You can also add WHAT YOU LIKED about those games.
Here we go:
James Cameron's Avatar
Old-ish third person action game, but gorgeous world.
Star Wars Outlaws
Tested on Ubi+, fantastic art-design and attention to detail, liked the updated stealth and world interactions. Good for non-serious, non-demanding gaming.
Days Gone
One of my favs. Unreal Engine 4 looks and runs beautifully.
Mass Effect Andromeda
Excellent graphics and exploration. Not a huge fan of originals so... had low / no expectations.
Medal of Honor Airborne
Tons of fun with airborne mechanics starting the map anywhere.
Resident Evil 5
Grinding for resources was damn fun.
Risen 2
Well, I liked it.
Thi4f
Wasn't that horrible.
War Mongrels
Weak reception, but it's one of my favs. Commandos-type of game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/954650/Druidstone_The_Secret_of_the_Menhir_Forest/
Great TBS game by the makers of Legend of Grimrock.
Imo misunderstood. You have several objectives in a mission some of which you can't complete the first time you go through. You can always turn back after upgrading and making your characters stronger and do the objectives then. Challenging and fun.
Prey had such a great start, it's just that the enemies were so... bleak.
The idea was good, but variety took a huge toll, like RE7 with it's "molded" BS.
Great new reboot of the franchise, spoiled with unimaginative and shitty enemies.
So I believe that Prey qualfies for me as a game that could have been way better not trying to depart so much from System Shock.
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." ~Berthold Auerbach
It totally depends. Some games have good grinding where your goals always feel achievable and not too distant, also you have a rough understanding how strong you'll become from it. Worse games have endless farming and you don't really know if the levels etc will make that much difference.
I second Storms statement for FPS/TPS/shooter games and grinding.
And add for me, usually the more grind the more I like a game. Hell some games I like are nothing but grind mechanics like Factorio, Satisfactory, ARK.
Hoarding resources I spend hours gathering just to make a thing that gathers MOAR resources for hours, makes my brain go BRRRR.
But then again I am 100% the embodiment of the coders creed be it work or personal code projects.: A coder will spend 4 hours programing something to be automated, to save 1 hour of work of doing it.
So spending a LOT of time doing a thing, to eventually spend no time doing that something but it still happens, is my game type to a tee.
Stormwolf - "Who cares about some racial stuff, certainly not the victims."
- Democracy Dies in Dumbness.
- Watching people my age grow from cynical youth who distrusts and dismisses the older generation, into cynical old people who distrusts and dismisses younger generations.
Elex 1.
Jank ass game, but exploration was so fun and it was a great example of a PB game, and showed they were still capable of making good games after all the shit they made after G2
Prey's unfortunate fate was shared by other similar quality immersive sims, with the sub-genre that as of today is struggling a lot (and it's a damned shame *shakes wrench* ). Another recent-ish case would be the System Shock Remake, which wasn't exactly endorsed by sites and its sales figures weren't great either, though it is a nearly flawless product and made the ol' fans happy.
There are games loved by ""critics"" that folks didn't appreciate as much, others that were rated poorly and ended up becoming cult classics, titles that did well on both counts but weren't hits, and so on. Using the snubbed by journos metrics, I'd say: Underrail, Pathologic 2, ELEX, Dex, Alpha Protocol (with mods), ATOM RPG + Trudograd, Death to Spies, Mirror's Edge Catalyst, etc.
As a designer / creative YOU should understand the value of beautifully crafted levels / environments and the appeal they have for someone who appreciates, analyses, learns from and enjoys such special bits in a videogame.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/427290/Vampyr/
Vampire "souls like" kind of game where choices mattered.
I loved the atmosphere and liked the gameplay as well.
+1 for Vampyr. The game was amazingly atmospheric, and the hidden "good" ending was beautiful.
My submission is probably "Remember Me", by DONTNOD, before they went all...well...you know...
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Star Wolves 1&3, I'd say even 2 although everyone seems to hate it. Mind you I haven't played it in a while so I don't know if I'd agree now or not. Anyway, they're pretty unique and neat little games.
Torment: Tides of Numenera. Fun little crpg, at least as far as I can remember.
The Age of Decadence - wonderful crpg with tons of issues, especially combat wise, but a variety of ways to play through it.
Stygian: Reign of the Old Ones - fell apart toward the end from what I remember, but I did enjoy it.
WORLD OF HORROR - Games like this make me depressed with where the gaming industry is, since you can do so much with so little.
I mean honestly I don't even feel like most of my games fit, since they're generally liked, but smaller and less knowns I guess. But I mean fuck ... people have Prey here, so at that point I guess they should be fine.
Takes about 4 hours to finish, non-stop point to point racing action from west coast to east coast at breakneck speed.
Always nice to replay every 2 years. No open world or driving in circles to waste your time.
Last edited by Shocktrooper on Wed, 23rd Jul 2025 03:13; edited 3 times in total
+1 on vampyr, the mechanic with the residents and how they affect the world depending on what you do with them was neat, so was atmosphere. Combat was serviceable and the end lacked choice and consequence but overall was a good time.
And you shouldn't. Terrible game. Only one from PB I've never finished.
I agree Vampyr was cool.
My underestimated games are SEVEN: The Days Long Gone (new-ish rpg where you level up with loot) and from the older stuff The Fall: Last Days of Gaia (Fallout clone from 2008).
Mass Effect Andromeda - maybe it's the worst in the series but it's still ME.
Forspoken - combat and traversal were really good.
Starfield - you can clearly see that idiots designed some parts of the game but in its core it's still a AAA Bethesda game (with bugs and all) which can be quite enjoyable.
Ghost Wire Tokyo - beautiful rendition of Tokyo, exploring the city and saving lost souls was fun, plus some creativity here and there.
Avowed - interesting world to explore, good gfx and sfx, overall not bad.
Assassin Creed Valhalla - best modern AC game, way better than Shadows imo.
As for the Prey, everyone is prasing it to heavens but I tried 3 times and always loose interest in couple of hours, something with art and enemy design is off putting me. Will try again at some point maybe this time I'll get hooked.
I realized in the last 10 years I am not playing games that aren't widely liked.... And only remember 2 games that were hated from games before that:
Ryse: Son of Rome - Loved this game. It was mostly disliked because of the repetitive combat, but it's not much different than Batman: Arkham Knight, just not that fast and didn't have all those gadgets and vehicles, of course. Tho a lot more brutal with cutting limbs. Graphics are great for a game from 2013, can still blow away many games today! I mean, just check this video! Maybe it has 4k mod but the textures are same.
Enclave - Old, old game from 2002. It had many issues - bugs, performance, balancing and mostly boring enemies. But it was my favorite RPG back then. At least before I started playing Gothic 2.
Forspoken.
I thought the gameplay was really good. Combat and traversal are unique and very well thought out. Good graphics too with HDR. Decent characters, decent story. yeah, I liked it a lot.
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). Another recent-ish case would be the System Shock Remake, which wasn't exactly endorsed by sites and its sales figures weren't great either, though it is a nearly flawless product and made the ol' fans happy.
