Most underrated video games of all time (ever)

[Rakin]

Ok first:
Second: How the hell was FF tactics underrated? Everyone i know loves it.

Fair enough, I guess, I just don't remember there ever being a big stink about it and it was one of those games I kind of just found by accident.

/shrug

[Elektro]

I definitely want to second Alpha Centauri. the game is probably not "underrated," but it was definitely underloved. Much better than the Civs from both a story and mechanical point. If was just updated with some nicer graphics and the Civ 4 multiplayer system, I'd die happy.

Another game that I love that seems unknown is Uprising. It was a fun little mix of FPS tank combat and a RTS game. Really cool idea and still a blast.

[Lenlalron]

Two games:

First, Gunstar Heroes.. It's a 2d side-scrolling shooter for the Genesis. It's pretty much the only game I know of that you hold the shoot button down the entire time, and still have tons of fun.

Secondly, Warsong . I love that game so much. Old Genesis strategy game. The combat system is fun, with a decent amount of strategy. The only complaint is that it made the enemies too powerful at times, so your basic troops just got overwhelmed -_-.

Third, Riviera: The Promised Land. RPG for the Gameboy Advance/soon to be PSP. It's fun, it has multiple endings, and the overdrive/limit breaks are cool. It had good writing, and, if you're into that sort of thing, girls and jugging romance.

Fourth: Valkerye Profile's probably not underrated, but if you haven't played it, freaking play it.

FFT's not underrated, although there may be people who haven't heard of it.


These people must be educated. ;)

[Maldraugedhen]

Star Wars: Rebellion, for PC. Seriously, am I the only person who has ever played/liked this game?

Played, no. Liked, possibly. The ship combat engine didn't work on my rig, so I had to autocalc everything, which meant the whole game was basically just econ slugging with some diplo thrown in.

[jazz1m]

1. Clash at Demonhead NES - Great game in a time of linear games (mario, zelda, etc.) You end up at the same ending, but instead of a strict path you take you can choose from multiple 'routes' and therefore can go to different places out of sequence. It's also pretty funny and I must say that the character designs are unique (enemies especially)

2. Nobunaga's Ambition NES - probably one of the first and I personally think best war strategy games out there. You choose one of the numerous damiyo and build up your empire, train soldiers, make alliances, keep your people happy, grow rice, etc. There's a lot of options and it has a pretty steep learning curve, but it's always fun and has a lot of replay value.

3. Zanzarah PC - For the time it came out, the graphics are amazing. The environment is well-rendered and smooth. It's kind of like pokemon, but cooler. You collect fairies to help this world you were transported to, and sometimes you have to battle fairies against each other. The battle system is done in a FPS mode and you shoot magic beams at other fairies. Pretty cool.

4. Darwinia PC - really cool interesting game where you go around and save these little green creatures called Darwinians from a virus. Great strategy game with lots of combat and pretty fitting and cool graphics for the virtual themepark motif.

5. Space Rangers 2 PC - Space fighting game where you choose from multiple races, trades, and ships and each one of these affect which planets you can go to, your enemies and so forth. Besides this, it's really open ended for people who just want to go around and explore (a little too open-ended at times). There's also a lot of different gameplays rolled into one. You have a text-based adventure game, RTS, space battles, and even an arcade looking section. It even comes with the first Space Rangers, really f-ing awesome.

6. Raze's Hell Xbox - Fun shooter game (that can get really hard later on because of the ludicrous enemy AI) where you can kill amazingly cute things. That's right, the cute things are way too cute for their own good and must be destroyed.

7. Oddworld - Stranger's Wrath Xbox - Great shooter western where you play as the stranger - a bounty hunter. Your ammo is live animals and they each have different attributes. Great environment and really different storyline.

8. Okage PS2 - a turn-based RPG full of humor and interesting fights. Back in the day, the animation was something new, nowadays the oversized anime heads are pretty standard. Basically, what happens is your shadow gets taken over by the shadow king and you are on a quest to find his power and take over the world. A great thing about this is that there aren't any random battles as you can clearly see them on the board. Definitely worth the try if only for the humor alone.

