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Games you have enjoyed, but were critically panned and/or bombed at retail..

MRU

MRU

macrumors Penryn
Original poster
Aug 23, 2005
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a better place
So there is an abundance of gaming releases each year, and the majority of them are not AAA titles. These are games that were never likely to garner the 80%-100% type review score.

But alongside a number of top tier games that arguably didn't deserve their mega high review scores and sales figure, these 'lesser' titles are often some of the most interesting games and quite probably not ones that your friends will be playing because of their lesser importance.


So what games of this current gen on consoles have you thoroughly enjoyed despite their luke warm review scores and often poor retail sales figures?
 
Viking : Battle For Asgard (360/PS3) METACRITIC SCORE = 68

I played this on the 360 back in 2008 and really enjoyed it. Like many open world games it had a number of issues such as repetitive type tasks and such, but despite that there was something that made me want to finish it. That which in itself is a rare commodity these days for me, as the number of games I actually finish is a pittance of the number I actually buy & play annually.

Battle-for-Asgard-1.jpg


Graphically the game was ok, no where near as sharp or as striking as the clearly beautified screenshot here indicates (running at higher resolution and having AA turned onto the max).

The game has a lot of similarities to the Infamous / Prototype school of open world gaming. Your tasked with the same task repeatedly over 3 different locations / hubs that progressively get harder as you level up and gain new skills.

Ok it's not God of War, and that is probably where it failed to gain much steam at retail, especially considering a sequel was in the works, but was scrapped due to lukewarm sales figures.




Other mentions should go to

Rise of the Argonauts (360/ps3) Metacritic = 54
Legendary (360/PS3/PC) Metacritic = 48

Both of which I enjoyed whilst playing them.
 
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I play very few games to completion. But I played through and loved most of Duke Nukem Forever, I rather enjoyed the atmosphere and gameplay. I haven't finished FF13 yet but I'm also enjoying that, it's like playing a film and once in a while I just like to sit back with a simple game like that :).
 
Arguably Shenmue.

Critically people seemed to appreciate that it was trying something new, but on the whole it's not for everyone.

I also remember this random fun fact that for Sega to break even on one of the games, every Dreamcast owner at the time would need to buy more then one copy! Whether it's true or not I don't know, but yeah...either way it bombed at retail.

Hopefully one day I'll see Ryo Hazuki face off against Lan Di, but I'm not holding my breath anymore :(
 
roxxette said:
The darkness 1
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Good game, much better than the sequel, but not really one that bombed or did bad critically. It sold enough to warrant a sequel etc.. And scored 84/100 on metacritic

Tsuchiya said:
Arguably Shenmue.

Critically people seemed to appreciate that it was trying something new, but on the whole it's not for everyone.

I also remember this random fun fact that for Sega to break even on one of the games, every Dreamcast owner at the time would need to buy more then one copy! Whether it's true or not I don't know, but yeah...either way it bombed at retail.

Hopefully one day I'll see Ryo Hazuki face off against Lan Di, but I'm not holding my breath anymore :(
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Technically doesn't count, as I said 'this generation' ;) this is 12 years old at this stage, and likewise it reviewed well. Average metacritic of 88/100

But yeah Shenmue was v. good, however you can clearly see its legacy in the Yakuza series of games (most recently Yakuza 3)....
 
MacRumorUser said:
So there is an abundance of gaming releases each year, and the majority of them are not AAA titles. These are games that were never likely to garner the 80%-100% type review score.

But alongside a number of top tier games that arguably didn't deserve their mega high review scores and sales figure, these 'lesser' titles are often some of the most interesting games and quite probably not ones that your friends will be playing because of their lesser importance.


So what games of this current gen on consoles have you thoroughly enjoyed despite their luke warm review scores and often poor retail sales figures?
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Sonic :p Short of the bugs I actually enjoyed playing the game, for as early in the gen as it was introduced there really weren't a hell of a lot of games out for the PS3 yet. One of the first games I completed on my PS3 was Sonic

http://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-3/sonic-the-hedgehog
 
So i pulled vikings out pf the dust lol i bought it like 2-3 years ago and honestly only play it for like 1hr, cant say i played more these time.

I dare to say Devil may cry 4 ? I dont know but outside the internet these dont get a lot of love, pretty good game.
 
Wipeout HD - Before version 1.26, when the game was very responsive and difficult to master.

