Underrated games!

[Gungadin]

List some of the world's most underrated PC games and the reasons they're good.

 

Most underrated of all: Planescape: Torment, from Black Isle software.

PST is a thinking mans RPG, and that is exactly why it never became as famous as the tremendously ass-suckedy Baldurs Gate series. Containing a brilliant story and deep characters, there was simply too much text to read for the average 14 year old gaming nerd who'd most of all love to see Doom 26 with naked boobs.

 

Also very underrated: Shadow Watch: Best described as a simpler version of Jagged Alliance mixed with Rainbow Six, you take command of a crack team of specialists in their quest to combat terrorist threats to the International Space Station under construction. Board-game style movement and surprisingly hectic firefights have made this one of my favourite "light" strategy games. Download from Underdogs, but you really gotta get the un-ripped version somewhere due to the brilliant atmospheric music: https://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=5252

 

Underrated RPG: Anachronox. Picture "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" as a console-style RPG, with the same kind of zany characters, galactic gameworld and humour and you have Anachronox. My guess is that Anachronox never became a hit because it is BUGGY as hell until you patch it, but after that, it's pure enjoyment in a beautiful gaming environment on many different planets.

 

Best multiplayer shooter: SOLDAT! If you mix worms with Counterstrike, you get Soldat, except it's better developed and heaps more fun than either of those games. And it's a FREE download for unlimited online shootouts. Get it today: https://www.soldat.prv.pl/

 

Most underrated Diablo Clone: Divinty Divinity, a great blend of Diablo-style gameplay and Baldurs Gate style quests. Hard battles and a decent story. Avoid the sequel though, as it's dreadful.

 

Most underrated Heroes of Might and Magic clone: Age of Wonders. Has heroes, tons of creatures, more spells, is easily moddable and a good economy system. Recommended for anyone who liked Heroes.

 

Most underrated First-person shooter: XIII. Similar to NOLF in execution and style, XIII has great firefights, great sneaking and the story from the comic books of the same name. Bad point: David Duchovny of X-Files fame voices the main character.

 

The best gaming experiences are rarely found in the most well-known commercial titles. What are your underrated games?

[Azrael Strife]

I agree totally that Planescape is very underrated, and yet is superior in almost every aspect to Baldur's Gate I and II, the riddles are intelligent and the story is very deep and completely well thought of, absolutely outstanding game.

I've played Divine Divinity and read on a magazine exactly what you said, that despite being superior to Diablo, it was extremely underrated, mainly because of lack of publicity. I have to agree with it, played Diablo and the game sucks, simple as that, it's as mindless as a FPS like Doom but in RPG form, where the "role playing" is, I don't know. That game is very nice

[Kizmiaz]

SAGA: Rage of the Vikings from Cryo. The only RTS that involves genealogy AFAIK.

Desperados: Wanted Dead or Alive from Spellbound. Why do I love this game when I hated Commandos? The Western setting or the humour? I can't say.

[FullAuto]

Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia. Both well-rated by the critics, but didn't sell particularly well and didn't seem to garner much interest with a lot of gamers.

Shame really, because they're both excellent.

[Blehm 98]

I personally think that aftershock and aftermath need this, they got very little publicity, not being major games, despite how good they are

 

i don't know if you guys agree, but i think it belongs here

[Azrael Strife]

Beyond Good and Evil and Prince of Persia.  Both well-rated by the critics, but didn't sell particularly well and didn't seem to garner much interest with a lot of gamers.

Shame really, because they're both excellent.

OMG, Beyond Good & Evil was amazing! Too bad I had a problem with the game and it would crash always on the same part at the beginning, but the few parts I could play were hinting of an excellent game, I should get it again and try if I could play it.

I remember SAGA; I played it ages ago, though didn't particularly like it, but was too long ago to remember it clearly

[Gungadin]

More underrated games:

 

Arcanum: VERY, VERY underrated game! Despite being made by the same team that brought you Fallout, Arcanum was never much of a financial success. It is, however, an excellent RPG with a game engine that's nearly as good as that of Fallout. The setting is basically Shadowrun -200 years, in a fantasy setting where the industrial revolution has just set in motion and the magic and mysteries of the past are being pressured by steam engines, railways and mass production. Great setting, great story, only weak side is that the combat system, which you can set to either turn-based or real-time, is easily exploitable. Best part of the game is deciding what kind of character to play and whether to align yourself with the forces of magic or technology, since the two can't coexist very well. (A high-magic character cannot ride the railway since his magic interferes with the engines for instance, and a technologist will get thrown out of magic shops.) A game nearly as good as Fallout, and with extra customization options, like being able to construct sophisticated machines, weapons and drugs from raw materials. 9/10