9. Dark Cloud 2 PS2 - amazing action RPG. If you're not one for dungeon crawls where you have to find the key and go through numerous levels to exit, this probably isn't the right game. But there's a lot to do, like making inventions by taking pictures and making towns from geostones to change the course of the future. And the interesting part is that leveling your character is not the main focus, but rather leveling your weapons. Not sure if this is underrated or just unrecognized, I don't know of many people who have heard of this game.

10. Culdcept - take one part magic the gathering and another part monopoly and you have culdcept. It's a fairly straight forward game where you have to save the world from an evil cepter (person who uses cards for battle). You place your cards on matching elements (green - earth blue - water red - fire yellow - sand white - neutral) and try to gain as much matching territory and adjacent territory as possible. The more territory you have, the more the land value increases (like monopoly). You can also invest money on the land to increase the price and increase the HP and attack of the creature on the land (if they match). Other players can battle your creatures and whoever reaches the goal amount first wins. It's simple yet complex as you need to plan out where to place creatures, which one to level up, etc. Worth checking out.

[wumpus]

I'd like to nominate (if I'm allowed non-RPGs):

Need for speed: Porsche unleashed. From what I understand, reviews were pretty good, but poor sales finished off the studio which produced it (being on time so that it came out right after annother studio made an inferior NFS didn't help much either). Its yet annother driving game, but you can drive any car as long as its a porsche (roughy 50 356s, 50 911s, 10-15 930s, 5 or so 944s and so on). Who ever does the Grand Tourismo take note: the whole drive training/licenseing scheme was replaced with a storyline about test drivers, and actually encourage players to run through the thing without being required.

Also will second the wonderful No one lives Forever, NOLF 2 games. I can't believe they just threw it away for the so called sequel (though I never tried it).

[Cyrano]

Battlezooooone!
Good old FPRTS

[Hoggy]

OMG yes, Battlezone. I should re-install that sometime. The second Mars level was epic.

[Artanis]

Man, I am SO going to get yelled at for this one, but...Star Control 3. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's a great game, or even a particularly good one. In fact, I'd say it's pretty thoroughly mediocre when taken on its own merits. But since everybody compares it to Star Control 2, it's treated like a rancid, festering boil spawned in the armpit of some unholy abomination, rather than the "meh" game it actually is. And that means it fits the definition of "underrated" to a T.


An underrated game that I think is actually good, on the other hand, is Massive Assault. It's a turn-based strategy game that takes a lot of the luck (and, due to being a TBS, the "twitch") out of the game, allowing it to be decided by actual...you know...strategy. However, that very same thing makes people decide it's not that great, since they prefer their strategy games to require rolling dice against hypercaffeinated 8-year-olds rather than actual thinking.

Star Wars: Rebellion, for PC. Seriously, am I the only person who has ever played/liked this game?

I liked it! It wasn't the greatest game ever, but it was a fun game, and a lot simpler than the Civ games IMO.

[Tekraen]

I liked Rebellion for the PC, only in that my friend and I could start a game and run all afternoon without actually attacking one another.

[Daimbert]

I liked Rebellion for the PC, only in that my friend and I could start a game and run all afternoon without actually attacking one another.

Rebellion is one of the few games that I can get totally engrossed in so much that I completely forget what time it is. I started playing it one afternoon, looked up at about 3 and said "I'll have to think about getting something to eat soon", looked up again and it was about 8 and thought "You know, I haven't eaten yet" [grin]. The whole character and diplomacy thing is what sold me on it, which is why I haven't picked up the newest game like it yet ...

As for underrated games, if it hasn't been said already, Fatal Frame on the PS2. I mean, it's "Go out and shoot ghosts with a camera", but it's one of the creepiest games I've ever played.

