Most underrated games you've ever played

I don't know how you people get Blood 2 working at all. It's an even worse than Saints Row 2 in terms of PC compatibility even with that extra crispy mod that apparently fixes it.

LJN's Jaws (1987)

Maybe its because I'm a huge Jaws movie fan, but I really loved this game growing up.

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

SavageCorona said:

I don't know how you people get Blood 2 working at all. It's an even worse than Saints Row 2 in terms of PC compatibility even with that extra crispy mod that apparently fixes it.

My Extra Crispy mod doesn't fix any of the MFC crashing issues. It just fixes the art to be compatible with high resolutions. But use this and Blood 2 will work fine at any resolution:

http://dege.fw.hu/temp/Blood2ResPatch.zip

I like the part where it crashes if you run it on anything over the default 640x480. I'll have to try that mod.

I was able to play it as long as I didn't go over 1024x768. But i still got random crashes every now and then. With that fix though it runs smooth. People have even been playing it in ultra resolutions. So it works for sure.

Use it and play with my mod. You won't regret it.

The one thing I dislike about Blood 2 is the 16 bit textures because of that greenish hue, bleh

Abadox
Jaws (seconded)
Super C
Nightmare Creatures
Bushido Blade
Lords of the Realm II
Shogo: MAD
ONE (PS1 Game)
The original Crash Bandicoot trilogy

I didn't think Super C was underrated. That game was freaking awesome.

Ed said:

Abadox
Super C
Nightmare Creatures
Bushido Blade

Ah, that brings up some old memories. I'll add the Splatterhouse series and Codename: Tenka. Oh, and STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl.

Ed said:

The original Crash Bandicoot trilogy

I would never in 100 years call Crash underrated. Mostly forgotten, yes, but those that remember usually have only nice things to say about the old spinny weirdo.

Ed said:

Abadox
Super C

I didn't know that Super C was a Contra game til I found out about it back in high school some 10 years ago and often play it on my Contra 4 DS game(both Contra & Super C are unlockable games) along with Contra every now and then. Also just bought Abadox at a local retro store a few weeks back and fell in love with its sick looking organic base levels which puts Lifeforce's organic ones to shame. Only minor letdown I have with the game is its unforgiving checkpoint system, its nearly impossible to recover your powerups in that game especially halfway to stage 2.

Surprised to see absolutely no mention of The Neverhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx6Zs3q87rA
Such an incredible soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh4WnHlsbvM

It's platforming sequel, Skullmonkeys has an amazing soundtrack too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04gy2MYAl0M

Job said:

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Too bad the company that did CoC was new, and they got under wrong publisher in wrong time.

The Civ said:

Surprised to see absolutely no mention of The Neverhood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx6Zs3q87rA
Such an incredible soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh4WnHlsbvM

It's platforming sequel, Skullmonkeys has an amazing soundtrack too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04gy2MYAl0M

AHHHH THE NEVERHOOD.

There's also another very recent underrated game on steam... "Never Alone". fantastic art style and soundtrack, tons of lore and historical info on a specific alaskan indian tribe culture.

Avoozl said:

Quake 4 is much more underrated than Doom 3 is though.

Really... Well, now I'm curious. I played QIV once, at a LAN centre, while skipping out on work, and just kinda forgot it, because it would be years until I had a PC good enough to run it. But I'm just now re-playing Doom 3 ('classic,' not BFG edition), and really enjoying it.

For my contribution, I don't think this game is necessarily underrated, just unknown: Rogue Trooper. I picked it up knowing nothing about the comic book some years ago, and was completely thrilled by the light-tactics and heavy, rewarding action gameplay.

EDIT: Reading page 2, I've got to agree with a lot of the endorsements, especially Kingpin (SUCH fun multi-player - it's a SiN that no one ever made a game mode like Bagman again), and Blood 2 for crisp visuals and audio, and satisfying gunplay. I always loved the sharp, polygonal artstyle of Shogo, et al.

Since we're talking about music, I'll add one of the my favourite N64 games: Body Harvest. Too few people have played this game.

P.S. If this were a video game music thread, I'd also add Arcanum, but I don't think that game was underrated - although maybe underappreciated at the time.

CorSair said:

Too bad the company that did CoC was new, and they got under wrong publisher in wrong time.

Hahahahaha "CoC"

Nightmare Creatures
Outcast
Omikron:The Nomad Soul
Blood Omen:Legacy of Kain
Clive Barker's Undying

Weaponlord. Freaking hard to master but very complex and deep fighting system.

vinnie245 said:

Nightmare Creatures
Blood Omen:Legacy of Kain
Clive Barker's Undying

Yep. Especially the last.

Just kidding.

I guess Blood. I haven't really played any "underrated" games. I've played a lot of overrated games though.

Betrayal in Antara. I played it back in 1998 after a friend said he didn't have the patience to finish it. It had terrible reviews but I enjoyed it. It was turn based and had a first person travel view. I guess it was more popular than I thought (for this thread) but not many people I knew heard of it.



Interestingly enough, this image comes from planetromero (wonder if he enjoyed it? -edit, it's a cached review from Hugh Falk on his stie or something, nevermind.)

Didn't it have pushblock and guardbreak? I thought I read it having a system way ahead of it's time. I'm a big fighting game fan but never got to play it.

VGames said:

Weaponlord. Freaking hard to master but very complex and deep fighting system.

http://img.pixfans.com/2012/06/IMAGEN-004.jpg

Lvangundy said:

Didn't it have pushblock and guardbreak? I thought I read it having a system way ahead of it's time. I'm a big fighting game fan but never got to play it.

Oh yeah man. Stuff that didn't even come out into mainstream fighting games until much later. Get u an emulator and get to it. It's awesome but very hard to get down. I didn't have a single friend who was willing to get into it like I did. A very overlooked gem.

Ed said:

Abadox

I remember I swore just a bit on this one... Cool one btw.
Other gems of the NES I remember: Crystalis, Solstice, River City Ransom.

Ed said:

Nightmare Creatures

Hell yeah!

Lvangundy said:

Betrayal in Antara. I played it back in 1998 after a friend said he didn't have the patience to finish it. It had terrible reviews but I enjoyed it. It was turn based and had a first person travel view. I guess it was more popular than I thought (for this thread) but not many people I knew heard of it.

Because it is a somewhat disappointing indirect sequel to Betrayal at Krondor. Krondor, a celebrated classic, was famous for its great storyline and Antara was rather inferior in that respect. It also used (afaik) a modified engine of the original game, which was terribly dated in 1998, five years later.

Enjay said:

Nope: https://www.gog.com/game/hogs_of_war

Some of the reviews there do indicate that it's not a great port though.

it really isn't, unfortunately. it looks prettier, the font is better, and there are more unique models/animations and stuff, and the SFX is probably a bit clearer too. but cosmetic changes doesn't really change the fact that the game is a lot easier because the AI is pretty dumb, while in the original PSX game, the single-player campaign is a bit of a nightmare due to unexpected turnabouts and the AI being very accurate with trying to hit you.

and for me, well, the game sometimes didn't start and froze explorer.exe, prompting me to either terminate the process or sign out and sign in to fix it. i would have given it a more fair chance if it didn't do that, at least. i had better luck playing the game by ripping the ISO from my game disc and using an emulator to play it. worse looks, but more functional.