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The Spotlight: Official Game Attention Thread

Snow Queen

Mannceaux Signature Collection
Joined
Mar 14, 2013
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Gender
Transwoman (she/her)
Yo, this is a thread where you can bring attention to old games, new games, good games and bad games. Just explain why you are mentioning it, for example, if you were to mention Sonic '06, you would say something like, "I'm mentioning this to let others know this is a terrible game, and here is why". Stuff like that.
 

JuicieJ

SHOW ME YA MOVES!
Joined
Jan 10, 2011
Location
On the midnight Spirit Train going anywhere
I want to bring up Skyward Sword because it's an absolutely abysmal game. The controls are inaccurate 100% of the time, the enemies are repetitive, the level design sucks, the music is forgettable, and, DAMN, is it insultingly easy -- probably the easiest game I've ever played! What an insult to such a great series.

:right:
 

Mercedes

つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Joined
Nov 12, 2007
Location
In bed
Gender
Female
I want to bring up Skyward Sword because it's an absolutely abysmal game. The controls are inaccurate 100% of the time, the enemies are repetitive, the level design sucks, the music is forgettable, and, DAMN, is it insultingly easy -- probably the easiest game I've ever played! What an insult to such a great series.

8wh.gif


I'm going to throw Spelunky into the mix, if nobody has played it before, since so many people I've spoken to have hardly even heard of it. It's a randomly generated 2D dungeon crawler, in the style of an Indiana Jones-like character going into caves, finding treasure, saving damsals. But man is it fun! It's extremely addictive and the type of game that's deceptively simple when you realise there's hidden levels that require certain things to be completed throughout the game to get to. Very fun game, and cheap. I recommend it to anyone!

First Indie game to win PC Gamer's GOTY award, too. Always happy to see Indies get recognition they deserve.
 

Justac00lguy

BooBoo
Joined
Jul 1, 2012
Gender
Shewhale
I want to bring up Skyward Sword because it's an absolutely abysmal game. The controls are inaccurate 100% of the time, the enemies are repetitive, the level design sucks, the music is forgettable, and, DAMN, is it insultingly easy -- probably the easiest game I've ever played! What an insult to such a great series.

:right:
Well it's nice to see you finally admit that. :yes:

---

Here's a list of some underated games, or just some games that I feel don't get that much attention (a lot of these make up my childhood gaming memories).

  • Croc
  • Ty The Tasmanian Tiger
  • The Getaway Black Monday
  • Prototype
  • Burnout
  • Toy Story 2 (PS1)
  • Simpsons Hit and Run
  • Simpsons Wrestling
  • Yugioh Duellists of the Roses
  • Tony Hawks Underground 2
  • Rugrats
  • Pandemonium
  • Tomb Raider
  • Dokepon GBA
  • Destroy All Humans
  • Crash Bash
  • Spiderman
  • Spiderman 2
  • WWE Here Comes the Pain
  • Eyetoy
  • Buzz
  • Ape Escape
  • James Bond Everything or Nothing
  • Driv3r
 

Dan

Joined
Sep 19, 2011
Gender
V2 White Male
Well it's nice to see you finally admit that. :yes:

---

Here's a list of some underated games, or just some games that I feel don't get that much attention (a lot of these make up my childhood gaming memories).

  • Croc
  • Ty The Tasmanian Tiger
  • The Getaway Black Monday
  • Prototype
  • Burnout
  • Toy Story 2 (PS1)
  • Simpsons Hit and Run
  • Simpsons Wrestling
  • Yugioh Duellists of the Roses
  • Tony Hawks Underground 2
  • Rugrats
  • Pandemonium
  • Tomb Raider
  • Dokepon GBA
  • Destroy All Humans
  • Crash Bash
  • Spiderman
  • Spiderman 2
  • WWE Here Comes the Pain
  • Eyetoy
  • Buzz
  • Ape Escape
  • James Bond Everything or Nothing
  • Driv3r

To be fair I think you should at least give a brief explanation as to why we should take a look at them, otherwise there isn't much incentive to follow them up, not to mention it would be nice to hear your opinion on them.