Then they muddled up controls, dropped in advertisements, broke the leader boards, and added upgraded stats on the new version while using the same leader board as the original.

Considering Sony nuked 90%+ of the studio shortly after the games release, I'd say it must not have been too well received by the masses.

That said, I played the pants off of that game for the first year of its life. :)
 
Spiderman Web of Shadows! :)

With the release of the Amazing Spiderman game, it made me appreciate Web of Shadows more. Amazing Spiderman is basically a retread of the Web of Shadows storyline, but without assortment of Marvel comics characters & the good/evil choices. While there was a fair amount of repetition, the story was basically Spider-Man + 28 Days. Instead of the Rage virus, you had venom ( anti actually ) symbiotes. Really good stuff towards the end, and the game also got a 68% meta critic score. To this day, I still recommend this game!

Viking was also a great game!
 
Starfighter said:
Deadly Premonition!
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The game was like marmite, you either hated or loved it. I played first 60 minutes and didnt get any further sadly. Just couldn't get into it at all.

JayMysterio said:
Spiderman Web of Shadows! :)

With the release of the Amazing Spiderman game, it made me appreciate Web of Shadows more. Amazing Spiderman is basically a retread of the Web of Shadows storyline, but without assortment of Marvel comics characters & the good/evil choices. While there was a fair amount of repetition, the story was basically Spider-Man + 28 Days. Instead of the Rage virus, you had venom ( anti actually ) symbiotes. Really good stuff towards the end, and the game also got a 68% meta critic score. To this day, I still recommend this game!

Viking was also a great game!
Click to expand...


Must check it out. :). Last spiderman game I played was tied to the Movie and was shocking...
 
Silent Hill: Homecoming. Metacritic: 71 on PS3
Graphics-wise, it looked like a good PS2 title. ;) Controls were kinda clunky, and the voice acting was...weird. But strangely, I enjoyed it, liked the atmosphere and simply enjoyed playing it.


The Orange Box didn't exactly bomb critically or at retail, but there was a huge deal about the horrible performance on PS3. I found the whole collection to be thoroughly playable and enjoyable.
 
Taustin Powers said:
The Orange Box didn't exactly bomb critically or at retail, but there was a huge deal about the horrible performance on PS3. I found the whole collection to be thoroughly playable and enjoyable.
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Besides the PS3 issues, what really killed Orange Box was the insistence that Valve could NOT release free updates to TF2. TF2 was a blast to play, even with idiot ADD CoD players who still can't grasp the concept of an objective in an objective based game. :mad: TF2 became a shooter that was doomed to never get updates or upgrades, and just forced lovers of the game to migrate over to PC.

Shame.

A game that was a shocking surprise, got a decent meteoritic score, but was shunned because of it's association... 50 Cent Blood in the Sand. The game was a real fun shooter, with a hilarious concept in that you had to unlock taunts and harder :cool: phrases.
 
I enjoyed Magna Carta 2 ... wasn't Tales of Vesperia, but it was a decent RPG. I think it was getting 7s and 6s by reviewers.

Loved Mirror's Edge. I think it was closer to low 8s by reviewers, but it seemed like a love or hate it game. Wish they'd make a second one.
 
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Taustin Powers said:
The Orange Box didn't exactly bomb critically or at retail, but there was a huge deal about the horrible performance on PS3. I found the whole collection to be thoroughly playable and enjoyable.
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This, I played orange box blu ray disc on the PS3 so much the color started fading. I couldn't get enough of TF2 no matter how vanilla it was to the PC/Xbox version.

SOCOM: Confrontation after the updates the game was great action.

MAG Love it and still play it to this day. Only multiplayer that stands toe to toe with this for me is TF2, Rainbow 6 Vegas 2. I can't believe MAG didn't get the love it deserved..the games were huge and a lot of fun and big matches are still going on.


Bless
 
I enjoyed NieR on Xbox 360. Granted the gameplay wasn't anything spectacular but the story and soundtrack were Amazing. I had to buy the soundtrack.

Metascore 67/68 Xbox/PS3
 
Miharu said:
I enjoyed NieR on Xbox 360. Granted the gameplay wasn't anything spectacular but the story and soundtrack were Amazing. I had to buy the soundtrack.

Metascore 67/68 Xbox/PS3
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Always tempted to pick it up but never did... If I find it cheap 2nd hand, i will do :)
 
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