dubious mention at best. I hang around lots of otaku when I'm not lurking around here, and quite a few of them absolutely REVERE the game. It's just that in a market dominated by Square Enix and Final Fantasy, Namco and the Tales franchise would be overshadowed considerably. I doubt few in the mainstream would be familiar with it.

The "Evil Dead" games. The first was cool for the monster designs and Bruceisms. The Second, "Evil Dead Regeneration?" Was good for a few laughs. Neither were great, but both were fun.

Arx Fatalis as I recalled was quite a good first person rpg experience; it didn't make a lot of noise when it was released and I think it was also released around the time of some other similar. There was a lot of cooking and making up spells using runes which you cast by moving the mouse to simulate hand movements.

There's a game called "Tiny Tank" that's pretty amusing. The gameplay's kinda repetitive, but the story and characters are amusing. The main character was a spokesman for an arms company making tanks. The backstory for him and the main boss was told through commercial outtakes. Plus there was a radio during the main part of the game that the main boss was a DJ for. Heh. Good times.

Metal Arms was boss, and yet the sales sucked so...no sequel. I especially liked the idea of being able to temporarily possess other robots.

Also a great game no one appreciates, PsiOps the Mindgate Conspiracy. You cant imagine how much fun it is to have telekinesis until you play this game.

One word: locomotion.

Stark wrote:Deus Ex is in no way 'underrated' or 'unappreciated'. People wet their pants over it when it came out.

Well, wasn't Planescape: Torment declared "the best game, ever" by a significant part of the critics, when it came out?