Top ten most underrated games ever

[Math You]

I found this article about the most underrated video games ever made. Maybe we could start a list of out own.

 

http://www.supanet.com/games/games_galleri.../1/gallery.html

[figgler]

There are an awful lot of PC games on the list. All PC games are overrated in my view

 

Now if we want to talk consoles (and I know we do) Legacy of the Wizard for NES is the single best underrated game ever. You probably don't even know what it is, or have rarely if ever played it, but you need to.

Superior difficulty, awesome dungeon crawling and some of the best music ever put into a game. Play LOTW!

[GreenDayRlz]

I think battlefield 1942 for PC is a little overrater, it`s 5 years old, but I think it has better graphics then Call of Duty 3 for ps2.

 

 

EDIT-I have legacy of the wizard 4 nes, I think it`s pretty good, but not better then Dragon Warrion, Zelda, ect.

Edited August 23, 2007 by GreenDayRlz

[2600Lives]

Bleh, the list had Grim Fandango and Far Cry, and those were immensely popular. Hell, GF is now considered one of the all time great classics.

 

You want an underrated game? Second Sight. Best. Ending. Ever. Not only that, but the gameplay is amazing, too. One of the best games in my collection, in fact.

[MFoolsRun]

Yeah, Grim Fandango may not have sold well, but undersold and underrated are vastly different things. Beyond Good and Evil falls into the same sort of category: it didn't sell well, but nobody denies that its a superb game.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

My top ten underrated games:

 

10. Zookeeper (arcade)

Probably not underrated on retro forums, but the thing is never mentioned along with Galaga and Centipede and Ms. Pac. Which is too bad, because it really did have unique gameplay and the three different kids of levels it has are sufficiently different that you don't get bored doing the same thing trying to set a high score.

 

 

9. Spike's Circus (Vectrex)

This was a Vectrex homebrew game that came out last year and was one of my favorite games of 2006. It involves the Vectrex mascot character doing various circusy things involving balance and juggling and such. I really think it has unique gameplay for the most part. If you have a Vectrex, head over to vectorzoa.com and get a copy. It's awesome.

 

 

8. Front Page Sports: Football Pro 98 (DOS / Win98 / XP)

To this day it completely buries every single version of Madden, ever, in the gameplay department. In a perfect world, Sierra would not have destroyed this franchise and the developers would have been funded well enough to see what they could have all done in the 21st Century. I, too, once thought that Madden games were good, but once I started playing this for the PC I could never (and will never) go back. The running game works, the passing game is realistic, the sim options are fantastic and if you start looking at the third party add-ons, it will add another five years (real years) enjoyment to the game.

 

 

7. Breach II (DOS)

It's not X-COM or Jagged Alliance, but few games are. It's the best game of the second "tier" of turn and squad-based tactical strategy games, though. Was destroyed by Breach III, which is possibly one of the worst games ever made.

 

 

6. Circuit's Edge (DOS)

This is a graphical text adventure written by George Alec Effinger and developed by Westwood (and published under the "Infocom" label once Activision bought it). Based on the book When Gravity Fails, by Effinger. A cyberpunk game that has you figuring puzzles through the chip-based modifications our hero (and other game denizens) can plug into himself. Arabic-themed, and the sound is absolutely amazing for a game released today, much less in the 80s. Great combat, fun graphics, deplorable characters that will nevertheless charm you.

 

 

5. Spellcasting 101: Sorcerers Get all the Girls (DOS, Amiga, Atari ST)

Steve Meretzky, formerly of Infocom, wrote a game about a dark-haired, nerdy, would-be magician who goes to school to learn how to practice sorcerery. Maybe for her next series J.K. Rowlings can rip off Planetfall.

 

 

4. Rise of the Triad (DOS)

Everyone here probably remembers it, but this franchise is in desperate need of a modern-day sequel, especially since BioShock's success will spawn 100 grim and gritty shooters. Rise of the Triad is utterly preposterous, sometimes brimming with nonsense, but every single second of it was interesting and fun. Ludicrous gibs!!

 

 

3. Rocket Jockey (Win 98)

A unique game where you pilot a "crotch rocket" around an arena and play one of three game modes. Virtually impossible to get going on anything but Windows 98. Features a great soundtrack by Dick Dale. You can knock guys off their scooters and send out grappling hooks as they try to run back and throw them around the arena like rag dolls. Filled with similar sick fun. You know how many games try to be "cyber sports" games but are really unfun? The shooting-tires-into-soccer-goals part of Rocket Jockey is honestly the best fake sports game ever made.

