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General discussionWhat low-rated game(s) do you think are good (or even great)?(75 posts)(75 posts)
(75 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 03, 2023
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dtgreene: Quest 64. Some of the criticisms of that game are for things like simplicity. the lack of cutscenes, and the fact that it doesn't have the same heavy focus on story that other RPGs of its era have. Thing is, I don't mind the simplicity, and I actually prefer the game to not be story-driven.

The game does have a few legitimate issues, but here is a tip that will mitigate one of them significantly; whenever you finish a battle, you will be facing the same direction you were facing before the battle started.
...
Quest 64 is the quintessential game I played when much younger that hit me then exactly right and now has an unyielding armor of nostalgia when I think about it.
Posted March 03, 2023
Two Worlds 2 got hammered by a fair amount of people but it was a pretty fun piece of jank with some cool magic systems built into it
Posted March 03, 2023
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lupineshadow: The only reason why you might like a low rated game is nostalgia for a game you played when you didn't know any better, or bad taste.
Or maybe the game is actually OK but it suffers from the current "downvoted by kiddies with a tunnel-vision obsession with arbitrary hours-per-$ 'quantity over quality' calculations" trend (ie, if Portal 1 were made today it would probably be downvoted too for "only being 5hrs long = sux because x grind-fest RPG I just played was 40x longer for only +50% more money"). There's a lot of "short but sweet" / "play in a day" games that often have unfairly depressed scores for this reason.
Posted March 03, 2023
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InSaintMonoxide: Golden Axe III, Final Fight Streetwise, Knights Contract
Thanks for a reminder, just played Golden Axe III... Had a poor run though, more practice is needed. Ultimately died at stage 6 - Ride The Whirlwind (where you ride at the back of the giant hawk) at the point where the game didn't even allow me to shamelessly credit-feed any further. I don't like it as much as previous 2 games, but it's pretty alright otherwise.

Edit: Second try, different route, different character and I've managed to beat it with 2credits. Not the best run for sure, but still an improvement. T'was fun!
Post edited March 03, 2023 by Spectrum_Legacy
Posted March 03, 2023
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Linko64: Two Worlds 2 got hammered by a fair amount of people but it was a pretty fun piece of jank with some cool magic systems built into it
Well, I'm still hammering that one by just comparing it to the first game, mainly when it comes to exploration and freedom, which is just what made the first one good.

On another note, since Venetica was mentioned multiple times, sure would have been a pretty nice game if they'd have gotten rid of the bugs, but when, on top of various annoyances, saving can put you in an unwinnable situation that you may not even realize until much, much later, when there's nothing left to do...
Posted March 04, 2023
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Sat42: Careful not to simplify too much: fun is fun, and it takes different sorts. I prefer a 7/10 (good) RTS game over a 9/10 (excellent) sim racing title any day of the year. If you are particularly interested in storytelling, you might play a game for its strong narrative even if the overall package is comparatively less good (e.g.: Geneforge). My 'minimum' required general rating for a game can fluctuate depending on the genre, but generally I decide to play a game if I have reasonable confidence that it will be at least good.
Now of course your last sentence says 'you might like a low rated game [...]' and in truth, an actually overall low rated game - not just relatively but actually falling into 'negative' territory in aggregate, i.e. below 5/10 - I have never found myself liking such an example of a game. I have played two such games: AD 2044 (got it for free) and Pax Corpus (free too!) and I agree they provide a mostly a negative experience. I have also played some old school titles that were highly regarded in their day and which I would rate below 5/10 (best example is Shadow of the Beast II) but that's another story...
If you don't limit yourself to thinking of 'low rated' as actually falling below 5/10, then you can start looking at titles that were disappointments as opposed to actually bad, those that got middling reviews rather than actually negative ones, and those can actually be fascinating depending on taste (not to mention: they may improve significantly way after their original release dates).
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Magnitus: I think different people have different thresholds of "good enough". For me, it's 7/10 or above (although anything below 8/10 will have to be heavily discounted for me to consider it). For others, it might be 5/10 or even less (though probably because of cultural bias, most would probably consider a game rated below 6/10, which is the passing grade in most schools I think, a bad game).

The lower you go, the more you have to be an outlier to disagree with the popular consensus though (and lets not forget that we are talking about a "great" game here, someone who would rate a game 6/10 might consider it okay, but certainly not great).

