Underrated classic games

dodderangler

Abes oddysee was a good 'un.
I was addicted to crash bandicoot and more so addicted to playing destruction derby.
Loved that game.

CiDeRmAn

da gamer wrote: »

Might have been mentioned already, perhaps by me even, but Alice madness returns on the Xbox 360 was a super game and totally underrated.

I picked that up for the PS3 in CEX for small money, and it included the download code for the original PC game, which was cool.
The game itself is good and the art lovely but I felt it didn't quite hang together right. I died a few too many times and found some areas frustrating.

sweetie

da gamer wrote:

Might have been mentioned already, perhaps by me even, but Alice madness returns on the Xbox 360 was a super game and totally underrated.

What a game, would love a sequel.

dodderangler

Think I've said it before but I'd love if they came out with another red dead redemption ( undead was pure Shiite)

Benzino

dodderangler wrote: »

Abes oddysee was a good 'un.
I was addicted to crash bandicoot and more so addicted to playing destruction derby.
Loved that game.

Ah Destruction Derby was great fun alright!

Rickamania1

Benzino wrote: »

Ah Destruction Derby was great fun alright!

Ah thay was enjoyable indeed. Driver was great. Tough to finish it at the end!

Benzino

Vanquish was a lot of fun. And by no means a classic, but I loved Sonic Spinball. My Mum even played it.

Lemlin

Rickamania1 wrote: »

Abe's Odyssey was class. And V-Rally too. Was rather fond of Formula 1 99 I must say!

V-Rally was a cracker. Speaking of '98/'99, ISS Pro '98 remains my favourite ever soccer game.

Retr0gamer

Rickamania1 wrote: »

Abe's Odyssey was class. And V-Rally too. Was rather fond of Formula 1 99 I must say!

All three games are hardly under rated considering they were critically well received and massive sellers.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

All three games are hardly under rated considering they were critically well received and massive sellers.

The Odd world games were huge.
And VRally was massive in Europe and in the US, where it was rebadged as a Need for Speed title.

Rickamania1

Retr0gamer wrote: »

All three games are hardly under rated considering they were critically well received and massive sellers.

Yeah, I should have gone to the justly-rated classic games thread really!

da gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

All three games are hardly under rated considering they were critically well received and massive sellers.

Being a massive seller doesn't mean it wasn't underrated. Your right about the abe games they were not regarded as underrated, but what constitutes being underrated?

Retr0gamer

da gamer wrote: »

Being a massive seller doesn't mean it wasn't underrated. Your right about the abe games they were not regarded as underrated, but what constitutes being underrated?

Poor critical or commercial reception usually or both of those. Those games that were mentioned were both massive commercial and critical hits.

da gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Poor critical or commercial reception usually or both of those. Those games that were mentioned were both massive commercial and critical hits.

I agree, however I think that a game could get good reviews and still be seen as underrated in the sense that it didn't sell as well as it should have or wasn't played by as many people as it should have been.

Take Wolfenstein New Order or Alien Isolation as recent examples, they both got good reviews, sold reasonably well, but I reckon they are still underrated games

SeantheMan

Goof Troop on the SNES......but in truth I don't know if it was received well or badly, or how much it sold, because I was about 10 or 12 at the time.
I didn't own a SNES....was a Megadrive man.....but when now and again my friend and I would 'swap' consoles for a few weeks (those were the days) .....that was one of the games I enjoyed most. Especially as a 2 player.

Retr0gamer

da gamer wrote: »

I agree, however I think that a game could get good reviews and still be seen as underrated in the sense that it didn't sell as well as it should have or wasn't played by as many people as it should have been.

Take Wolfenstein New Order or Alien Isolation as recent examples, they both got good reviews, sold reasonably well, but I reckon they are still underrated games

I kind of cover that in my post above though What you describe there would definitely be considered under rated, as in commercially wasn't a hit.

Just thought of another two today.

Gradius V. A shoot em up by Treasure and the guys that made Radiant Silvergun and Ikaruga, what could go wrong? Well nothing, they crafted one of the very best shoot em eps ever created and without doubt my favourite for PS2. It looks gorgeous and has a great soundtrack with Hitoshi Sakimoto dropping the orchestration for synths. Despite the budget price and me screaming about how good it was it didn't sell that well and was largely ignored. It wasn't helped by a few 7/10 reviews from morons that should no better.

Anyway it's up on PSN for PS3 or at least should be soon so you've no excuse!

Contra Shattered Soldier. Produced on a budget so it looked pretty poor for a PS2 release but made by some of the best Konami game developers including the guys behind cult classic Rocket Knight Adventures. The game got mostly 7/10 reviews but Contra fans rank it as one of the high points of the series. The game is balls to the wall tough which put a lot of reviewers off but for run n gun gameplay there was none better on PS2. Also has another great soundtrack.

Retr0gamer

SeantheMan wrote: »

Goof Troop on the SNES......but in truth I don't know if it was received well or badly, or how much it sold, because I was about 10 or 12 at the time.
I didn't own a SNES....was a Megadrive man.....but when now and again my friend and I would 'swap' consoles for a few weeks (those were the days) .....that was one of the games I enjoyed most. Especially as a 2 player.

