I know we all have games that we love, but seem to be underappreciated either by critics and or gamers.
Titan Quest - Hack and Slash RPG
I really enjoy the game, but to many it was just another Diablo clone. There are a few ligitimate flaws in the game, but it hits so many of the hack and slash grind elements that to me are just plain addictive.
Cons:
1. It's a Diablo clone, but aren't all hack and slash games to some extent?
2. No randomization. This is what ultimately poopooed the game for many I think and is the most glaring flaw. The maps are the same. Dungeons. Bosses. If Ironlore and THQ would have added this small element to the game, I think it would have been much better received and it would have competed much better with Diablo 2. Diablo 2 is the same story. Every single time. However you get random bosses in locations where you never saw them before and that was key to making Diablo and Diablo 2 seem less linear and more dynamic. Is it really? No. It's still a grind for loot and experience. But add in some random bosses and dungeons and it seems much less so.
3. Character models. A warrior, a ranger and mage all basically look the same. Not a huge deal to me, but important to many.
Pros:
1. Character customation. The game's greatest attribute. You can play a dozen characters and none of them will ever be built the same. Frankly TQ's character building system beats Diablo's hands down IMO. For example, my latest character started with the Hunter skill. So I've got points that benefit spears and bows and the added plus of the nature forage skill to regen hit points and energy points. I'm thinking of going with lightning and having a Bow/spear Thane, but there are 5 other skill trees I could pick from to build a character. You don't get this in Diablo. The Paladin has that same skill tree every single game.
2. Gear customation. You can pick up relics and runes to make that great piece of gear even better by added your relics. Each relic set can be built up to 5 pieces for a progression of attributes. The downside is you better be prepared to grind if you want 5 of the same relic.
3. Hellenistic mythology. I love greek mythology, so fighting monsters based on it is just awesome in my book.
4. Graphically the game still looks great.
Anyway for those who love a good hack and slash to pass the hours away, I recommend you keep an eye out for this one on the next Steam sale.
I like TQ. Still play it on occasion. LONG game.
Din's Curse is another hack & slasher that's fun, as is Dungeons of Dredmor for a more turn-based roguelike that has similarities.
For wargames, it's Hannibal: Rome & Carthage.
Since most all my games are wargames, I think the most underappreciated recent PC wargames are:
Combat Command - Simple (in the good sense), playable, enjoyable system with great PBEM potential and a dead easy editor.
Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris: It seems this has slowly gotten more in the consciousness of PC wargamers but still very underappreciated. This game deserved more accolades but I think its release between the release of Panthers BftB and GG WitE was a problem for it. I love both of those other titles but DC hits a sweet spot.
Well, I'm going to break with tradition and say the most recent, underappreciated game I've played was Orks Must Die!
Excellent production value, fun...you don't hear much about it. I loved it.
The first System Shock was brilliant, yet it didn't get much hype.
Quote from: LongBlade on April 24, 2012, 10:40:16 AM
Well, I'm going to break with tradition and say the most recent, underappreciated game I've played was Orks Must Die!
Excellent production value, fun...you don't hear much about it. I loved it.
+1. I loved it! One of the better, third person Defense style games.
Also try Trenched.
One of the most underappreciated First Person Strategic/Tactical shooters there is, is Section 8 by Timegate Studios (the folks who developed the very under-appreciated Kohan series of RTS'es).
Apart from bland dropship armour suited marines, Section 8 had a lot of good strategic mechanics melded into this shooter. They even had a second stab at it, with the XBLA downloadable version Section 8: Prejudice. Knocks most sci-fi shooters into a cocked hat, but it doesn't get much of a following, or appreciation. It has placeable turrets, defensible capture points, interlocking classes, speedy land movement, jetpacks, vehicles - with multi-person controls/weapons, free-form dynamic objectives that can be invoked by building up successes, dropship custom spawn points, bot matches that are a challenge. It's the dogs bollocks. It really is. Tribes incarnations just won't get close, and it has more functionality than any flavour of Halo.
http://youtu.be/7E6dyf7YCQc (http://youtu.be/7E6dyf7YCQc)
http://youtu.be/hcUhyTv4uFc (http://youtu.be/hcUhyTv4uFc)
I think Scourge of War - Gettysburg should be added to this list. Its the best RTS ACW game out, that is until Sid Meiers remakes his Civil War game :)
I was gifted Section 8 during the Steam Christmas sales. I really need to give it a go later.
Quote from: spelk on April 24, 2012, 06:00:25 PM
Also try Trenched.
Never heard of it. Don't see it on Steam. Got a link?
Quote from: LongBlade on April 24, 2012, 07:16:33 PM
Quote from: spelk on April 24, 2012, 06:00:25 PM
Also try Trenched.
Never heard of it. Don't see it on Steam. Got a link?
