Games that clicked for you, but not anybody else.

gunsmoke on 3/6/2009 at 21:44

Command and Conquer: Renegade. I dunno. It is just fun. And it does a really good job of convincing you that you are a part of a much bigger battle.

Primal
Pariah
Shadow Ops:Red Mercury
True Crime: New York (LA was meh)
Urban Chaos:Riot Response
Advent Rising

Sulphur on 3/6/2009 at 22:12

Shadowgrounds, it's dumb fun with quite possibly the cheesiest resolution to a generic alien invasion ever written but it's highly enjoyable dumb fun.

Homeworld 2 - not as inspired or memorable as Homeworld, but a competent follow up and still oh so pretty.

The Neverhood - Klaymen!

Bad Mojo - I have yet to finish this, but it's great and intriguing and putrid and disgusting, and above all you have to admire a company that has the balls to make the player character a cockroach.

Halo: As far as TTLG is concerned, at least, because lotsa folks here consider it to be some sort of Saturday night special.

Chade on 3/6/2009 at 22:22

If we are doing a TTLG-specific version, I'll second Halo. It has some interesting dynamics if you play it on a hard enough difficulty.

greypatch3 on 3/6/2009 at 22:30

Couple of 'em here...

Nocturne. Played like Resident Evil, 1920s style. There was supposed to be a sequel, and though it got scrapped, a sort-of sequel with the dhampyr Svetlana was supposed to be made as an action game. This, I found out, later became Bloodrayne. I was so mad that a sequel never materialized, especially considering the game ended on a huge cliffhanger, with no possible clues as to what happened.

The Bloody Roar series. Apparently these things are the bane of the fighting game world. But, on the other hand, is the only fighting game series I can enjoy without somebody performing a 96-hit combo on me before I can even tell what happened, so that could be why I like them. And, I have to admit, it's pretty cool when the mole guy jumps on somebody's head, spins around super fast, and blood goes flying everywhere. It's nice and visceral without the sheer camp factor of the MK series. Not that I don't like MK, mind you...

Hyperblade. I think this, along with Tomb Raider and Mechwarrior 2, was the equivalent of the "samples of Tide" that seemed to be bundled with every mid-90s 3D card. Again, the game really isn't all that grand (essentially Lacrosse with the ability to beat-up and/or slaughter the opposing team), but there's just something I like about it.

RealMYST. Not a big Myst fan, but I could never beat the copy I had because it didn't work properly under any Windows past 3.1. It plays exactly the same, but it's a full 3D environment. But screw the puzzles...I just like it because it's atmospheric. Going to the lighthouse world and just being able to look around is so much cooler than the still pictures...especially when the sun's setting and it starts raining. I don't know why this edition isn't bundled with the others; maybe cries of "don't destroy the original!" went up, but this beats the regular version (and I assume the Masterpiece patched edition) hands down.

Lords of Magic. A friggin' blast, combining RTS battles with turn-based resource management. Unfortunately, about 3 people have heard of it. I don't have a clue as to why this didn't take off; but the original release was very buggy, and a lot of flaws got fixed when they released the Special Edition, andby then I guess nobody cared.

Vampire Rain:Altered Species. Like "The Spirit" movie, everybody except for me apparently hated this game like it personally killed their families and then plugged up their toilets. I personally found it very thiefy, in that combat only happens at intervals, and if you get spotted you are DONE (the vampires can all kill you in two hits, which happen in rapid succession to each other). If you like shooting stuff, this is not the game for you, but if you are all about pure stealth and sniping, this game is actually pretty fun. It is VERY unforgiving, though; if you like 'ghosting' levels, you might be interested.

I also have to throw in my hat for T3 and Invisible War. It's like a lot of things, though; both followed very good games, and by the time I got around to actually playing through them I'd heard every terrible thing said about them. I think going in with not just lowered, but abysmal expectations helped me overlook the flaws and just enjoy the stories (and I did honestly like them). I will say they are inferior compared to their respective predecessors, but certainly not the worst. They're like "Spider-Man 3," in that when viewed honestly against other games of their type, they're not bad, but when placed against the other titles in their franchise, they fall apart like a sack of potatoes.