Got pretty decent reviews and is known as a bit of a Shinji Mikami masterpiece but yeah it seems to have flown under the radar until very recently. Not sure how well it sold but used copies are relatively cheap indicating that it probably sold well enough. I wouldn't hear anyone talk about the game except hg101 until game grumps played it.

pablomakaveli

Anyone mention Ristar on the Mega Drive yet? I loved that game. Doesn't seem to be as well remembered as other Mega Drive games since it seems to have come along late in the consoles life.

It had great levels and bosses as well as a brilliant soundtrack. I still remember most of the music from it quite well.

CiDeRmAn

Let's not forget the magnificent R Type Final, on the PS2.
Worshipped by pretty much everyone for being an amazing title, everyone but Retr0!

Retr0gamer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Let's not forget the magnificent R Type Final, on the PS2.
Worshipped by pretty much everyone for being an amazing title, everyone but Retr0!

Most shooter fans hate it and rightfully so, it's a train wreck with levels that are played out below 5 fps and the most boring opening stage of any shooter I've ever played. R type Delta is a far better game.

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Most shooter fans hate it and rightfully so, it's a train wreck with levels that are played out below 5 fps and the most boring opening stage of any shooter I've ever played. R type Delta is a far better game.

Boo hiss, boo hiss!

My favourite one of all time is Raiden DX, definitely not underrated but perhaps not widely known outside of the shmup circles.

CiDeRmAn

Just spent the last hour playing some great stuff, Virtua Cop 1 and 2 on the PS2, Die Hard 2 on the Saturn and Manx TT Superbike, also on the Saturn.
Sadly I also played Hang On GP96 and Off World Interceptor, both also on the Saturn and awful.

EoinHef

Not sure if its been mentioned before but i loved Project I.G.I:Were Going In. Or just Project I.G.I if you lived in europe. The world felt very open to me and to me it was ahead of its time in that regard. It had flaws aplenty but only have fond memories of playing it.

Someone mentioned Indy Car Racer earlier in the thread,thank you for that. Had totally forgot that game existed! I spent hours and hours on that game on an old family gateway PC. Some single core 933MHz windows millenium edition machine. Those were the days:) Anybody remember jumpman? Think it came free with that PC

johnny_ultimate

da gamer wrote: »

Take Wolfenstein New Order or Alien Isolation as recent examples, they both got good reviews, sold reasonably well, but I reckon they are still underrated games

I'd argue Wolfenstein is in fact overrated, given the almost uniformly positive response it received from players and largely enthusiastic response from reviewers. I was a few months late to the party, having heard nothing but good things. I found a game that was mostly 'fine' yet utterly unremarkable in most respects, and got reliably less interesting as it went along (a fatal case of the ol' ludonarrative dissonance helped little there). All IMO, of course, but again just not the sort of game I believe could be considered under-appreciated.

pablomakaveli

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I'd argue Wolfenstein is in fact overrated, given the almost uniformly positive response it received from players and largely enthusiastic response from reviewers. I was a few months late to the party, having heard nothing but good things. I found a game that was mostly 'fine' yet utterly unremarkable in most respects, and got reliably less interesting as it went along (a fatal case of the ol' ludonarrative dissonance helped little there). All IMO, of course, but again just not the sort of game I believe could be considered under-appreciated.

I thought it was great. Wasn't sure i was going to like it but was pleasantly surprised. Granted it doesn't do anything new or original but it did take the classic FPS formula and gave it a lot of polish.

I enjoyed the story as well which was an area i thought it would have fell down on and the alternative post-WW2 setting had real character and best of all i had loads of fun playing it.

Retr0gamer

It was fun balls to the wall shooting action, a game that remembers how much fun it is to shoot space nazis and focuses on the mechanics of that. That's what I liked about it, it was fun to shoot people again in ridiculous situations.

spookmaster

Psychonauts. Hilarious and fun, it was ten years old this week.

Kirby

Star Lord wrote: »

How does any of that impact on how good the game is? !

It doesn't. The bugs and glitches don't stop the game from being brilliant. Nobody ever claimed they did.

Star Lord wrote: »

By perfect he doesn't mean perfectly coded with no imperfections!

Sorry, we don't get to apply our own meanings to words. They already have meaning. You cant call something perfect while admitting it has imperfections. That entire notion is antithetical.

Lemlin

Not sure how it sold but I thought G-Police was a cracking game that is rarely mentioned as a Playstation classic.

TerrorFirmer

EoinHef wrote: »

Not sure if its been mentioned before but i loved Project I.G.I:Were Going In. Or just Project I.G.I if you lived in europe. The world felt very open to me and to me it was ahead of its time in that regard. It had flaws aplenty but only have fond memories of playing it.

Someone mentioned Indy Car Racer earlier in the thread,thank you for that. Had totally forgot that game existed! I spent hours and hours on that game on an old family gateway PC. Some single core 933MHz windows millenium edition machine. Those were the days:) Anybody remember jumpman? Think it came free with that PC

I think you must mean 133mhz