# What are the most underrated computer games ever



## Epona (Oct 3, 2013)

Just to follow the current theme that has taken the gaming forum by storm!

I've recently been trying out some RPGs that weren't received well on release, but now I've actually tried them (Steam sales ftw!) I've found them really enjoyable and regret having been put off by early reviews.

Divinity 2 - action RPG that went down like a lead balloon on release, there's now a Developer's Cut edition which fixes some bugs and put in some hard work on balance issues.  Great game, I had a whale of a time playing it.  On another thread I think I described it as "the most fun I've ever had with a melee build" because the combat is just great fun, and environments really well designed for combat.  If you want a combat-heavy real-time action RPG, I'd heartily recommend it.

Risen 2: Dark Waters - was not released to critical acclaim, with many reviewers describing the combat as 'clunky'.  Yeah it's a little clunky in that animations aren't great, but it's also batshit difficult (which I think is the unmentioned root of most complaints) and is a true action-rpg in that you're only going to survive a run-in with a jaguar or an alligator by actually having learned some moves from trainers and knowing how best to use them in combat using your kb+m/controller.  Like many players, I set the difficulty to easy fairly early on, and it's still bloody hard!  Satisfyingly hard - it was a real buzz when I took on 2 jaguars and got out of it by the skin of my teeth.  And it's pirates.  Aaarrrrrrrrrr.


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## golightly (Oct 6, 2013)

I was looking through my games collection to see if there are any under-rated gems.  I don't think I do.  I have things like Amnesia: Dark Descent, Psychonauts and FTL which are slightly obscur but hardly under-rated.  I tend to read up on reviews and people's comments before shelling out any money, so any game I have played has been fairly well rated.  I've occasionally gone against the reviews because I like the sound of the game but I don't think I've discovered a hidden gem. Anyway, I will have a look at your recommendations for Divinity 2 & Risen 2.


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## agricola (Oct 6, 2013)

Allegiance


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## Ranbay (Oct 6, 2013)

Half life 2


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## Humberto (Oct 7, 2013)

Space Rangers 2

Mount and Blade


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## classicdish (Oct 7, 2013)

B0B2oo9 said:


> Half life 2



http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2
(ie. 96/100 = top score under PC games)


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## Fez909 (Oct 7, 2013)

I think it's almost impossible for something to be underrated in 2013. We live in an age of hyperbole, and as such, anything that is good is universally acknowledged to be good; or perhaps just unknown.

It's rare to find something that is rated as shit that is actually good. Hence the thread fail (sorry Epona !)


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I think it's almost impossible for something to be underrated in 2013. We live in an age of hyperbole, and as such, anything that is good is universally acknowledged to be good; or perhaps just unknown.
> 
> It's rare to find something that is rated as shit that is actually good. Hence the thread fail (sorry Epona !)



Sorry, but I disagree.  We live in an era where AAA titles with big budgets tend to get big reviews, and where games without those massive budgets are slated for little more than not having the extreme budget of bigger games (the situation is improving with the recent critical success of some indie games, but it's been a long fucking time coming).  The games I already used as examples are a case in point - RPGs from smaller European developers which were not well received because they didn't exactly tick all of the big-budget boxes (or possibly because reviewers didn't get as many previews and freebies).
And it's my thread, I get to decide whether it's a 'thread fail' or not - much like the gaming industry I suppose if it's got less than a certain number of replies/sales then that makes it a failure in some peoples' eyes.  But at least I didn't need to start a populist thread with shiny exterior but little content and taking a lowest-common-denominator approach just to hit the target deemed by others as 'success'.  Thank goodness I don't have a publisher or marketing department looking at my ideas for threads and then crushing them and suggesting I post up a picture of boobs instead, on the basis that it might get more replies!  A few replies is fine by me.