 

Throne of Darkness: A game that can best be described as Diablo 2 meets Squad-based game, you take control of a team of seven (hah!) feudal samurai in their quest to beat back the demonic forces that have invaded Japan. Features tactical squad development, deciding what role each of the seven samurai should fill, squad tactical hack-n-slash combat and a nifty Japanese atmosphere, complete with Oni and some historical figures. Miyamoto Musashi is one of the playable characters. The best thing about the game is the smithing system. In Diablo 2, when your slain foe dropped, say, a normal dagger, you ignored it and moved on. In ToD, you pick it up, hit B and give it to your blacksmith, who operates a kind of online-smithing shop. After giving enough weapons to the blacksmith for raw materials, he can make you better and niftier weapons and armour. This scavenging part of the game is great fun, and you have to decide with yourself whether to spend your accumulated gold and material points to forge that new tetsu-bo for your sumo wrestler to wield or to make a new breastplate for your swordsman. There are weak points however: There's a long time between the various kinds of enemies (most of them are just reskins) and the skill system is bad, operating pretty much like Diablo 2, with passive skills and active magic skills being selected and fired with the RMB. However, you pretty much have to control your spell-wielding samurai manually, since they can't seem to use magic intelligently. Many are the times my wizard had to default to his katana after burning all his mana throwing lightning bolts at a tiny Oni. Still, very action-packed and entertaining game.

Emperor of the Fading Suns: A civilization clone at first glance, but really so much more, EOTFS is a game that COULD have been a classic but was boggled down with a bad interface and several game-breaking bugs. Some features implemented in the game were never finished. Take control of one of four noble Dune-style houses and fight across the galaxy with diplomacy and trickery as well as spaceships and lasers to become the Emperor of the Fading Suns. Features a great diplomacy system as well as the option to become elected as emperor by threatening the other houses into voting for you. Also features a great science system. In the EOTFS universe, the Intergalactic Church keeps a sharp eye on your research progress to ensure you aren't researching banned technologies such as cloning and bioweapons, and should you get discovered researching such technologies you will be visited by Inquisitors on a mission to burn down your science labs, making research an interesting balancing between researching the technologies you need to survive and not pissing off the Church too much.

 

Sadly, with all these good things, there are BUGS! Some features don't work but seem to merely "be there", such as the alien Vau race, which was supposed to be an important presence in the game, but in reality just sits there and resists if you try to take their planets. The diplomacy with t he Church is broken as well, as is the irritating bug with your troops starving to death on the Imperial planet if not micromanaged with food supplies. Still, the game is freeware these days, and there's a small modding community trying to make up for the foolish mistakes of the game developers. Get it from the Underdogs.

 

The Diskword series: While not all that Pratchettesque, this series of games is still highly entertaining and features Rincewind. If you enjoy zany British humour, you get the two first games, if you enjoy film-noir atmosphere and movies like The Maltese Falcon, you play Discworld Noir, the third game in the series. Each one is very professionally made and recommended.

 

Cavewars: CAVEWARS. IS. THE. BEST. STRATEGY. GAME. EVER. Taking control of one of eight races fighting for control of a vast complex of caverns, you have to research new weapons, burn down enemy cities and found new ones, throw VAST numbers of your own population before the enemy guns as cannon fodder, summon demons to fight the enemy and cast spells to harrass your enemy. I love this game with my whole body, including my peepee, and the greatest regret in my life is that I can't seem to play my version anymore. For anyone interested, this is also gettable on Underdogs, although it takes a better hand at dos emulation than mine to be playable.

[Matri]

Metal Fatigue. Who doesn't love giant robots, c'mon!

[Rezed]

AS for those Fadding suns The game is preaty good, but that damn inquisition started burning my labs

 

Oh, and its based on a P&P RPG game

 

Metal Fatigue- So bad it was overlooken by so many...Such a wonderful game...

 

Did you heard about Enemy Nations?

Played demo a bit time ago...It never got released although there are full versions haunting the dark reaches of internet

[Gungadin]

I played Enemy Nations. It used to be freeware but is now strangely commercial once again. Hmm.

Anyway, it's not that good. Inferior control system, irritating music and unsuitable graphics.

No, if you want a real kickass RTS experience, get Krush Kill n' Destroy, called KKND. In a world destroyed by nuclear warfare, take control of the lucky humans who reached the atomic shelters or the radiated, deformed mutants who didn't and fight for control of the surface world. Use tanks, Mad Max motorbikes and cars an front line infantry as the humans or huge mutated warbeasts bred by the mutats. Also available for download from Underdogs.

