Five underrated and underplayed PC games

[tyler811]

http://www.techspot.com/news/56797-five-underrated-and-underplayed-pc-games.html

 

[StinkyPinky]

I've played four of those games. Bioshock 2 is hardly under-rated, it reviewed well. It is the weakest of the three games imo

Fear 3 is ok, probably not as bad as some made it out to be but Fear is still the best in the series

Dragon Age 2 is a cookie cutter phone it in RPG. I wouldn't say it's bad, but by Bioware standards it should have been better.

Shadow Warrior was fun. I enjoyed it

 

[BSim500]

http://www.techspot.com/news/56797-five-underrated-and-underplayed-pc-games.html

Shadow Warrior was great fun. Bioshock 2 was OK. But Dragon Age 2 isn't remotely underrated. There's a very good reason why it got only 4.3/10 on Metacritic averaged over 3,900 votes... A shallow, ugly and tacky cash-in. In fact, it even has its own infamous "then and now" pic in terms of sheer dumbed-down-ness. :biggrin:

Edit : Personally, I'd swap those out with:-

Don't Starve - This deserves to be on due to the sheer amount of extra content added for free long after the game was finished. It's less "DLC" and more of a constantly evolving game where Klei devs actually listen to feedback and the "suggestion box". This game is now almost twice as large as it was when released and initially rated.

Hedgewars - A free modern Worms Armageddon clone compatible with the same WA voice packs and whacky weapons? What's not to like?

Of Orcs and Men - A neat twist on the usual RPG's - human bad, orcs & goblins good. Great dialogue & voicing. Combat wasn't perfect, but it wasn't as bad as some make out either. People downvoted it for not being like Diablo simply because it played more like Dragon Age / Neverwinter Nights where you'd "queue up" commands for the next 5-6 second long "real-time rounds", so combat came across as "slow and tactical" rather than "fast and arcady". If you like "slow and tactical" though, it's a great game.

Thief Deadly Shadows - It sure wasn't the pinnacle of Thief 1 or 2, but once you "de-uglified" the poorly scaled consolized HUD via ini tweaks, added the widescreen & FOV hack (for 1080p 16:9 support), etc, the plot itself was still good if only for "the Cradle" level. It got downvoted mainly for tiny level hubs to fit the XBox's 64MB limit.

Torchlight 2 - I had way more fun as an engineer in this than any char in Diablo 3. God knows what the latter's over-hype was about...

 

[PrincessFrosty]

LOL WHAT?

F3AR was easily the worst in the series, almost completely missing out on creepy horror and sticking to ridiculous action against mutants and all sorts of stupidness, it was almost entirely detatched from its horror roots that the original 2 games had. And for some perspective this is coming from someone who loved the original but found FEAR 2 which many other people disliked to actually be a damn good horror game.

Dragon Age 2 is completely shit, Dragon Age Origins was a masterpiece on an RPG, a real kick back to old PC RPGs like Baldurs gate, DA2 was dumbed down to embarrasement all for the sake of raking in some extra console sales and it was a quick cash grab, they completely sold out and that shows.

Shadow Warrior I actually agree with, I played that through recently and actually had a lot of fun playing it through, it was a great kickback to the old shooters we used to have which were just simple, big dumb fun, mindless killing and intense shootouts.

Never played Remember Me so can't comment on that.

Bioshock 2 was certainly not as good as the original, which is a masterpiece. It expanded on a lot of things but lacked the same punch to the story and twist, and really the sheer awe of seeing rapture for the first time. It's a decent enough game that probably got reviewed a little too harsh, worth playing for Bioshock fans for sure.

 

[AdamantC]

Fear 3 is not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It just wasn't a very good Fear game. Kind of like Deus Ex: Invisible war, which is a fine game on its own, but fails in every way possible as a sequel to Deus Ex.

 

[yepp]

Recently just finished Remember Me, one of a few games to give me goosebumps though mainly due to do the music during the buildup to the final boss, but still. People whine about the combat system but I loved it, can customise your combos for different effects, there's statergy invovled with fighting different mobs and which special attacks to use. Can't praise the art direction enough. Glad I followed my intuition and picked it up during the Steam sale, was a pleasant suprise after the panning it received by the critics.

 

[CPA]

Shadow Warrior was awesome!

 

[WiseUp216]

Shadow Warrior is criminally underrated. They did an amazing job with that game.

I would buy any DLC if it had any or a sequel the moment it went on sale.

 

[you2]

I didn't like Shadow warrior; i mean it wasn't horrible but honestly I thought it was over-rated not under-rated.

 

[mmntech]

Remember Me I think is still free on PS3 if you have PS+. I downloaded it a while ago but haven't gotten around to playing it.

 

[Chocu1a]

I picked up Shadow Warriors last week from the Humble Store for $10. So much fun & the dialog is hilarious. Hacking away with a katana is pure bliss.

 

[frozentundra123456]

The only 2 of those I have played are DA2 and Fear 3. I would call neither under-rated. Neither was perhaps a terrible game if they had stood on their own as kind of shallow, quick to play games, but neither came even close to living up to the standards of the original of the series.