For the genre, sure, there are some genres that I like more than others and some (very few) that I simply won't touch no matter how well rated the game is, but like lupineshadow here, I'm heavily biased towards ratings.

Life is short and I don't mind getting out of my comfort zone a little and enjoy a best of breed game in a genre I tend to enjoy less rather than have a rehashed average experience in a genre I tend to like more.
I basically agree.

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Magnitus: I do think that my single biggest bias is innovation though. I'll tend to be more forgiving of a game that went for the stars and fell short than a game that played it safe to the point of being considered average at best.
Same here. I listed Daikatana earlier (and the counterexample from the same company is Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3, which is the epitome of 'playing it safe' and being average as a result, with a journalist saying it "should have shipped in a plain white box with 'Realtime Strategy Game' stamped on it."), but another example would be Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness (as long as you play the PS2 version)

I admit playing AD 2044 and Pax Corpus (Playstation version) more out of 'morbid curiosity', not because I thought I'd have a decent time with them. Sometimes the 'video game archeologist' aspect takes over me!
Posted March 05, 2023
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Sat42: I admit playing AD 2044 and Pax Corpus (Playstation version) more out of 'morbid curiosity', not because I thought I'd have a decent time with them. Sometimes the 'video game archeologist' aspect takes over me!
At least you paid nothing! :)

I bought it for five bucks remember in a newspaper collection thinking it was like a Lara Croft in the future and...the game is ridiculous, the gunplay and movements... a disaster and a waste of money. A Cryo garbage.
Posted March 05, 2023
The Good Life. It's by "SWERY", you know the guy that made Deadly Premonition. It's totally bat-shit crazy and predictably got panned by most "professional" game journalists. I thought it was amazing. It's that open world, life sim, journalism, sheep racing, UFO conspiracy, quaint English country town simulator that you just know you've been looking for. Your protagonist begins as the typical annoying American tourist in Europe trope and actually evolves, by the end, into someone you almost actually like. Awesome game.
Posted March 06, 2023
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Sat42: I admit playing AD 2044 and Pax Corpus (Playstation version) more out of 'morbid curiosity', not because I thought I'd have a decent time with them. Sometimes the 'video game archeologist' aspect takes over me!
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argamasa: At least you paid nothing! :)

I bought it for five bucks remember in a newspaper collection thinking it was like a Lara Croft in the future and...the game is ridiculous, the gunplay and movements... a disaster and a waste of money. A Cryo garbage.
Haha yeah, the best part was the intro cinematic :P
Posted March 06, 2023
You Are EMPTY - perfectly servable shooter that actually has it's moments - especially the giant mutant chickens!

Sanity - Aitken's Artefact - Fun little sci-fi / superhero otherwise Nox-like ARPG that seems completely forgotten these days

The Game of Thrones RPG - there,! I liked it! Weird combat that's a cross between a JRPG and The Witcher but the plot is very engaging, it happened to be the my first introduction to the world of GoT so I think that helped, the skinwalking and non-combat missions were very fun

darkSector - another decent shooter, this time 3rd person semi cover-based, inventive use of glaive weapon and interesting boss battles

A.R.E.S: Extinction Agenda Shooty bang-bang side scroller. satisfying explosions, secrets to find

DarkFall: The Journal - interesting and very atmospheric first person point and click adventure

That will probably do - maybe I'm just easily pleased?

*edit* ah I see Sanity - Aitken's Artefact was made by Monolith and published by Fox so has presumably fallen down a crack into the same publishing rights hell as the No One Lives Forever games - shame!
Post edited March 06, 2023 by Fever_Discordia
Posted March 06, 2023
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Fever_Discordia: You Are EMPTY - perfectly servable shooter that actually has it's moments - especially the giant mutant chickens!

Sanity - Aitken's Artefact - Fun little sci-fi / superhero otherwise Nox-like ARPG that seems completely forgotten these days

The Game of Thrones RPG - there,! I liked it! Weird combat that's a cross between a JRPG and The Witcher but the plot is very engaging, it happened to be the my first introduction to the world of GoT so I think that helped, the skinwalking and non-combat missions were very fun

darkSector - another decent shooter, this time 3rd person semi cover-based, inventive use of glaive weapon and interesting boss battles

A.R.E.S: Extinction Agenda Shooty bang-bang side scroller. satisfying explosions, secrets to find

DarkFall: The Journal - interesting and very atmospheric first person point and click adventure

That will probably do - maybe I'm just easily pleased?