[Tekraen]

My friend and I actually had an agreement on that we would intentionally avoid contact for six hours, then bring our fleets together over a predetermined world and see who had the better equipment by the end of that time. I usually had a Death Star and an SSD by then, and we always fought to a standstill. I hated Imperial fighters in that game - they were completely worthless.

[valadil]

My vote goes to Savage: The Battle for Newerth.

Savage was a hybrid of first person shooter and real time strategy. A team of FPS players was supported by a single commander who researched techs and managed resources in an RTS style game. Two teams fought it out until one base was destroyed or the time ran out.

At it's best, the game was wonderful. All of my favorite moments from video games come from Savage. The problem is that play was inconsistent.

Having a team rely on a single commander put a lot of pressure on that player. If someone had to stop playing, even if a new commander took over, that team's growth was severely stunted. What was worse was that some players wouldn't play for some commanders. You'd see people switch teams as soon as they decided their commander was a noob. This was especially bad because there was no single player training - the only way to learn to command was to give it a try and hope your players had some patience. The end result was that there was a lot of wasted time between good games. I'm sure the clan experience was a bit better - having a single dedicated commander and players who knew each other would have gotten rid of all the commander related problems, but most players gave up on the game before getting into clans. Inadequate marketing didn't help much either.

Savage2 is due out fairly soon, and it sounds like there will be improvements. To attract attention, Savage has been released for free. You can download it from s2games.com (no I'm not a spammer, I'm just a guy who really really likes this game). Last I checked there were still plenty of active servers. Oh and the best part (what attracted me to savage in the first place) is that there are versions for windows, linux, and mac (although the mac version may not be free).

[Cubey]

I hated Imperial fighters in that game - they were completely worthless.

In other words, the game sticks to the Star Wars lore.


Here is my nomination - Ufo: Enemy Unknown. Also known as X-Com or Ufo Defense. A 1993 Microprose strategic game when you take the role of the leader of X-Com, an organization tasked to repel the alien invasion on Earth. Here's the trick: the aliens are very stealthy and finding their ships is as difficult as downing them. And if your performance is bad, you'll be cut on funding and lose the game - heck, the aliens can even turn some countries against you!
What makes this game so great is that you can FEEL that Earth technology is vastly inferior to that of the aliens', and you have to rely on surprise, advantage in numbers or (preferred choice) superior tactics, especially during ground combat when your soldiers CAN and actually WILL in most cases die from a single enemy shot. The ground gets evened a bit after you research and use the aliens' weapons against them, but then they start to use even more devastating weaponry, up to and including psionics.
Oh, and the aliens themselves are genuinely creepy. Cryssalids, anyone?

I am not saying that this game is unknown (haha, pun), quite a few people around are familiar with it from what I know. But it isn't as popular as it should be.

[webgem]

I'd have to agree that final fantasy tactics is probably not underrated, or unknown in it's fan base, same with super smash brothers in my opinion. I don't know anybody who hasn't heard of it, plus it's one of the most anticipated games on the wii.

I'd have to go with that star wars fighting game, masters of teras kasi or whatever it was called. I looked it up in IGN and it has a rating of 4, so I'd call that a pretty hefty undercutting. I thought it was actually pretty fun, if not exactly extremely difficult, granted I like some of the naruto fighting games too, and I don't think it's just because I'm a fan boy. They aren't as difficult as some of the really intense fighting games, but I still always had a good time.

[EvilElitest]

Baldur's Gate 2 (PC) was underrated. I don't care how high you rated it, it was still too low.

seconded
from,
EE

[Mr._Blinky]

Advent Rising. It had decent graphics (excellent in the cutscenes), a good story, and uneven but fun gameplay. And yet pretty much everyone I've talked to has hated it. Not a great game, but definitely not worth the intense dislike I've seen some people express.

[Inhuman Bot]

Lets see.
1. Beyond good and evil. Its a good and origenal game. Few know how good.
2. Dragonshard. Atari Really didnt promote it enough sadly. if you see a copy its worth picking up.
3. Maybe CIMA: the enemy.

