Games You Feel Were Under-rated?

I'm sure that there's been times where we've been told a game is "complete garbage" and is "not worth playing" for some reason. Me, I've got my own.




In the entire series of Tomb Raider games, this is generally considered by many to be the series' worst game. It was rushed released after being delayed many times due to either problems with development and such. In the end, the game suffered from bugs/glitches, and a broken storyline.
When I bought this game, I was told flat out by the guy at Gamestop that this game was bad. When I first played it, I understood why. The controls are defintely glitchy. But after a while, I got used to them.

The storyline, when pieced together with what remains in-game and outside (BETA forms, press packets, etc.) in a massively entertaining piece of story-telling.


(From Wikipedia.org)

Accused of the murder of her one-time mentor, Werner Von Croy, Lara is forced into hiding. Following notes written in a journal by Von Croy, Lara races to recover five hidden paintings before a secret organisation whose ultimate goal is world domination and immortality with the assistance of an ancient biblical race known as the Nephilim.

Pieter Van Eckhardt is the main villain of Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness. A normal 15th century alchemist, he was contacted later in his mortal life by the Nephilim and entered a blood pact with them in exchange for immortality, and was tasked with the creation of a powerful weapon known as the Sanglyph (literally 'blood-sign'). To keep the Sanglyph safe, Eckhardt split it into five pieces and hid each piece behind five paintings he created depicting evil imagery.

As time went on, Eckhardt grew ever more evil and powerful, and eventually form a group known as the Cabal, four individuals who all shared the same desire for immortality. To attain this immortality, the Cabal prepared to resurrect an extinct race known as the Nephilim (the product of relationships held between fallen angels and humans). Eckhardt believed that by using the Nephilim he would attain immortality and, in the end, dominate over all. However, an order that splintered off of the Knights Templar in the 15th century called the Lux Veritatis (Latin for 'Light of Truth') were able to put a halt on Eckhardt's plans. The Lux Veritatis acquired three ancient weapons of light called the Periapt Shards and, led by Brother Obscura, used them to seal Eckhardt in a deep pit. The seal on Eckhardt would only last if the three Periapt shards were combined. Brother Obscura then confiscated the five paintings that contained the pieces of the Sanglyph, and painted over the previous images of evil with new religious images. These were hidden throughout Europe in locations known only to the Lux Veritatis, and were christened the Obscura Paintings. A copy was made of each, referred to as the Obscura Engravings, with each engraving containing an encoded map to the location of the original painting.

In 1945, something happened and one of the shards became separated from the other two. Eckhardt escaped the pit and vowed revenge against the Lux Veritatis, then revived the Cabal basing it out of Prague. The new Cabal became devoted to hunting down any members of the Lux Veritatis. Eckhardt also managed to obtain the Periapt from the Lux Veritatis. He hid these shards in his old laboratory, deep underground beneath the Strahov, the headquarters of the Cabal. Eckhardt and the Cabal set out to reclaim the five Obscura paintings, in order to acquire the Sanglyph. By the time Lara became involved in the plot, the Cabal had already attained three of the five paintings. Eckhardt then hired Werner Von Croy to find the last two; Von Croy did learn of the location of the fourth painting beneath the Louvre from the Obscura engravings, but he never informed Eckhardt. Von Croy then asked for Lara Croft to assist in finding the paintings, shortly before his murder.

The Sanglyph whose five pieces are hidden behind the Obscura paintings and gives the bearer immense powersLara found the two remaining paintings in Paris and Prague, though Eckhardt reclaimed from her before retreating to his old laboratory, where he started reviving the Nephilim race. The Cabal had retrieved the last Nephilim specimen from Turkey: a Nephilim body which had been named "the Sleeper". During the final confrontation with Lara, Eckhardt starts the process of reviving the Sleeper. He battles Lara using the Sanglyph, but he is eventually killed by Karel, his right-hand man, who stabs Eckhardt with the third Periapt Shard. Karel revealed himself to be the last surviving/living Nephilim and that all the people who have helped Lara died at his hands to avoid the destruction of the Sleeper. He then offers Lara a chance to join him in his resurrection. Lara refuses, and decides to put an end to it by using the Sanglyph on the Sleeper - thus destroying it and Karel.

To further my point of how badly recieved the game was, here's a few snippets from a review

(Gamespot)
"....The actual gameplay of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness often isn't fun at all, but instead can be frustrating, difficult, and tedious. The controls are the biggest problem. Though the first few sequences of the game are intended to be a sort of tutorial that introduces you to Lara's various moves and abilities, the beginning of the game merely makes its problems painfully apparent. Though she's supposed to be agile, Lara moves like a cement truck. There's a very noticeable lag between when you input the command to move and when Lara actually begins moving in the direction you've indicated. Just turning in place can be difficult--sometimes you'll accidentally turn a full 180 degrees, rather than just the few degrees you needed to line yourself up with the platform you're standing on. Simply put, you'll undoubtedly struggle for hours getting accustomed to the game's control. Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness supports only keyboard (and optionally mouse) controls, though for what it's worth, the digital control afforded by the keyboard actually is somewhat better and more precise than the analog gamepad controls of the PS2 version."

"...The camera is just as problematic as the controls. The third-person perspective goes haywire in situations when Lara has her back against a wall, whereas many recent games have solved this problem by seamlessly switching to a first-person view in such cases. Sometimes the camera will switch on you from scene to scene, and occasionally this will cause the controls to flip."