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## Fez909 (Oct 7, 2013)

Epona said:


> Sorry, but I disagree.  We live in an era where AAA titles with big budgets tend to get big reviews, and where games without those massive budgets are slated for little more than not having the extreme budget of bigger games (the situation is improving with the recent critical success of some indie games, but it's been a long fucking time coming).  The games I already used as examples are a case in point - RPGs from smaller European developers which were not well received because they didn't exactly tick all of the big-budget boxes (or possibly because reviewers didn't get as many previews and freebies).
> And it's my thread, I get to decide whether it's a 'thread fail' or not - much like the gaming industry I suppose if it's got less than a certain number of replies/sales then that makes it a failure in some peoples' eyes.  But at least I didn't need to start a populist thread with shiny exterior but little content and taking a lowest-common-denominator approach just to hit the target deemed by others as 'success'.  Thank goodness I don't have a publisher or marketing department looking at my ideas for threads and then crushing them and suggesting I post up a picture of boobs instead, on the basis that it might get more replies!  A few replies is fine by me.


 

A strong, impassioned defence for your thread. I'm impressed!

You will note, however, that I said it I said it is rare - not non-existent - that these things can still exist. And I agree that a long thread doesn't equal a good thread. But this one isn't even short. It's barely kicked off! And it's three days old already; a teenager in thread years 

I wish you and the thread well, though, as any flagging up of games which didn't get the praise they deserve is good in my eyes


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## Epona (Oct 7, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> A strong, impassioned defence for your thread. I'm impressed!
> 
> You will note, however, that I said it I said it is rare - not non-existent - that these things can still exist. And I agree that a long thread doesn't equal a good thread. But this one isn't even short. It's barely kicked off! And it's three days old already; a teenager in thread years
> 
> I wish you and the thread well, though, as any flagging up of games which didn't get the praise they deserve is good in my eyes



Mate, you seem to be overly concerned about length.  I'd rather have 1 good reply than 30 pages of worthless hot air.  As it happens, I'd have been more happy with just the one sensible response from golightly, than the train-wreck of an excuse for discussion that has happened since.  Find something else to measure - or stay on topic


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## classicdish (Oct 7, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I think it's almost impossible for something to be underrated in 2013.


I agree that the way media reviews and the press work means you get a lot more over-rating (hype) than under-rating. However it's not all about what 20 or so critics write any more - within a day or so of release you'll have thousands of player reviews online and they can really rip into even massively hyped AAA games if they are shit or have serious problems. At the other end even small / unknown / self-published indie games can quickly generate a massive buzz if they are good.

Here are my nominations for 'underrated PC games' based on them getting fairly poor Metacritic scores
Judge Dredd Vs Death critics 55% users 72%
Rogue Trooper critics 69% users 84%
Sudden Strike critics 69% users 82%
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic critics 72% users 87%
Oni critics 73% users 85%
Evil Genius critics 75% users 84%
Vietcong critics 74% users 87%

edit:
also for the opposite look at how much lower the user scores are than the critics scores for, eg
Fez critics 91% users 62%
Civ V critics 90% users 74%
GTA IV critics 90% users 61%
Empire Total War critics 90% users 68%
Mass Effect 3 critics 89% users 49%
Diablo 3 critics 88% users 38%
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 critics 86% users 39%

edit & here's another one

SimCity critics 64% users 20%


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## Silva (Oct 7, 2013)

The problem with user scores it's how often it's the best game ever 10/10, worse than cancer 0/10, ea lol 0/10, Should be a 7, but need to balance the negative scores 10/10, I can't run it in my 5 year old pc 4/10, still haven't played but it's valve 10/10 etc etc etc.


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## Yata (Oct 7, 2013)

well critics scores have their own set of problems as has been shown before with the doritos guy, wouldnt even use review scores to judge a game at all personally


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## Ranbay (Oct 7, 2013)

classicdish said:


> http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2
> (ie. 96/100 = top score under PC games)



in joke.


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## classicdish (Oct 7, 2013)

Silva said:


> The problem with user scores it's how often it's the best game ever 10/10, worse than cancer 0/10, ea lol 0/10, Should be a 7, but need to balance the negative scores 10/10, I can't run it in my 5 year old pc 4/10, still haven't played but it's valve 10/10 etc etc etc.


Sure, but if you have enough scores the ones at either extreme cancel each other out. 

Over the last ten years I have shifted from reading eg PCGamer reviews, then to reading online websites, now I tend to look at the reception a game gets from the mass of gamers on forums/comment sections/blogs/via social media etc. This means it used to be the view of one reviewer - now it is feedback from hundreds of people (maybe more - depending on how much I want to read).


