[General Discussion] Games that are supposed to be really bad but you like

Yeah, it's a response to Eleo's thread. But just in the opposite direction.

There's probably alot of games that all the major review sites hated, but when you played it, you never really had a problem at all with it, and basically just ignored that the reviews said.

I probably only have one game at the moment.

Sonic Riders.

I like the idea of riding on other player's turbulance to catch up to them. It's like drafting, but it can curve. The air boarding idea was executed in an okay manner, and the new characters seem to fit right in. The extras in the game were good as far as unlocking NIGHTS, Aiai (from Super Monkey Ball), and Ulala (from Space Channel 5). And the variety of boards were good too.

Probably the only things I hated about it were the voice overs and the term "Extreme Gear".

If I could think of another game in my collection that everyone seems to hate, i'll post it up here. What's yours?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I really liked both Castlevania 64 games. I must've beaten the first one over 6 times with each character. I'm so mad i couldn't find a copy of Legacy of Darkness when it was still around. I wish i could play that game soooo badly nowadays. Here's hoping it's on Wii Virtual Console.

I also really loved Donkey Kong 64. The magnitude of the world was just stunning, and it was always fun. I can't think of a single time in that game when i wasn't having fun.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Grandia Xtreme comes to mind. I rarely if ever hear anything good about the game. I had no problems with it.
I believe the main reason people seem to hate it, is because it's a dungeon crawler with very little story, but that suited me just fine. I enjoyed the game.

I'm not entirely sure if it is considered a bad game or not, but I feel I must mention Suikoden III as well.
I honestly don't get why this game is received so badly by so many people... I dare go as far as saying that it's my favorite Suikoden so far. Everything in that game just rubbed me the right way. Characters, Music, Graphics, Story, and of course that you get to see things from multiple perspectives.

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I'll name a few that you could just consider "underdogs"...

Wizardry VIII -- Fantastic PC title that passed under the radar. I suggested it to a few folks but they loathed it. Not only is this game ridiculously hard, but the battles are long and unforgiving, monsters respawn, and there are NO safe zones. But god help me, I love this damn game.

Wizardry, Tales of the Forsaken Land -- A PS2 game that was largely not received well by the populace. It's a first person dungeon crawler, but it's not a hack-and-slash! You run into random battles and your party of six will have to deal with anything from one ginormous monster to literally dozens of enemies in rows. You would get these really REALLY nice battle skills if your characters were used to eachother. Things like Charge or Assisted Shot or what-not. I own this as well but I stopped playing it for some freakish reason... Each floor in the game takes maybe a couple to three hours if you're blindly feeling your way around. Lord knows that the Graveyard level took me a fucking eternity... Ten floors total and you constantly revisit previously unavailable paths or are handed shortcuts to previous floors or even the entrance. I really should bolt down and finish this... It may share the title of the predecessor, but JP Wizardry games play and look entirely different. But they're still awesome.

King's Field Trilogy -- 1, 2, and The Ancient City. Recently played 2 on emulator and crumbled to purchase tAC off ebay for surprisingly cheap. Last I looked a mint condition was $30-40 but I found one and paid for shipping for right around $12! Can't way to play it again. I had fond memories of this mindless hack & slash.

Painkiller -- wtf guys. Sure, it's mindless destruction, but the interesting weapons and sheer mayhem along with a nice (albeit early) game physics in play make opening a can of whupass very appealing. Far better than Doom 3, guys.

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Dead to Rights was the worst-reviewed game I ever played through. Despite its mediocre graphics, longwinded plot, and simplistic gameplay, I enjoyed it quite a bit. But it's not a "really bad" game. Just an average one, really. I generally don't even bother to start games with bad reviews.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Any Rampage game.

Every reviewer loves to give the franchise horrible reviews, claiming they're too repetitive. Well, they're absolutely right, but that's what the fans like about it. It's just too much fun smashing cities and eating people to care whether or not we have to do the same thing for hours on end. It's great being destructive.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Probably Evil Dead - Hail to the King. What a bad game, I finished it 'cause I'm an Evil Dead fan.