[Matri]

Hostile Waters. AKA Antaeus Rising.

 

Kinda like Sacrifice, but with tanks and helicopters and giant guns. And the SoulCatcher chips. Yes, your men are dead but they're coming back from the dead to cuss you out some more

My favourite SoulCatcher is Ransom

 

Made by now-defunct Rage Interactive. List of credits include Tom Baker, Paul Darrow and Glynis Barber.

[Ki-tat Chung]

Metal Marines. Wonderful game. Too bad its 16bit. lags like anything, even on a good computer. check it out!

https://www.the-underdogs.org/game.php?id=2095

[Kernel]

Hostile Waters. AKA Antaeus Rising.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I definatly agree with you there.

Top notch graphics when it was released, and some of the most hilarious comments made by your usits in any strategy game I've played.

The way your units replied to each other when one of them made a comment had me laughing so hard I almost fell off my chair.

 

"Target down"

"Nice work"

"Thank you"

 

 

"I'm in trouble here"

"Ok, don't get your panties in a twist"

 

"Paten here!, I'm a soldier, not a nurse"

 

"You call THAT a gun?"

 

I loved the stealth buggy the best. That thing was FAST!!!

[Matri]

Heh, Patton gripes a lot, doesn't he?

 

"Son, ah drive TANKS"

"You call that a gun?"

 

I have to ask though, does the Phoenix (Heavy Chopper) carry double weapons like the other heavies? Because mine doesn't.

[Kernel]

Couldn't you just load the vehicles with whatever weapons/armour/stuff you wanted?

It's been a while since I played it last so I can't really remember.

 

Was trying to to remember the names of the characters the other day.

But I could only remember 3 of them:

Paten, koralev, Croker

[NKF]

I'd like to put in the Battlezone games, I and II. I don't see them as being particularly overrated games - as they haven't picked up the same sort of fanbase or widespread popularity as other games like Starcraft, just to name a random example.

 

Rarely have I played a game (or games) where I wanted to pilot one of the least glorious of vehicles, like the mobile turrets (Badger/Paq/Rattler/Guardian - all of which require you to secure youself to the ground before your guns operate) or a plain vanilla scout just to command my fleet from it rather than jump into the biggest tank there is and lead the assault head on - not that you can't do that either, mind you!

 

Unlike most peon pumper games, pumping out hundreds of chaff units or really powerful units and overrunning your enemy's base doesn't always work. It might work for a few moments, but then bam, your forces are decimated by a rather pathetic selection of units and defence towers (of which even a few are lethal). Mind you, it's easy to exploit weaknesses in the AI, and the AI in the battlezone games aren't particularly up to par except when scripted.

 

I tell you, the mortar bike in BZone II is my absolute favourite vehicle in the entire series - I really wish there was an equivalent in the original. It's so fast and agile that if you have it fire its thrusters against the pull of gravity, you actually launch yourself into the air - and keep increasing in altitude. I don't particularly care for the Titan or the Attilla - they're just brute force with not much charm or style to them. They're awesome machines - but they're not as much fun to ride as the mortarbike. I mean, even when playing as the Scions, I scrap whatever I'm riding just to jump into a hijacked mortarbike whenever possible. Talk about obsession...

 

---

 

Another game I'd like to toss in: Interstate 76. It's a game that came out circa the DirectX 2.0 - 3.0 days.

 

I think the description "Wing Commander, on wheels" describes it the best, but it's 70's period settings, tunes and vocabulary, vintage cars and bad polygon graphics. Mind you, the polygon graphics were done that way on purpose, by the look of it, and they succeeded at pulling it off quite well. It makes the characters a bit more toony, but that's really not a problem. All these combinations are just wrong, but for some reason, they... well, they work well together.

 

If you can get the installer to install the stupid thing (the installer's rather unstable), and then upgrade the original's engine when installing I'76 Nitropack add-on, the game is simply gorgeous, despite the outdate looking graphics. The missions can be a bit of a pain to complete, but sometimes you can derive a lot of fun by simply cruising along the roads. An analogue joystick (2/4-buttons 2-axis flight stick for example) or wheel is a must have to fully enjoy this game.

 

The Nitropack sequel is more of a prequel than a sequel, as it gives you a set of missions that details what happens to the original gang of heroes before the events in I'76, i.e. before the main hero, Groove Champion, is even introduced - plus it gives a graphics engine upgrade. My only comment is that it appears to reduce the effectiveness of a few of the weapons, but otherwise, a worthy instalment if you want more of the same.