Zeno clash (PC, Xbox live arcade)
Zeno_Clash_-_Corwids.jpg
I love the surreal world enclosed to this game, furthermore its strange inhabitants. The game-play is thoroughly unique, I can't recall playing a game with similar mechanics. Zeno clash is essentially a first person brawler with plenty of complex maneuvers; it's more than commonly hitting the left and mouse button. Zeno clash also includes guns, so you could play it generally like a first person shooter, but you'll soon assimilate that it's more effective and gratifying to fight with your fists... like a real man. There's a narrative of course, nothing complex, but subtle hints within its structure that there's more to Zeno clash's world than what it's telling you.
One dominant drawback that may put people off, the average time to complete the game is around 3 hours. I recommend buying it if featured in a steam sale, as £7 to many for a 3 hour experience is a little on the short side.

I wasn't aware of the games length when I brought it, which I believe came from a humble bundle, so I too was a little shocked when it came to an end, I wanted more however, so I brought Zeno Clash 2, which I recommend if you enjoyed the first game.
To conclude on everything I said, Zeno clash is a game of captivating visuals, neat narrative, and entertaining game-play.

This is actually from Zeno clash 2 but... someone should cos-play as this guy.;)
Zeno-Clash-2.jpg
 
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Joined
Aug 25, 2012
Location
The Hall of Darkness
James Bond everything or nothing was a really fun game, its one of my favorite bond games.

I'll mention Starfox adventures.
The reason I picked this game is because its was givin a lot of hate by the hardcore Starfox fans and critics for the reason that it was basically too different from the previous games, its an underrated game and for those of you who don't know of or anything about the game I'll give a brief discription.

Starfox adventures is an action adventure game made by Rare, the game was originally not a Starfox game at all but do to its similarities to the Starfox franchise (among other reasons) Nintendo stepped in and changed it into a Starfox game, the gameplay is almost entirely on foot with a small amount of in ship action, you play as Fox McCloud armed with a magical staff, Fox doesn't have his blaster but acquires powers and abilities instead, there is an abundance Zelda esk gameplay mechanics such as puzzle solving, mini game like challenges, dungeons, races, ect, infact I'd say its the Starfox equivalent to a Zelda game, the controls are solid but aiming takes some getting used to as it tries to return to center making the player fight it, otherwise the controls work great.
The graphics look really good considering its a GC game, the most notable thing probably being foxes character model, Fox has actual fur which can actually be seen moving with air currents, the rest of the game looks great.
The dialog gets pretty cheesy at times but the actual voice acting is pretty good at least its better than the voice acting in the Starfox games made after this one.
I won't give away the story, but if Starfox adventures intrests you I recommend you check it out, while Starfox adventures isn't the best game in the series its an awesome action adventure game on its own and is probably my favorite in the series.

Here are some video reviews that aren't overly biased, there are lots of reviews but one should be careful which ones they pick as some reviewers don't give fair reviews.

Spoiler warning, reviews contain mild to major spoilers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y360AQj7f-g

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipr5c6tiv-U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjAom0YmnzI

So yeah Starfox Adventures a game I thought deserved to be mentioned.
 
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Jedizora

:right:
Joined
Feb 25, 2010
I don't know if many people have played any Grand-Strategy Games on here, but it has easily become my favorite game genre. There are only a few developers who make any GSGs, but the main one is Paradox Interactive. They are are history based, with different series for different periods of time. The most recent are; Crusader Kings 2 (867-1453 with all the DLC, 1066-1453), Europa Universalis IV (1444-1821), Victoria 2 (1836-1936), and Hearts of Iron III (1936-1948). I'll also add that Hearts of Iron IV is in the works, but it may be some time before it comes out. There's an official save converter for CK2-EUIV, so that you continue with everything you did in CK2 into EUIV, as well as fan made ones for CK2-EUIII-V2-HOI3.

CK is all about dynasty building, and you can play as any country on the map if you have all the DLCS (Some religions are restricted without), or their vassals. EU is more about playing as the nation, rather then the people in charge. The weakest if, you ask me. Victoria is the most in depth political and economical simulator out of the four, but also the most rewarding. Can take some time to get used to. HOI is all about war, and strategy. Very hard, and I'd suggest not playing HOI3, and going for HOI2, or waiting for IV, as 3 is just a complete buggy mess.

I'd say start with CK2; it's the earliest timeline wise, as well as the easiest to get into. Actually, you should probably just stick to the timeline order, but possibly switch V2 and HOI3 out.
 

Sheik

:the:
Joined
Sep 21, 2013
Location
The Expansion
Gender
Male
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door for Nintendo Gamecube. It's not a particularly underrated game, but I'll still talk about it.