 

 

2. Sentinel Returns (Win 98 / XP)

Now that Glide can be emulated easily, you can go back and play this modern-day version of Sentinel. A lot of people who played the original version by Geoff Crammond didn't like the remake, but having played this one first I think it's one of the best games ever made. The entire game is about battling for position based on energy levels, while the ever-watchful eye of the sentinel tries to knock you back down. It's gorgeous and filled with tension.

 

 

1. Knight Orc (DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, C64, 8-bit, etc.)

This is a graphical text game that came out around 1987 - it is basically a single player MMORPG, as the dozens of other characters grief each other, steal from each other, insult each other and try to get over on one another. Lots of emergent gameplay if you like that sort of thing. The text parser never gets in the way of the fun and the end game involves telling a bunch of psychos what to do so you can win the game.

Edited August 23, 2007 by Ice Cream Jonsey

[Artlover]

Beyond Good and Evil falls into the same sort of category: it didn't sell well, but nobody denies that its a superb game.

I will. Looks good, but all it all, it didn't impress me any. I never finished it.

 

Grim Fandango looks interesting. Believe it not, I never heard of it before. Probably because it's a PC game, and I've never been big into PC gaming.

[AussieAtari]

I've said it before and I'll say it again - Freedom Fighters.

[Duke 4ever]

Where the hell is system shock 2? Shenmue?

[Inky]

Only games I can think of as underrated off the top of my head right now are Krull on hte 2600 and Zanac on the NES

[cyberfluxor]

Rise of the Robots. One of the best games EVER!

 

... Well, maybe not. I read the feature FILE Magazine wrote up on the game with so much hype and how evolutionary it was going to be but was a complete bust. I have the Saturn port and wasn't impressed one bit.

 

 

As much as I'd love to become involved in such a topic it's pretty difficult. I grew up playing PC titles but never payed attention to popular opinion nor did I care about consoles much. Fast forward to 2003 when I got my first job and now I was buying classic/retro games (why should I get a GameCube/Xbox/PS2 when everyone else does?) but never read about what were huge games of the past (except the obvious ones). So since then I just buy games, play them and learn what companies to look out for both on good and bad games. So with that said, here are some games friends, family and people I've met have very little to no clue about good games I've found. Looking over a large amount of my games I came up with 9 console games:

 

Puzznic (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Vertical Force (Virtual Boy)

Card Fighter's Clash (Neo-Geo Pocket Color)

Pac-Attack (Super Nintendo [and other ports])

Alisia Dragoon (Sega Genesis)

General Chaos (Sega Genesis)

Android Assault:The Revenge of Bari-Arm (Sega CD)

Descent Maximum (Playstation)

Project Overkill (Playstation)

 

And as for PC/MAC I pretty much own a bunch of very common games that quite a few computer games would have too, even if they didn't collect many games for it. A few quick picks from there though:

 

SimANT

Kings Quest 5

Weltris

Mario Teaches Typing (Yeah yeah, but I love it!)

 

There are about a dozen more but I can't come up with them off my head at the moment. :-/

[+Charlie Cat]

Shenmue for the Sega Dreamcast...... It was a Damn good game and Sega Players loved it. But that's all it went with.

[Crazy Climber]

Play LOTW!

Play Lord of the Wings

[Archie]

The only one I agree with is Blood. I love that game.

 

All the other ones are just plain stupid.

[Ryanw]

Well I'll throw out some NES games that I own that seem to be pretty underrated:

 

Rock N ball

The Guardian Legend

Golgo 13: The Secret Episode

 

I saw a lot of PC talk going around and I have to agree with the person that mentioned Nascar by papyrus and the other that said SimAnt I enjoyed both of those games a lot actually.

[2600Lives]

No, no, LOTW is Legend of the Wanker.

 

Man, I spent literal DAYS trying to beat Golgo 13. Good lord, is that game fuckin' HARD man. So many of those old NES games were completely unforgiving, but damn, this one just bent you over the couch. I did eventually beat it, but it strained me to the limit.

[yannisrocks1]

Rise of the Robots. One of the best games EVER!