Angel Dust on 3/6/2009 at 22:57

Quote Posted by DarkForge

I'm going to merely brush off anyone's comments of "WTF? You're insane, man! INSANE, I TELL YOU!!!" and say Daikatana.

Ah the game that promised so much and had a lot of hype, but ultimately failed to live up to expectations. But seriously: am I the only one who actually enjoyed the game? The premise and themes certainly interested me, with the time travel, and different weapons and enemies for each era. Yes I will grant you that it did feel like I was babysitting the sidekicks from time to time, which isn't what should be happening (Mikiko only walked herself straight off a cliff edge into a sea of lava once! :p ), but once you learned to ignore them - which I did most of the time - I found you were then free to start appreciating the game more. Also, I personally thought the music was pretty damn good in places too. :thumb:

I'll admit that I got some enjoyment out of Daikatana as well. The opening episode is as horrible as it's legend suggests but I found the Greek and Medieval sections to be fairly enjoyable, although the last episode, while never falling to the level of the first, was pretty bland. The fact that you got new weapons and new enemies every episode was a good idea and I actually never found the sidekicks to be that annoying, as far as gameplay went that is. They were completely superfluous of course but I never had many issues with them killing themselves. The story and characterisation were pants though.

Malf on 3/6/2009 at 23:12

I'll second Scrapland, as I thought it was awesome, and at the time, one of the prettiest games I'd seen. It was also remarkably bug-free. I still haven't completed it thanks to system crashes and such getting in the way. Sounds like a good game to revisit!

I am also very fond of XIII, and it's a shame we'll never see the sequel the ending promised. Very French, very bizarre and very enjoyable. Plus it had a viable stealth model.

I don't care if people turn their noses up at it and poo-poo it, I absolutely LOVE Postal 2. There's some truly groundbreaking stuff in there which people are too embarrassed to admit to liking. Snobs.

Breed promised to be a Halo killer. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bug-ridden mess with the worst voice acting EVER, but there were some fantastic ideas in there, and the aerial combat was superb.

Another French game, The Gladiators: Galactic Circus Games. Kinda like an early version of Ground Control 2, but very chaotic and bloody. Impossible to get working these days too thanks to its relative obscurity.

The community absolutely hated it, but I really liked Myth 3. Taking a step back in time to experience the world and the legends you'd learned about in the previous two games was a kick, and it still played like good ol' Myth except with 3D models. Just a shame the company who made it were laid off by the publisher as soon as the game was finished. Along with Oni, these are IPs that were incredibly strong but abandoned by Bungie in order to concentrate on cashing in on Halo. Such a shame, as both were far more intriguing than the generic, silly space opera that Halo turned out to be.

Aja on 3/6/2009 at 23:44

Red Steel. Well, I mean a few reviewers liked it but many gave it undeservedly low scores. The sword fighting is pretty terrible, but the shooting's a lot of fun (you just gotta turn of the built-in speaker, since it causes an aiming glitch). Environments are clever and well-designed, art-direction is aesthetically attractive and the soundtrack uses authentic japanese instruments to create the proper atmosphere. Red Steel is one of the very few Wii games that I played not out of obligation (ie, I bought it so I better get some use out of it) but from actual desire.

TTLG specific: I really enjoyed Thief 3, in spite of its sometimes glaring flaws (I'd still never compare it favourably to the originals though), and of course Bioshock. Also Escape From Monkey Island.

Haplo on 3/6/2009 at 23:58

Gateway really clicked for me.

lost_soul on 4/6/2009 at 00:27

I REALLY loved SiN. It was like Quake II, but with good single-player. Nobody plays it online anymore, which makes me a sad panda. I would love to deathmatch with some folks online, but there are no servers. I think I'm the only one who really likes this game.

Jason Moyer on 4/6/2009 at 01:40

Quote Posted by henke

Come on guys. DXIW, TDS, Doom 3? Those were all critically acclaimed games that most gamers liked.

I dunno, DX:IW has a 6.1 user rating on Metacritic. Doom 3 has a 6.9. The were reviewed somewhat better, but gamers seemed fairly underwhelmed by them in the whole.