I’m talking about games that you still like but you had no idea were criticized so much.
The perfect example for me is Sonic Unleashed.
I admit that the game has its bad things, but I would have never imagined that it was so hated at the time… Although, that could be extended to the entire Sonic franchise, since for many years I was not aware at all of that “Sonic was never good”, “Sonic had a rough transition to 3D” nonsense.
Fallout 4. game was pretty decent but the pacing was weird. by pacing I mean the game seemed like it was set out in a way that you wouldn’t complete the game until you were many levels up from what I was, so many upgrades that took a lot of caps left unlockable, and by the time I felt I was really starting to get somewhere, the game ended with the Institute ending
Mass Effect: Andromeda - I knew 1 & 2 were held in high regard, but I hadn’t played them. Actually, I’d played about 10 minutes of one of them a couple years before and it just wasn’t what I was in the mood for at that time. So, I went into Andromeda without any expectations really and thought it was a perfectly fine game.
Just finishing about a new playthrough of Andromeda and I think it’s larger problem is that the good content doesn’t open up until a third of the way through the game. For the first third, you have very little to do except follow the Kett and the Angara storyline, and those are the absolute worst parts of the game.
It doesn’t actually get good until it opens up and you’re dealing with Outlaws, Collective, internal politics of the Nexus, the Krogan rebellion, etc… and your (admittedly pretty lame) companion quests. But at least it’s something more than just two new species that aren’t nearly as fleshed out or complete as what already existed.
By the time the game opens up and you can do more than just the main quest, you’re already friggin bored.
Watch Dogs 1. It was quite fun for me, but quite a lot of people expected it to create a spark like GTA 5 back in the day, so when it didn’t; they all criticized it to hell.
Same. I think “No Man’s Sky” syndrome turned people off, but I thought it was really innovative, and I liked the PC being broody and driven, but not dramatic.
Red Steel, actually. I’ll admit to having fun memories of it from when the Wii launched.
The original iteration of no mans sky. Absolutely lied a shit ton about what was in the game but I really enjoyed my initial time with it.
There was something about the infinite emptiness that struck an emotional chord with me. That’s gone now, for the better overall, but I’m glad I experienced it.
Deus Ex 2 - on PC.
Who told you this masterpiece of a game was bad?
Maybe they mean before the stealth rebalance.
Unironically ET on the Atari 2600
Had a lot of fun as a kid, sure it wasn’t Pitfall or F1 Racing but it was one of the few adventures on the 2600 and it wasn’t terrible
I am one of the 10 people on earth who really enjoyed playing Starfield. The space combat seemed like a love letter to the old Wing Commander series, the art design was beautiful, there was a lot of fun content. I think i made it to NG7 before they took it off the free to play. When it’s on sale i can’t wait to grab it.
by comparison i hated The Outer Worlds which was the first ‘it’s like fallout in space!’ that was promised so i was tickled when Starfield actually was like fallout in space.
Overall, I enjoyed my experience with Starfield. I just wish I didn’t spend half of my time trying to build the optimal bases for trading hubs. Apart from that, everything was good
The bases were interesting! Getting an interplanetary production system going took some figuring and i never got an inter-system network up. If the mod scene keeps going for it they sure have a lot to work with!
I really like it until I started having problems with what I think must have been save bloating, making it more and more difficult to save. Which in turn made me quite until a possible fix as I didn’t want to risk the save becoming unplayable.
Then I played other things and sort of forgot to check if it was fixed, but I still really liked the game.
I tried The Outer Worlds but couldn’t stand it.
Oooo now you have me interested in Starfield by comparing it to Wing Commander, damn you.
I loved Outer Worlds. Rough around the edges, sure, but it wasn’t much different than playing Fallout 3 in terms of gameplay. Also the setting made for some great satire. My only real complaint was the small maps. High hopes for the sequel.
I enjoyed it for a while, but the whole ng+, while pretty cool, really killed it for me. My first playthrough I made bases, upgraded weapons, etc. Then I learned about all the cool perks you got from ng+ and did that. The problem is you lose all your bases and material farms. So you’re in this weird spot of having to bum rush all 10 universes to get the maximum benefit before actually setting up any significant settlements. I burned out quick. Also a bunch of the powers are underwhelming, and space travel is DOGSHIT. NMS, elite dangerous, hell even star citizen are space games. Starfield is NOT.
None. I couldn’t care less about people hating the games I enjoy.
Killzone. I really, really loved the story and level design, but everything was shit. Someone pointed it out to me and I suddenly seen everything wrong with the game hahha.
There was this one glitch where the first shot from the Helghast rifle was 100% accurate which I used and abused to absolutely destroy people in multiplayer games.
There’s a lower budget game by Spiders called Technomancer that came out in 2016. It came up in my XBox game pass, so I played it before I read any reviews on it, and I honestly enjoyed the hell out of it.
I didn’t find the combat stilted. It felt quite fun to work between three different fighting styles. The storyline was interesting and (to me anyway) original. And the Universe was pretty fun to play around in.
I also quite enjoyed that one! Definitely a bit janky, but I had my fun for the price.
Holy shit someone else who played Technomancer and enjoyed it!
Very much so. I wish there was more in that world. The lore was really interesting to me. It’s not often you get a story set on Mars that actually has something unique about it.
I remember some people in Reddit not being too happy with It Takes Two.
We loved it and look forward to playing Split Fiction when we find the time.
My kids played this co-op and loved it
Seemed like a pretty solid coop game to me!
Loved playing It Takes Two with my wife, such a great game I wished they made another one. The more couch coop games the better.
Interestingly, the two example you shared (Sonic Unleashed and the whole Sonic franchise being bad) are likely a good example of “hanging with the bad crowd”. Unleashed is… not great, in my opinion, but the whole franchise? Please. We’re not talking Sonic06 level of horrible decisions.
Another view on this is, if you enjoy something, and people have to tell you it’s bad just so you know, it can’t be that bad. People enjoy different things, and seriously, the toxicity of large communities is the worst thing ever. At this point, even with what seems to be “unanimously loved”, you’ll be able to find a large enough group of people happy to tell you it’s shit.
With that said, some games are really, really bad. But these games usually don’t need to be pointed out for people to know.
edit: dang, that was full of typo.
Jumping on your last point, I was in a local Game store and a woman who clearly knew nothing about games was birthday shopping for her son, she asked the owner what if he thought Superman 64 would be a good gift.
To the man’s credit, in complete deadpan, he said “that game is absolutely terrible, it’s the worst game on the system”
“hanging with the bad crow"
That’s my favorite Sonic mission.
RuneScape 😅
The first Deus Ex game I played was Deus Ex: Invisible War on the original Xbox, which I loved. It’s the first foray into cyberpunk for me and sparked a love of it I’ve had since. It was not well received, and considered a dumbed down version of the original game.
Still love it. The Arcology in Cairo was my favorite part.