Oh, I forgot, I think it was called Iron Brigade in the States.
http://www.ironbrigadegame.com/
Over here in blighty, the name was changed for some reason to Trenched.
Redneck Rampage.
There are some:
- Armada 2526 Supernova
- Takeda 3
- Conquest: Frontier Wars
- Celtic Kings: Punic Wars
Quote from: spelk on April 25, 2012, 01:01:01 AM
Quote from: LongBlade on April 24, 2012, 07:16:33 PM
Quote from: spelk on April 24, 2012, 06:00:25 PM
Also try Trenched.
Never heard of it. Don't see it on Steam. Got a link?
Oh, I forgot, I think it was called Iron Brigade in the States.
http://www.ironbrigadegame.com/
Over here in blighty, the name was changed for some reason to Trenched.
It's XBOX only right?
Quote from: gabeeg on April 24, 2012, 10:29:25 AM
Since most all my games are wargames, I think the most underappreciated recent PC wargames are:
Combat Command - Simple (in the good sense), playable, enjoyable system with great PBEM potential and a dead easy editor.
Decisive Campaigns: Warsaw to Paris: It seems this has slowly gotten more in the consciousness of PC wargamers but still very underappreciated. This game deserved more accolades but I think its release between the release of Panthers BftB and GG WitE was a problem for it. I love both of those other titles but DC hits a sweet spot.
I bought DC:WtP. I really wanted to but I just can't get into it. The interface method for allocating artillery and air strikes is just too whacked.
Maybe the one who designed it that way thought he was being clever but he just made it needlessly complex. We should be able to select an artillery unit and see what it can attack, not select a target and then see what can reach it. Other games do it that way, and for a good reason. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
It's much more convoluted to figure out the optimal use of available strikes this way. I hope they change that in Case Blue. I really do.
I dunno.. I kinda liked being able to pick the target hex first, before allocating support in DCWtP. Once I figured out how the extra selection boxes worked on that interface, which lists all the air/artillery in range and lets you (de)select them, I could peruse them all without having to move around on the map to find them. Became quite handy.
My problem was that I might want to use those assets on something else. If I go ahead and blast the first good target, I may later discover something else that needs blasting even more.
IoW, I check a target and see that Artillery A, B, and C are all in range. I blast the target with A. Moving on, I check another target and discover that A was the only one in range, but I already used it. It would have been better to use B or C on the first target and save A for the second. It's difficult to make that determination now, without a lot of checking and rechecking. Does that make sense?
I'll try again at some point, but I just got back into PzC Smolensk '41.
For me it would be M1 Tank Platoon by Microprose.
Quote from: DV8 on April 25, 2012, 06:36:50 PM
For me it would be M1 Tank Platoon by Microprose.
That's a damn good choice too !
Quote from: MIGMaster on April 25, 2012, 07:46:47 PM
Quote from: DV8 on April 25, 2012, 06:36:50 PM
For me it would be M1 Tank Platoon by Microprose.
That's a damn good choice too !
A time when Brave Green polygons stood fast along the Fulda Gap and Sov armor was actually rendered in red. Oh, the memories... sometimes the OPFOR units would clip through the distant terrain accidentally and I'd see where they were grouping up. I decided on a house rule which stated that this was due to some old ex-Wehrmacht farmer passing on intel as the Sov or DDR armor rolled by.
Quote from: DV8 on April 25, 2012, 06:36:50 PM
For me it would be M1 Tank Platoon by Microprose.
Really? I can think of several MicroProse titles that were underappreciated but I would not have thought
M1 Tank Platoon was one of them. I played that game for many, many hours.
In December of 1991 Patton Strikes Back (http://www.erasmatazz.com/TheLibrary/JCGD/JCGDV5/PattonStrikesBack/PattonStrikesBack.html) was released. It was intended that it would attract new gamers to the wargaming genre. Unfortunately it failed to do so despite favorable reviews. Then in 1994, Panzer General was released and accomplished what Patton Strikes Back failed to do.
So I respectfully submit Patton Strikes Back as my nomination for an underappreciated game in this thread.
My favorite under-appreciated wargame was published by SSG, Russia - The Great War In The East.
You could assign roles, both high and low, to a competent AI. Or you could micro-manage to your heart's content.
I was on the Apple II (and the Commodore 64 as well), and that's why you don't hear of it much any more.
Impossible Creatures. Great idea. Didn't quite live up to its potential, but still a fun game. Didn't get nearly as much attention as it deserved. Had it, it probably would have had patches or a sequel to make it truly awesome.
Quote from: Staggerwing on April 25, 2012, 08:03:15 PM
Quote from: MIGMaster on April 25, 2012, 07:46:47 PM
Quote from: DV8 on April 25, 2012, 06:36:50 PM
For me it would be M1 Tank Platoon by Microprose.
That's a damn good choice too !