*edit* ah I see Sanity - Aitken's Artefact was made by Monolith and published by Fox so has presumably fallen down a crack into the same publishing rights hell as the No One Lives Forever games - shame!
Can't speak for the rest but Dark Fall: The Journal is very good.
EDIT: also (except for You Are EMPTY) this list covers mostly games that were not poorly received, at worst somewhat mixed but leaning towards good (like Dark Fall, which also happens to be very well reviewed on GOG).
Post edited March 06, 2023 by Sat42
Posted March 07, 2023
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Fever_Discordia: You Are EMPTY - perfectly servable shooter that actually has it's moments - especially the giant mutant chickens!

Sanity - Aitken's Artefact - Fun little sci-fi / superhero otherwise Nox-like ARPG that seems completely forgotten these days

The Game of Thrones RPG - there,! I liked it! Weird combat that's a cross between a JRPG and The Witcher but the plot is very engaging, it happened to be the my first introduction to the world of GoT so I think that helped, the skinwalking and non-combat missions were very fun

darkSector - another decent shooter, this time 3rd person semi cover-based, inventive use of glaive weapon and interesting boss battles

A.R.E.S: Extinction Agenda Shooty bang-bang side scroller. satisfying explosions, secrets to find

DarkFall: The Journal - interesting and very atmospheric first person point and click adventure

That will probably do - maybe I'm just easily pleased?

*edit* ah I see Sanity - Aitken's Artefact was made by Monolith and published by Fox so has presumably fallen down a crack into the same publishing rights hell as the No One Lives Forever games - shame!
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Sat42: Can't speak for the rest but Dark Fall: The Journal is very good.
EDIT: also (except for You Are EMPTY) this list covers mostly games that were not poorly received, at worst somewhat mixed but leaning towards good (like Dark Fall, which also happens to be very well reviewed on GOG).
Ah OK don't know why I thought DarkFall was disliked then, pretend I said 'Dead Reefs' which I genuinely got some enjoyment out of despite is being so technically wonky I had to play it on my work laptop because it refused to run on my regular desktop!

I have definitely heard many disparaging things about GoT although it does have a 'mostly positive; on Steam right now, I must admit!

Wow darkSector is sitting on 'Very positive' too! OK ignore me - I obviously pay way more attention to a few people saying something is rubbish than the majority saying it's good!

Genuinely thought liking the GoT RPG would generate gasps too!

*edit* although the Metacritic scores are worse -68 for Dark Fall, 66 for darkSector and 58 or GoT!
Post edited March 07, 2023 by Fever_Discordia
Posted March 08, 2023
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Fever_Discordia: You Are EMPTY - perfectly servable shooter that actually has it's moments - especially the giant mutant chickens!

darkSector - another decent shooter, this time 3rd person semi cover-based, inventive use of glaive weapon and interesting boss battles
You Are Empty was an enjoyable slice of self aware slavjank.

DarkSector was a decent game, and it paved the way for Warframe so I'll always have a soft spot for it.
Posted March 14, 2023
Have to say that the current GOG Newsletter contains one of my favorite low-rated games:

Sniper Ghost Warrior 3

Think Far Cry 2.1. Extreme long range sniping is broken, the graphics are middling, and the story is ridiculous, but...

... the open world traversal and ability to take on objectives from any direction is GREAT.

IMO this game is better than either of its sequels -- SGW Contracts and SGW Contracts 2 -- which both look prettier but tend to favor specific corridors of engagement and omniscient AI. In SGW 3 not only can you engage an objective from 360 degrees but you can also find many ways to traverse a map and engage solitary enemies without "magically" alerting every AI across the entire map.
Posted March 14, 2023
I just have this thing going on for bioware rejects. I totally enjoyed Andromeda and Anthem. Man, those games contained some great ideas

Not to mention those 5 secs of Sarah going all girly with a minor Texas Accent ... Woooheee
Post edited March 14, 2023 by Zimerius
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionWhat low-rated game(s) do you think are good (or even great)?(75 posts)(75 posts)
(75 posts)