FELIPE NO

Just remembered another --

Sniper Elite.
Oh my fucking god. I started playing it and was all "lol what is this shit".

You are a sniper in the latter end of WWII. An American agent posing as a remnant SS soldier I believe. You go off on your own to do your mission. Bottom line is there are plans for an atomic bomb that the Germans have. The Ruskies are making a grab for it. This a fictional start to the Cold War. It's a nice length game.

Now the AI is just unforgiving. And the shooting physics are great. There is bullet-drop and as you play on higher difficulties, wind must be taken into account. Background noise can be used to muffle your shots (air raid or explosions), and you can bait enemies out by leaving wounded out in the open.

If you anchor down in one spot and go on a killing spree, the enemies will flank and kill you. You have a weapon of choice for close-combat (MP40, PPSh, etc) but you can't run-and-gun well. The main character's aim is a bit poor with those weapons.

The real fun I found later on lies in your equipment. The best freaking weapon ever in this is the tripwire. Jam down a grenade and tug out its pull string for as far as you need. Stake it down and bait enemies to make a patrol.

Once you master this game and learn all the tricks, oh my god is it cruel. Toward the end, I found out ways how to make enemies want to flank me, so I'd lay out tripwires. Or I'd bait them, and once I spot them patrolling, I'd position myself under cover and shoot the gas tank to a truck. Or snipe a stick of dynamite I had laid out.

This game is very hit or miss. The story is nice but the voice acting is fucking god-awful. I have some VERY fond memories of this game ;D Plus the bullet cam is badass. If you make a looooong shot and it lands a killing blow, it'll do a bullet-cam on a basis you specify (always, sometimes, never etc). It's sweet to make a shot to take out another sniper and see your bullet cause him to lose his left eye and gain some ventilation through the back of his head Very sweet game that most folks didn't care for. Which is unfortunate. But the background repeat, the music is nonexistent... It's just the sheer hell you can wreck once you get good that makes it fun.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Clayfighter games. I have a lot of fun mastering them. I also like playing as Boogerman and Earthworm Jim (n64 version.)

I also enjoyed Castlevania 64. Someone mentioned that earlier.

Killer 7. I just like the art direction. I don't own it personally but I want to finisht the game at some point.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I don't know if it counts or not, but I've had scores of people tell me how much they fucking hated Final Fantasy VIII - I still love it so far, though.

I also enjoyed Twisted Edge a lot.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I would have said FFVIII too, but the original poster said major review sites, and last I checked, pretty much all the major websites (IGN, etc) gave the game high scores. The only bad reviews I've seen came from the average joe.

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Oh. In which case my vote rests with Twisted Edge.

Actually, that reminds me - When I got my N64, my uncle picked up Cruis'n USA with it. I was probably too dim to realise just how bad the game was, but I couldn't help but love it seeing as I kept procrastinating buying Mario Kart.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

People always seem to dump on Majora's Mask, but I enjoyed it as much as, if not more than, Ocarina of Time. It wasn't the first Zelda game to do something other than the standard "resuce the princess" thing (Link's Awakening did it long before), but it was nice to see them try something different with the plot. Enough that I didn't even mind the fact that so many sprites and songs were re-used from OoT. Yeah, it could get a bit tedious having to re-stock your money and arrows every time you reset back to day 1. But I enjoyed the mask system, and having the days repeat made for some interesting side-quests (having to watch where certain characters were on certain days and catching that window of opportunity). The game deserves more credit than people give it.

I think I'm also the only person in the world who liked Total Annihilation: Kingdoms. Having unlimited resources let me have SO much fun building up massive armies and slowly wiping the enemy forces off the face of the map. And even the non-army-building levels tended to be very unique in their objectives. I remember one level forcing you to sail a ship around some guard towers, land on an island, build up an attack force as fast as possible, run them through a hellish gauntlet of an enemy base to rescue prisoners that were being executed one at a time, and help the prisoners escape back to the ships before too many of them died. Granted, the game had one of the most anti-climactic, random endings ever. But it was lots of fun up until then.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Galerians: Ash. It got pretty bad reviews, and a lot of people I know haven't even heard of it, but I really liked this game. I don't really know why I liked it as much as I did, but I definitely think it's better than what it gets credit for.