 

edit: One thing did come to mind, as the game is both a driving simulator and a car-with-guns-bolted-on-top simulator, die hard manual stick shift freaks aren't going to like the fact that the game only has automatic shifting. Oh there's the usual, park break, neutral, drive and drive gears 1 and 2, but that's it. Mind you, you're going to spend a lot of time watching your instruments and possibly even using the follow camera or even looking out the side window to fire your pistol, so it's sensible that driving should be as simple as possible. Alas, you can't please everyone.

 

- NKF

[Matri]

Couldn't you just load the vehicles with whatever weapons/armour/stuff you wanted?

It's been a while since I played it last so I can't really remember.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No no, the heavy variants of your vehicles doubles whatever weapon you put on. Except my heavy chopper doesn't.

 

Was trying to to remember the names of the characters the other day.

But I could only remember 3 of them:

Paten, koralev, Croker

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Korolev, Patton, Borden, Kroker, Ransom (my favourite), Madsen (my other favourite), Lazare, Sinclair, and... that other guy. Black dude, only get him from the second last mission on so he's pretty useless since all your other guys are waaaaay more experience than him.

[Mouse Nightshirt]

Sorry for reviving this thread, but there is a game that is so incredibly underplayer and underrated by the public, that I have to tell you all of its wonderful, magical gift to the gaming community. As I said to the box once: "I will put you on my mantlepiece to show to the world your wonderful and magical gift." I didn't actually say that, but anyway. *ahem*

 

The game is called Ascendancy, and it's by The Logic Factory. It's a turn-based space strategy game. You start off as one of about a dozen alien species, and your goal is to basically take over the entire galaxy.

 

One of the defining things in the game was you wouldn't just turn out ships, all ships were fully customizable, from hull size to components inside. Want a super strong battleship? Then fit it out with top of the range weaponary and enough power generators to satisfy a planet. Want a speedy scout ship? Then fit it with half a dozen engines.

 

Planets were managed in a nodal base management, similar to X-Com UFO in a way. You had your main colony, and everything spread out from there. There were about a dozen different types of planets, all in various sizes.

 

The game was an extremely well executed masterpiece, the only flaw being an absolutely atrocious AI in the first version. A patch was released to fix that, and although it was a vast improvement, sometimes it was a bit too easy.

 

However, it's a game that you could play for months - if every game setting was orientated around a long game (Extra large, super dense galaxy), games could outlast your children.

 

The Logic Factory is now working on Ascendancy 2 (or so they say on their extremely rarely updated website - maybe once every few months, but Ascendancy 2 had popped up last I checked).

 

You can get Ascendancy on eBay for dirt cheap, but you'll need to rely on DOS emulators, because the game doesn't work in XP.

[Gungadin]

Yeah, ascendancy is a pretty good space constructor sim. Too bad about the interface though - I find it becomes hard to manage with many planets and ships. The music is excellent though.

 

You can get it for free from Underdogs however.

[Azrael Strife]

I love Ascendancy, one of my fav. strategy games, too bad the AI is dumb as a brick.

[Toey]

Combat Mission - cool game

 

Steel Panthers - World at War - Free game, and great atmosphere. Ambient sounds, etc. Cool.

 

Medieval Total War - again, a game I spent many many hours playing.

 

Silent Storm and Sentinals.

[Gungadin]

Two highly underrated adventure games I just snagged off Ebay:

 

Runaway - A Road Adventure. - From 2004.

 

The game that will make tears come to the eyes of anybody nostalgic about the adventure games of olden times, the ones Lucasarts used to make before losing its soul and sense of humour. Runaway is a cartoon adventure with graphics very remniscent of an improved Monkey Island 3, with extra 3-D spiffiness to boot. Gameplay is in the same vein as the MI series - visit exotic locales, hunt for items and solve logical puzzles, you know the drill. Runaway's puzzles are both entertaining, often original and charming.

Runaway has a lot going for it. To summarize, it has:

 

1) Excellent voice acting all around, especially in the case of the hitman duo Gustav and Feodor who chase the main character throughout the game.

 

2) Excellent cartoon graphics

 

3) Good soundtrack, fitting the game perfectly.

 

4) A storyline that's actually interesting and, most importantly, NO PLOT HOLES TO SPEAK OF, something very rare in indie-adventure games. The script and dialogue is well written and well played out, and it often feels just like watching a good movie.

 

5) An excellent ensemble of characters, including but not limited to: Fugitive Strippers, European gangsters, doped-up rastafarians, blonde hackers, Hispanic voodoo priestesses, former pro-athletes turned drag-queens and many more. All the characters in the game work.