A time when Brave Green polygons stood fast along the Fulda Gap and Sov armor was actually rendered in red. Oh, the memories... sometimes the OPFOR units would clip through the distant terrain accidentally and I'd see where they were grouping up. I decided on a house rule which stated that this was due to some old ex-Wehrmacht farmer passing on intel as the Sov or DDR armor rolled by.
As with other longtime players I'm not sure I would count that as "underappreciated", but maybe it wasn't as popular as the Stealth Fighter and the Gunship games (all three of which I played the hell out of, both in their original C64 versions and in their PC semi-upgrades. Except M1TP wasn't ever for C64.)
Best M1 story (i.e. only one I recall all these years later): I'm defending with my platoon against an expected Sov advance, and so I enfilide my crew behind the ridge of a hill (all hills in this game are pyramids of various heights and base areas, btw) on the southwest side of the map, looking east out over the rest of the board for that mission. Massive visibility, with the M1 computer-adjusted aiming for the shells we literally cannot miss. Should be like shooting fish in a wide barrel. Total slaughter.
Whenever the Sovs get there anyway.
Whenever that is.
....waiting. Waiting. Dang, they're taking their time to form up and advance. Waiting.
...what the hell. Had I misread the intel or was it simply wrong this time? I'm scanning all over the place, shifting from tank to tank in case that makes any difference. Nothing at all on the map after 15 minutes.
Maybe I was the one who was supposed to attack?
Oh well. I back the northernmost tank off the edge of the hill, and crawl north to look over the northwestern ridge to plan my assault path, figuring since I'm already on the edge of the map I might as well exploit the safety of the map edge and work my
---MY GOD IT'S FULL OF TANKS!!!!
The Sovs had formed up, rolled to the western edge of the map under cover of some low rises to the north, and were slowly working their way up the hill. All 20 of them. Easily halfway up the hill by now. I hadn't had any infantry elements I could deploy as scouts, but honestly I had just neglected to even think about the possibility that the AI would be smart enough to do that.
Barely, BARELY got my boys rolled around in time, as the one tank who had discovered the encroaching threat blasted away heroically trying to slow down the advance.
Indeed an epic victory, but not the one I was expecting.
(Not quite as great as the day on C64 Gunship I was out tank hunting and got into a all-fire duel with a couple of Hinds, guns, hellfires, everything I had, they've knocked out my radar, I can't see the final Hind, can't find it, the thing pastes me point blank with its cannons, knocking off my rotor, and as I start to fall from the sky IT FLIES DIRECTLY UNDER ME!!! Which no doubt the pilot thought was excessively badass. The last few shells from my damaged 30mm cannon spacked it, and it hit the ground before I did.)
Take Command - 2nd Bull Run by Mad Minute Games - was a pretty nice game that did seem to pick up a cult following. I still play it now-and-again as good ACW games are as common as rocking horse poo!
Quote from: bob48 on April 30, 2012, 04:52:00 PM
Take Command - 2nd Bull Run by Mad Minute Games - was a pretty nice game that did seem to pick up a cult following. I still play it now-and-again as good ACW games are as common as rocking horse poo!
Within the wargaming community it was very well received. Unfortunately the great gamer public failed to catch on.
Quote from: LongBlade on April 30, 2012, 04:57:41 PM
Quote from: bob48 on April 30, 2012, 04:52:00 PM
Take Command - 2nd Bull Run by Mad Minute Games - was a pretty nice game that did seem to pick up a cult following. I still play it now-and-again as good ACW games are as common as rocking horse poo!
Within the wargaming community it was very well received. Unfortunately the great gamer public failed to catch on.
It was unfortunate. I already posted this on the first page of this thread but the successor to TC 2nd Bull Run, Scourge of War Gettysbrug, would also fall into this category.
S.P.A.Z. (Space Pirates and Zombies)
Hard to judge the quality or quantity of appreciation for this one, but I found it hit a sweet spot between satisfying top-down eye candy and actual space combat, exploration, and rpg elements (upgrading your ships). For a game I don't play more than 1/2hr to an hour at a time, it gets a lot of play.
I thought Armageddon Empires was one game that came to mind when I started reading this thread. It's a brilliant game that came and went far too fast, IMO.
The Take Command/SoW games are also excellent choices. Heck I own both of those and completely forgot I even had them until I started reading this thread! Now THAT is unappreciated!
I always thought the Gold Box Series of RPG's by SSI were under-appreciated for their time. I thought they were great and got better each new game released. But most of the praise I remember hearing about was for Wizardry and Ultima. Also I don't remember hearing alot at the time about the original Might and Magic, but it was the most open-ended world I've played in until Skyrim. My 2 cents.
I'll second the nod to Armageddon Empires.
And I'll also suggest The Guild. Had a lot of fun with that game, running a business and scheming to knock my rival out of city government and move up. The whole 'world' in that game just kept evolving around you, too.