Survivor, Dead Aim and Gaiden. That's all I have to say and I actually don't even know any other underrated games. I only know lesser known games but that's not what could be categorized as "underrated".

Still hoping for that Survivor Chronicles.

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Rage Racer for PS1 has to be the best racing game I have ever been on but nobody I speak to has heard of it!?

I'd take that over Gran Turismo any day!

Did anyone ever play Glover for the N64/PS1? Such a fun and original game, and it was quite challenging too. Hasbro Interactive even began work on a sequel two years later but was scrapped. What a shame because the sequel looked to be a major improvement to the original, if you look on youtube, Glover 2 looked to be nearly complete before it was scrapped, thankfully you can upload the beta rom to play at Mega Upload...oh wait...

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

The Call of Duty series is massive in England purely for the online play. I'm not sure if this is the case in other countries but it's far from underrated here - On release there are queues a mile long at midnight.

Not a big fan of the games myself, completed a couple of the campaigns but saying I'm awful at them would be an understatement, so I keep well away from going online unless it's just for a mess around

You are confusing underrated with overlooked. CoD is really famous, but I only see hate for the series everywhere. MW3 got a 3,2 userscore on Metacritic, and I'm really enjoying the game atm. I don't see much wrong with it. Getting really tired of the hate.

ThomVD wrote:

You are confusing underrated with overlooked. CoD is really famous, but I only see hate for the series everywhere. MW3 got a 3,2 userscore on Metacritic, and I'm really enjoying the game atm. I don't see much wrong with it. Getting really tired of the hate.

My main issue with CoD is that now, almost every single first-person shooter is trying to copy it in order to rake in the big bucks. As a whole, I've mainly just given up on the genre

Last Story

ThomVD wrote:

You are confusing underrated with overlooked.

Copyrights infringement

From my perspective I'd say that CoD was overrated - Seeing as more or less everyone I know has the game and struggles to play anything else.

Plus the hype it gets in the media and countless YouTube videos. It's probably the most played game for the last 2/3 years. Just because a couple of gaming websites have indeed give it a bad rating doesn't mean it's underrated, those same gaming sites you mentioned would have probably give it a 10/10 if it wasn't for the games popularity.

TUNSTALL37 wrote:

Just because a couple of gaming websites have indeed give it a bad rating doesn't mean it's underrated, those same gaming sites you mentioned would have probably give it a 10/10 if it wasn't for the games popularity.

That's exactly what thom means

Yeah, but that doesn't make the 'Call of Duty series' underrated. As soon as the next game comes out, whenever that might be, it will probably break records again.

I rarely see any praise ever for CoD. You can find CoD hate everywhere on the internet. Even in the comments of a mega man video I recently visited both of the top comments were people hating on CoD. I was ok with it for a while (not really a fan myself, I just enjoy playing them sometimes), but it's really getting old.

If anything is as popular as CoD it will attract hate, it just happens. If CoD was underrated these people who slate it, wouldn't even know about it.

It's one of the most popular titles ever - Maybe if there was one game in the series that didn't get rave reviews and it didn't get the hype you thought it deserved then fair enough but the CoD series is huge and far from underrated.

Again you are confusing underrated with overlooked. I know that CoD is huge and sells great, but the fact that the majority of the people dislikes or even hates it makes it underrated. It's totally not overlooked, but it's definitely underrated imo.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the meaning of underrated.

For me, underrated is something that doesn't get the credit it deserves, is overlooked and deserves more recognition.

It's not something that is recognised globally by millions of people, loved by millions of people but hated by a percentage - If your hated by many you've done your job.

Infact, I'd go as far as saying that I could find 'hate' comments for anything that has ever been successful, whether it be a movie or a game - If CoD wasn't loved by millions of people it wouldn't be as successful as it is.

God hand, I bet it
s pretty under-rated.

Kingdom Hearts Re:coded.

I mean really. At least by a few magazine's ratings.

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

Mercy wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

FFXII overrated? Just no.

And you can read what I think about CoD in this thread. Not gonna say the same stuff again.

ThomVD wrote:

Mercy wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

FFXII overrated? Just no.

And you can read what I think about CoD in this thread. Not gonna say the same stuff again.

I read it. I also disagree with it.

Mercy wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

I know I'm most likely going to regret this, but I gotta side with Mercy on CoD. Every CoD title gets consistently perfect or near perfect scores in spite of the fact that the series hasn't introduced any new gameplay aspects since CoD4 and is basically the same exact game over and over again with a facelift to look a little different each time. That's the dictionary definition of overrated.

Run Like Hell. A great space shooter that was really creepy and had some great characters.

Mercy wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

What call of duty is awesome.

halestride wrote:

Mercy wrote:

ThomVD wrote:

-Final Fantasy XII
-Call of Duty series

Dude, those games are overrated.

What call of duty is awesome.

CoD is an overrated game that, as Ghost Leader stated above, apart from a graphic update, is the same goddamn game over and over again. I swear, all of my friends would rather play that stupid game and be mindless 'shoot 'em all' people instead of playing games that have puzzles and games that force you to have a strategy for playing it.

And yes, i've played through at least one CoD game. All I had to do was shoot people. Didn't have to operate anything, no puzzles, no getting lost in the map, nothing.