[Inhuman Bot]

Lets see.
1. Beyond good and evil. Its a good and origenal game. Few know how good.
2. Dragonshard. Atari Really didnt promote it enough sadly. if you see a copy its worth picking up.
3. Maybe CIMA: the enemy.

[TheEmerged]

RE: Majesty. Seconded. Once you get the mechanic of not directly controlling your units this is a LOT of fun. Better in the expansion because of the way elves needed correcting.

RE: Alpha Centauri. Whether this counts as underrated depends on which circles you run :)

RE: Startopia. Seconded. There's a certain gap right at the beginning of a sandbox game that will either make or break you, but other than that a game you can really get lost in.

RE: Evil Genius. I wanted to love this game. I tried really, really hard to love it -- but the level of micromanagement just killed it for me. When I found myself on the second island, I just couldn't bring myself to continue.

RE: Cel Damage. And yes, there's only one L in Cel (it's a pun, trust me). Great fun, the only game I played on a demo and immediately went out to buy. I wish it didn't require the massive unlocking it did, but cheat codes are wonderful things...

Nominations I haven't seen

Tropico: Yeah, you need the expansion to play but the music on the original is x100000000000 better. I used to load this game just to pause it and let the music play.

Dragon Wars: yeah, I'm acknowledging how old I am here. One of the first games Interplay released when they left EA, and surprisingly deep for its day. Especially interesting was the way your actions could change the world at a time when a lot of RPG games you could revisit the same dungeons endlessly -- insert joke about rooms with 4 groups of 99 barbarians here. Also an excellent example of puzzles that had more than one solution.

Lords of Magic: Turn-based strategy, real-time tactics. Not as balanced as it tried to be (a couple of the factions have serious advantages) and luck can play a larger role than it should due to the loot/artifact system (I once managed to get one of the most powerful spells as a loot from an early dungeon). Having said all that, DARN fun to play and didn't get the attention it deserved.

Arcanum: Steampunk RPG. Like my previous entry, not as balanced as it wanted to be (it's supposed to be about the balance between magic & science, but magic has serious advantages). But a fun game (especially after a patch corrected a problem with how NPC's gained experience) with a good story (albeit cliched plot) that didn't get the attention it deserved.

Spellcraft: Aspects of Valor (the computer version). DARN fun, especially if you're a little OCD. Essentially an RTS where you can control one unit. A lot more fun than it likely sounds.

XBOX: Nightcaster. The sequel stunk, but the original was a nice 'popcorn muncher' game. Essentially single-player Guantlet with a growth engine. There is a plot, technically, but ignore it and enjoy just playing the game :)

XBOX: Justice League Heroes. I hope to someday be able to play this two-player with a competent second player. As fun as a game where you can be members of the Justice League should be. Be warned there is a MASSIVE jump in difficulty from the 3rd to 4th tier. Surprisingly replayable for a game in the action-rpg genre. The voice acting and one-liners are a major selling point for me.

[Aeriander]

Holy crap I remember Cell Damage! I played it with my friends all the time!
I remember the wood chipper and the nerdy guy with the space ship kinda car!

[Tom_Violence]

In other words, the game sticks to the Star Wars lore.


Here is my nomination - Ufo: Enemy Unknown. Also known as X-Com or Ufo Defense. A 1993 Microprose strategic game when you take the role of the leader of X-Com, an organization tasked to repel the alien invasion on Earth. Here's the trick: the aliens are very stealthy and finding their ships is as difficult as downing them. And if your performance is bad, you'll be cut on funding and lose the game - heck, the aliens can even turn some countries against you!
What makes this game so great is that you can FEEL that Earth technology is vastly inferior to that of the aliens', and you have to rely on surprise, advantage in numbers or (preferred choice) superior tactics, especially during ground combat when your soldiers CAN and actually WILL in most cases die from a single enemy shot. The ground gets evened a bit after you research and use the aliens' weapons against them, but then they start to use even more devastating weaponry, up to and including psionics.
Oh, and the aliens themselves are genuinely creepy. Cryssalids, anyone?