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## jcsd (Oct 7, 2013)

One game for me that ranks up there with some of my favourites, but got so-so scores and didn't sell that well was Summoner II on the PS2. It had excellent graphics, brilliant game mechanics, an engrossing story and was one of the first games to mix action and RPG elements well. My only qualm was that it was smaller than the first game, but given how much more fun to play and better-looking it was it wasn't surprising.


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## Paulie Tandoori (Oct 7, 2013)

Heavy Rain is one of the very best ps3 games that I have ever played, really unique and enjoyable (in a gruesome kind of way), and has real replay value due to the set-up.


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## mwgdrwg (Oct 8, 2013)

The Wonderful 101!

Probably the most colourful, funny, fresh, video-gamey game I've played in about 5 years.

Nobody knows or cares about it.


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## Fez909 (Oct 8, 2013)

mwgdrwg said:


> The Wonderful 101!
> 
> Probably the most colourful, funny, fresh, video-gamey game I've played in about 5 years.
> 
> Nobody knows or cares about it.


I remember seeing the trailer and it looks great. The problem is it's on the Wii U


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## mwgdrwg (Oct 8, 2013)

Fez909 said:


> I remember seeing the trailer and it looks great. The problem is it's on the Wii U



I know, what a great console it is too


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## Stigmata (Oct 8, 2013)

I still think XCOM: Apocalypse was the best game of the franchise


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## sim667 (Oct 9, 2013)

Freedom Fighters.

Epic game.


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## Shippou-Sensei (Oct 11, 2013)

Epona said:


> Divinity 2 - action RPG that went down like a lead balloon on release, there's now a Developer's Cut edition which fixes some bugs and put in some hard work on balance issues.  Great game, I had a whale of a time playing it.  On another thread I think I described it as "the most fun I've ever had with a melee build" because the combat is just great fun, and environments really well designed for combat.  If you want a combat-heavy real-time action RPG, I'd heartily recommend it.



This is currently available in the humble weekly sale.  a huge bunch of games for a dollar.

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

no excuse not to buy


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## tommers (Oct 11, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> This is currently available in the humble weekly sale.  a huge bunch of games for a dollar.
> 
> https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly
> 
> no excuse not to buy




Excellent....


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## Epona (Oct 11, 2013)

Shippou-Sensei said:


> This is currently available in the humble weekly sale.  a huge bunch of games for a dollar.
> 
> https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly
> 
> no excuse not to buy



Definitely worth it for that.  I appreciate it's one of those games that isn't going to be everyones' cup of tea.  I did a lengthy dissection on another thread, in summary: 3rd person Action RPG heavy on the Action, story so-so (main quest linear and kind of 'meh' in terms of story & writing, a few humour moments that didn't sit quite as well as they did in previous games in the series), plenty of side-quests, good puzzles (actiony), good combat skills and overall balance (melee build is really fun), but the game really comes into its own in the latter half when you can indulge in a mix of ground and aerial combat - I honestly thought it wasn't going to be my sort of thing until I tried it, but it's really well executed and that is where the game shines.  It's underrated largely because a lot of players didn't persist that far into the game because up until that point it's kind of average.  And there's no hand-holding (in some cases the opposite - which can be frustrating!)

In terms of story, it is a continuation from the previous games, but it's not necessary to have played them (although Divine Divinity is very good - open world isometric with BG style story/questing and Diablo style combat - I found Beyond Divinity flawed although by no means unplayable) but might be worth reading a brief summary of the story so far.

People either love it or hate it, I loved it, got to the end and wished there was more.  The expansion was disappointing because there was less focus on what made the original game different (apart from one freaking mega-battle!)


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## Spanky Longhorn (Oct 14, 2013)

hardly like any games other than SimCity's 2,3, and 4.

But I loved this one: Machines


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## ohmyliver (Oct 17, 2013)

Bulletstorm.  Fantastic game, but hugely overlooked.  Very much a clever game pretending to be dumb. 

A shooter where you get extra points not for hunting out hidden panels or other boring stuff like that but by ever more inventive ways of killing (for example you get more points by kicking someone into the air and shooting them whilst in the air, but even more points by kicking them into a huge cactus etc).  The dialogue is purposely tongue in cheek piss take of computer game idiocy. 

Plus one of the levels you get to control a huge robot dinosaur with lazers for eyes.


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