 

Bad points:

 

1) Has some pixel-hunting. I spent an hour looking around for some way to polish a statue, only to give up and look in the walkthrough, discovering that the sanding block was right next to a door opening I'd passed through a million times without noticing the tiny block on the ground.

 

2) Isn't that long. It's a bit longer than Full Throttle, and that's it. It's all awesome though.

 

For anyone who longs for old-style adventure games, Runaway - A Road Adventure is a must buy. Where Monkey Island 3 is a 10, Runaway is a 9, maybe a 9.5.

 

https://www.pendulostudios.com/runaway/eng_index.htm

 

Second game:

 

Faust - Seven Games of the Soul - From 1999

 

While Runaway is mainly light-hearted and with bright graphics, Faust is the opposite both in mood and graphics. The story revolves around an old man, Marcellus Faust, who, for reasons unapparent at first, is commisioned by Mephisto to be the judge of the lives of seven people living inside the amusement park of Dreamland in various periods of the 20th century, thus settling the dispute Mephisto has with "The Boss" about whether their souls go up. Or down. The game is divided into seven chapters, one for each case and each one devoted to a specific Deadly Sin.

This is a very weird premise. And the game is also very weird. Played from a 360 degree rotational first person perspective, Faust must visit the places where the people to be judged lived and died, trying to piece together the nature of their lives, their deaths and the sins involved.

 

Faust reminds me in many ways of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - both are journeys into the depths of human depravity and feature a kind of dull horror from start till finish. Faust is infinitely weirder though, even stranger than Sanitarium. Sometimes, you're transported to a new scene without explaining why, leaving you a bit confused, and some of the puzzles make little sense. For instance, in one scene, the way to activate a cutscene was to fix a flickering projector. The projector played no part in the actual cutscene, making the player wonder why it should be fixed at all.

 

The game works however. The story is interesting for anyone who enjoys surrealistic computer gaming and is constantly surprising, Mephisto himself who guides you through the various cases is excellently voiced and animated, looking part suave gentleman and part feral beast, and the premise is sufficiently interested to make you keep playing. It's bloody hard though - I've had to resort to a walkthrough in the case of some of the more illogical puzzles.

 

Highly recommended for fans of bizarre horror adventure games. Fans of Sanitarium should feel right at home.

[Gungadin]

Another underrated game, a FPS this time

 

Requiem - Avenging Angel.

 

Is your favourite parts of the Good Book the ones where The Lord lays the smackdown on heathens with fire, brimstone and RPG rockets? If so, Requiem should be right up your alley. The story: Earth is in turmoil with demonically posessed world leaders trying to bring about armageddon. To prevent this, Heaven sends Malachi, a swearing, mohawk-sporting angel with a badass attitude and an affinity for firearms, to save the day.

After arriving on earth after a grueling trek through Purgatory, Malachi is weak as a kitten, unarmed and has been stripped of his angelic powers. He must now try to team up with the human resistance fighters and fight the evil plans of the demonic government.

Over the course of the game, Malachi will find many different weapons. Pretty standard fare actually: Pistols, shotguns, SMG's, rocket launchers, railguns, you know the drill. What's more interesting are the various angelic powers he will recover as the game progresses. Being quite similar to Jedi Knight's force powers with a biblical twist, these are some of the more entertaining aspects of the game, letting Malachi call down plagues of locusts, turn his opponent into pillars of salt, throw bolts of divine lightning, fly using his angelic wins etc. Very Old Testament.

 

Graphics are bad by todays standards, but Requiem gets props from me for allowing me to play a Servant of God not above roaring "Motherf*cker"

[OfficerDonNZ]

Most underrated of all: Planescape: Torment, from Black Isle software.

PST is a thinking mans RPG, and that is exactly why it never became as famous as the tremendously ass-suckedy Baldurs Gate series. Containing a brilliant story and deep characters, there was simply too much text to read for the average 14 year old gaming nerd who'd most of all love to see Doom 26 with naked boobs.

 

Ok I think I must be one of the few people on the face of the planet who actually hates this game. On the flip side I love Baldur's Gate II I still have it on my HDD even though I haven't played it in ages. Anyways back to PS:T I got a copy becuse I'd heard how good it was and you know know what? I hated it no end! LOL. I didn't care for the story, I didn't care about the nameless git you have to play and I certaily didn't care for the rest of the party. And no I'm not 14 I'm over twice that age.

 

To keep this on topic most underrated RTS I've come across would have to be SpellForce: The Order of Dawn and it's addons Breath of Winter and Shadow of the Phoenix.