I am not saying that this game is unknown (haha, pun), quite a few people around are familiar with it from what I know. But it isn't as popular as it should be.

Many people are young - UFO is an old game, but many older gamers seem to know it well indeed. That said though, I do also wish it had set the world alight a bit more. Maybe then we'd actually see some sequels!

[Artanis]

Many people are young - UFO is an old game, but many older gamers seem to know it well indeed. That said though, I do also wish it had set the world alight a bit more. Maybe then we'd actually see some sequels!

Yeah, X-Com was a great game (one of my all-time favorites, in fact), and actually did spawn quite a few sequels. Unfortunately, all those sequels weren't quite as good as the original, causing the series to slowly die off



Edit: By "not quite as good", I also mean "at best".

[Archonic Energy]

anyone mentioned "Z" yet?

[Cristo Meyers]

Yeah, X-Com was a great game (one of my all-time favorites, in fact), and actually did spawn quite a few sequels. Unfortunately, all those sequels weren't quite as good as the original, causing the series to slowly die off



Edit: By "not quite as good", I also mean "at best".

Terror From the Deep wasn't even supposed to exist at all; Apocalypse was supposed to be the sequel. Microprose was facing pressure from outside to get a sequel to UFO Defense out ASAP and Apocalypse wasn't finished yet so they slapped a new skin on UFO Defense. It did relatively poorly, they started losing support for Apocalypse, and so a game that would've been incredible became the lackluster third installment (we won't even get into Interceptor...).

If you can find it, try and find an article about Microprose's original plans for what was supposed to be included in Apocalypse. They had big plans.

[Om]

Many people are young - UFO is an old game, but many older gamers seem to know it well indeed. That said though, I do also wish it had set the world alight a bit more. Maybe then we'd actually see some sequels!

Well UFO was well known and it did spawn a whole range of sequels and clones. Maybe its an age thing but the X-Com series was always well regarded and popular.

[Winterwind]

I second Alpha Centauri, and add Master of Orion (2, specifically). While both were acknowledged and popular games, they were not nearly as much so as they deserved (Civilisation seemed to be always more popular than they were - yet both are vastly superior to Civilisation, in my humble opinion).

As for UFO: Enemy Unknown, it is one of the greatest games ever and was my most favorite game for many years, but I'm not sure whether it really qualifies as underrated - it was quite popular back in its day after all.

Another series which, while it received acclaim, never reached the "everyone should have played it, at all cost!" status it deserved would be the Thief series.

[Mr.Moron]

Lufia 2, for the SNES. I don't know if that's a case of underrated or underplayed though. In any case it may as well be both, as nobody ever mentions anything but chrono trigger or Final Fantasy 6 when it comes to SNES rpgs. Really I like Lufia 2 more than either of them, and they were great games!

Also from the 16-bit era, Phantasy Star IV on Sega Genesis . Again, it's probably plenty well-rated it just never seems like of it because of two massive star-players from that era.

[Argent]

Total Annihilation for the PC. It seems like it's got a strong cult following but I don't see it mentioned a lot in any serious RTS conversation. Still easily the best interface I've ever seen in an RTS, and I loved the fact that there were new units issued every week. What a great game.

Then TA: Kingdoms came out and ruined the whole thing. BLEAH.

[GimliFett]

Syphon Filter.
Warlords II.
Sanity.
System Shock II.

Lufia 2, for the SNES. I don't know if that's a case of underrated or underplayed though. In any case it may as well be both, as nobody ever mentions anything but chrono trigger or Final Fantasy 6 when it comes to SNES rpgs. Really I like Lufia 2 more than either of them, and they were great games!

I LOVED Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals! Played and beat it way more often than FF6!