 

[Fenixgoon]

Alpha Protocol. the game was *EXCELLENT*. a lot of people complained about bugs and poor AI scripting, but I encountered neither of those. graphically nothing too special, but the story was phenomenal.

 

[nageov3t]

Dragon Age 2 was fun if taken as a standalone game, and especially on console.

but I can see how people would go from DA1 to DA2 and be like "wtf is this shit?"

 

[JamesV]

Thief Deadly Shadows? Ugh that game stunk.

My five would be :

1. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Like Skyrim with an action games combat. Got panned, but I put forty hours into it, and will play it again sometime. End game was pretty easy if you min/maxed your character.

2. Prototype. Started on consoles, but on the PC, and one of the best sandbox games I've ever played. The movement around the city with running up walls, gliding, or simply stealing a military copter was fantastic. Got panned for graphics, but looks awesome in a huge battle scene with tanks, helicopters, and multiple varieties of infected fighting it out. Could be very hard also; which I loved.

3. The Saboteur. Another port, like GTA WW2 with a focus on explosives and destroying Nazi everything (thousands of things). Cool graphic effect of going to grey-scale when in Nazi controlled areas except for red. Great game, and even has an official nude patch (you start in a burlesque house).

4. Defender's Quest. An indie tower defense game, but instead of towers, you place characters like archers, mages, and fighters. Done in a pixel style, so not much graphically, but a pretty damn good tower defense game, even though it requires some grinding late game.

5. Spectromancer. A fantasy card-strategy game with a lot of depth. Pretty simple graphics, but challenging and interesting. Could use more cards though.

 

[QuantumPion]

Dragon Age 2 is completely shit, Dragon Age Origins was a masterpiece on an RPG, a real kick back to old PC RPGs like Baldurs gate, DA2 was dumbed down to embarrasement all for the sake of raking in some extra console sales and it was a quick cash grab, they completely sold out and that shows.

I think Dragon Age Origins is way overrated. And while DA2 was rushed and wasn't great, it is underrated because it is no where near as bad as the hatetrolls make it out to be. The combat and loot was far more intricate and interesting than DA:O was. DA:O had a mundane plot with essentially no loot and a extremely simple skill system. The only thing it had going for it was that it was long and had a lot of dialogue. DA:O is in no way comparable to the old classic RPG's like BG2. It doesn't even compare to NWN2 which was the last really great RPG to come out.

 

[WiseUp216]

4. Defender's Quest. An indie tower defense game, but instead of towers, you place characters like archers, mages, and fighters. Done in a pixel style, so not much graphically, but a pretty damn good tower defense game, even though it requires some grinding late game.

Great game. I think I read recently that a sequel is in process.

 

[BFG10K]

I loved Bioshock 2 as much as the first game (I didn't think the third was that great). Fear 3 was a good game too, better than 2, but not as good as the original.

 

[ThinClient]

Whomever wrote this article has proven that they not only know nothing about video games, but know nothing about the video game community. What a failure of an article.

 

[norseamd]

what about darkstone

 

[Raduque]

I loved Bioshock 2 as much as the first game (I didn't think the third was that great). Fear 3 was a good game too, better than 2, but not as good as the original.

Bioshock 2 was OK, but the first one and Infinite are both better, IMO.

F3EAR shouldn't even have the FEAR name. It's kind of bad, and Project Origin is 3 times the game F3EAR is.

 

[shortylickens]

Thats a deliberately shitty article designed to generate hits.
NONE of those games is underrated or underplayed.

 

[AdamantC]

Alpha Protocol. the game was *EXCELLENT*. a lot of people complained about bugs and poor AI scripting, but I encountered neither of those. graphically nothing too special, but the story was phenomenal.

AP really is a lost gem. It has some of the best written dialogue I've heard in just about any form of media. Even people you might have one conversation with are extremely well done.

1. Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Like Skyrim with an action games combat. Got panned, but I put forty hours into it, and will play it again sometime. End game was pretty easy if you min/maxed your character.

Picked this up last month on a Steam sale and I've put about 60 hours into. Hopefully a decent studio will pick up the IP.

I'd also like to throw in Shadow Man. It has great atmosphere, characters, story and setting. Shame the second game only came out on the Playstation 2 on one of those God awful PS2 CDs. Even my silver slim PS2 throws a hissy fit trying to read it.

Another truly lost gem is Doom 64. The sound track and atmosphere are wonderfully creepy. And yes you can play it on PC with proper controls. Either get Doom 64 Absolution (which is a fan recreation and requires a Doom 2 WAD) or Doom 64 EX (which creates the needed resources directly from a Doom 64 rom, which you need to provide yourself for obvious legal reasons).

 

[you2]

I really enjoyed Alpha Protocol; played it not so long ago. No clue why it didnt' receive much love - maybe it was buggy when first released ?

Alpha Protocol. the game was *EXCELLENT*. a lot of people complained about bugs and poor AI scripting, but I encountered neither of those. graphically nothing too special, but the story was phenomenal.

 

[Harrod]

I thought that singularity was underrated, seemed like one of the closest things to a half life game since they don't seem to be updating them lately.