 

... Well, maybe not. I read the feature FILE Magazine wrote up on the game with so much hype and how evolutionary it was going to be but was a complete bust. I have the Saturn port and wasn't impressed one bit.

 

 

As much as I'd love to become involved in such a topic it's pretty difficult. I grew up playing PC titles but never payed attention to popular opinion nor did I care about consoles much. Fast forward to 2003 when I got my first job and now I was buying classic/retro games (why should I get a GameCube/Xbox/PS2 when everyone else does?) but never read about what were huge games of the past (except the obvious ones). So since then I just buy games, play them and learn what companies to look out for both on good and bad games. So with that said, here are some games friends, family and people I've met have very little to no clue about good games I've found. Looking over a large amount of my games I came up with 9 console games:

 

Puzznic (Nintendo Entertainment System)

Vertical Force (Virtual Boy)

Card Fighter's Clash (Neo-Geo Pocket Color)

Pac-Attack (Super Nintendo [and other ports])

Alisia Dragoon (Sega Genesis)

General Chaos (Sega Genesis)

Android Assault:The Revenge of Bari-Arm (Sega CD)

Descent Maximum (Playstation)

Project Overkill (Playstation)

 

And as for PC/MAC I pretty much own a bunch of very common games that quite a few computer games would have too, even if they didn't collect many games for it. A few quick picks from there though:

 

SimANT

Kings Quest 5

Weltris

Mario Teaches Typing (Yeah yeah, but I love it!)

 

There are about a dozen more but I can't come up with them off my head at the moment. :-/

 

 

 

 

WTF is weltris

 

Weltris?

[vdub_bobby]

All time underrated game has to be E.T. for the 2600. The conventional wisdom is that it's one of the all time worst games, if not the worst. The reality, of course, is much different.

 

NES:

Guerrilla War - this is overshadowed by the vastly inferior Ikari Warriors, but it is bar none the best overhead scrolling crawler/shooter on the NES.

G.I. Joe - not well known, but probably the best scrolling platformer/shooter on the NES, behind Contra. Mazes, vehicles to drive, special weapons, giant bosses, huge variety on terrain (jungle to desert to snow to giant bases).

 

I'll also throw out Hard Hat Mack, for various platforms (Apple II, C64, 800/XL/XE). I never hear of this one, but it is a fantastic little platformer. Three screens, each with different objectives, clever graphics, challenging, requires quick reflexes, timing, and some strategy.

[Christophero Sly]

The Marathon series.

 

I'll also throw out Hard Hat Mack, for various platforms (Apple II, C64, 800/XL/XE). I never hear of this one, but it is a fantastic little platformer. Three screens, each with different objectives, clever graphics, challenging, requires quick reflexes, timing, and some strategy.

I recall that game being very popular back in the day.

[AtticGamer]

MDK for PC/PS1.

Alien 3 for SNES (got shadowed by Contra III imo).

[SINGLE TOOTH]

Yeah, that list sucked. Far Cry? Right...

 

Anyway, I recently installed Far Cry again... I remember being blown away when I first played. Now, I just felt blowed. The game kinda sucks in retrospect.

[Segataritensoftii]

All time underrated game has to be E.T. for the 2600. The conventional wisdom is that it's one of the all time worst games, if not the worst. The reality, of course, is much different.

That sounds a lot like something Random Terrain would say!

[cyberfluxor]

WTF is weltris

 

Weltris?

Sorry, it's supposed to be "Welltris." I wasn't checking spellings of the game titles. It's just another variant of Tetris that was released on several home computers.

Title screen:

Main menu:

The objective of the game is to not let the pieces spill onto the sides. When you create a full row of blocks then it'll disappear and rows will collapse towards the center.

One side gets a bit over-loaded:

I cannot bring a piece to the right side for 4 drops then it'll become grey again and if I drop another bad block onto that side it locks back up for another 4 moves. It'll continue that cycle until it's cleared up.

Once all four sides are in red you can no longer drop a piece and it's game over.

[AtariRocks]

I never understood why Pacman and E.T. were so maligned here. Maybe it's because I wasn't more than 10 or 11 when those games came out.

[jboypacman]

Lets see.......

 

NES:

Clash at Demonhead

Rockin' Kats

ShatterHand

8Eyes

 

Turbografx-16:

Bloody Wolf

 

Sega Genesis:

M.U.S.H.A

 

Am sure there are others but these are the ones i can think of off the top of my head.