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Final Fantasy VIII, my favorite of the series. The game was praised by the major review sites, but pretty much everyone else hates this game. From what I can tell, the reasons people hate it are the same reasons why I like it (Draw and Junction System, Characters, World, Music, etc,.).

FELIPE NO

Chaos Legion comes to mind. Every game review gave it a mediocre score, but i find it to be awesome. The game focuses on one thing and one thing only: Hack and slash till your thumbs hurt and i think it pulls it of very well. And i might add that its got a killer soundtrack composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa. Last time i played it i maxed out all my stats and had major fun with Thanatos

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

The recently ported Astonishia Story on the PSP comes to mind. I got pretty addicted to it, actually. The characters are nothing if not entertaining at times, the special moves are cool, the sprites and environments are pretty well-detailed, and the story's not bad, albeit with some holes in the plot.

Overall though, I wouldn't have said for anyone to steer completely clear of the game, but that's what reviewers said to do.

How ya doing, buddy?

For me, I would have to say The Bouncer. As much as alot of people didn't like that game, I always found it to be quite fun despite it's shortness.

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Final Fantasy Mystic Quest. I adore that game. I don't know if it's the lack of freedom of movement, or if it's the ourageously simple plot that draws me to the game so much but I always end up replaying it on my simulator. Everyone always mocks me for it but I don't mind because I know it's an awful game by normal standards. It's like that old game Trog, for the NES. I wish we still had it, I loved those little dinosaurs.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by YoMan

Chaos Legion comes to mind. Every game review gave it a mediocre score, but i find it to be awesome. The game focuses on one thing and one thing only: Hack and slash till your thumbs hurt and i think it pulls it of very well. And i might add that its got a killer soundtrack composed by Hideyuki Fukasawa. Last time i played it i maxed out all my stats and had major fun with Thanatos

I fucking love Chaos Legion as well, but I never really thought people hated it. Most people have probably never played it, and it got average reviews for the most part, but I don't think anyone really hated it. But yeah, this is a great game, and I love it to death. The story, the graphics, the music, the gameplay, it's all great.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Helloween

I really liked both Castlevania 64 games. I must've beaten the first one over 6 times with each character. I'm so mad i couldn't find a copy of Legacy of Darkness when it was still around. I wish i could play that game soooo badly nowadays. Here's hoping it's on Wii Virtual Console.

Hell yes. I will give folks that only played the first two levels a hint: it gets better. (sup running through dracula's castle with a bomb . . . oh, and getting chased around by a chainsaw dude in a garden. Incredible games, both of them. And I still have copies of both!

And let's not forget the wonderful WONDERFUL Secret of Evermore. So much bashing on a game just because it's not Secret of Mana.

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Rengoku on PSP. No positive reviews can be found for that game. I say people never played the game to the end, missing what the game is really offering. I don,t say that you could have changed your mind about Rengoku (if it's about the repetitive bland level design), but the gameplay is really interesting and addictive for me. I can't wait to get Rengoku 2. I'll probably be the only owner of that game in North America. I feel special.

How ya doing, buddy?

Quote:

I fucking love Chaos Legion as well, but I never really thought people hated it. Most people have probably never played it, and it got average reviews for the most part, but I don't think anyone really hated it.

A little PR is always good

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Originally Posted by Freelance Wolf

Any Rampage game.

Every reviewer loves to give the franchise horrible reviews, claiming they're too repetitive. Well, they're absolutely right, but that's what the fans like about it. It's just too much fun smashing cities and eating people to care whether or not we have to do the same thing for hours on end. It's great being destructive.

I couldn't agree more. There isn't a single game in that franchise I haven't enjoyed immensely.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I'm sure I'll get ripped apart for this, but I have to say 'Catwoman'. 99% of the reviews were bad, but I still play through it. I like the fact that I get to control Halle Berry. Only opportunity I'll ever have to do that. Plus, I like the music in the game.

xman25

Jam it back in, in the dark.