I carry a ton of nostalgia for this game, but nostalgia or not, this game is super hella. It's the second entry into the Paper Mario series, and in my opinion, the greatest. It's the perfect sequel; it improves on many features from its predecessor, while adding many new ones, and being a brand new adventure altogether.

Gameplay: It's an RPG. Yep. Now, improving upon its predecessor, your partners have HP meters of their own, you are able to do a counterattack, cooler Star Powers, cooler action commands in general even an audience that watches/aids/attacks you, and overall a better and more complex battle system than the original. Outside battle, you travel the game's decently large overworld, solving puzzles and finding items and other collectables. The overworld has many memorable and fun places to explore, like Rogueport, Glitzville, Twilight Town, the Excess Express... There's a lot to explore. The NPC's always have witty things to say. Oh, and there are sidequests, too. They can get pretty repetitive, though, and they'll force you to travel back and forth across the overworld several times... This brings me to the biggest flaw in TTYD: the backtracking. Intelligent Systems got pretty trollish with the amount of backtracking in this game, lol. Anyways, that's the only major flaw in this game, at least off the top of my head.
Paper-mario-thousand-year-door-1.jpg


Plot: While the plot is overall inferior to what Super Paper Mario brought to the table (tears, that is), TTYD's plot is overall solid. Here's the general gist of it: Peach invites Mario to go on a hunt for treasure with her in Rogueport. But when Mario arrives in Rogueport... Peach is gone. Yeah, who would've saw that coming ;p. Anyways, Mario meets up with a goomba named Professor Frankly and his past pupil, Goombella, and they talk about an ancient legend about the Crystal Stars and the Thousand Year Door and yada yada yada. Long story short, Mario and his miscellanious partners go on a quest to find all the Crystal Stars and to save Peach. Meanwhile, an evil organization called the X-Nauts have Peach inprisoned and fight Mario so they can get the Crystal Stars for themselves. Then, secret monster, apocalypse, other stuff.
I find enjoyment from all the subplots in this story. Luigi's quest, all the individual stories of your partners and the settings, etc.
large.jpg


Partners: Damn, was this an improvement from the original. In Paper Mario 64, most of your partners had no personality, didn't talk much, and weren't all that helpful after the chapters where they joined. But man, TTYD's partners were amazing. They all had their own personalities, (occasionally depressing) backstories, even development. And they were all used a lot throughout the adventure! To me, the most memorable were Yoshi, Vivian, and especially Bobbery. Bobbery's backstory is so damn depressing, lol.
320px-Paper_Mario-_The_Thousand_Year_Door-title.png


Other thangs: Good music, strong finale, witty humor and memorable characters.

Yeah, long wall of writing, I know. I just had to ramble some about this game. It's an adventure everybody should embark on.
 

Snow Queen

Mannceaux Signature Collection
Joined
Mar 14, 2013
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Gender
Transwoman (she/her)
I want to bring mention to a game called Champions of Norrath for the PS2.

Its a hack-and-slash dungeon-crawling rpg. It takes place in the land of Norrath, the setting of Everquest and Everquest II.

The story here plays out like a D&D campaign, and you have many choices to make that affect the story differently. There are several classes to choose from, and tons and tons of places to explore.

But that crap just ain't important.

What's important is how fun it is. The remixed hack-'n-slash gameplay never gets old, and the weapon and class building adds variety to the gameplay.

Go pick up this game. And play it. Champions of Norrath. And the sequel, Champions: Return to Arms. Go. Now.
 

Ganondork

goo
Joined
Nov 12, 2010
justac00lguy said:
Prototype

I'm sorry but I hated Prototype. Like, I hated it so much that I returned it the next day. Fable 2 is the only other game that has gotten that response out of me. I thought it had the edgiest, most cliche storyline possible. It wasn't even all that interesting. If I have to stomach another, "lol amnesia" story, I might just send the developers an angry letter. It is so overdone that I wish that it would just go away.

Then there's the actual gameplay. Even once you finish the tutorial and don't have all of your powers, you still feel enormously powerful. I don't remember having any problem during the entirety of the five hours I played. And I was like 11 at the time. It's worth noting I was abysmal at video games when I was 11. I felt completely overpowered, despite the fact that I was terrible at games back then. That's not fun, nor is it interesting.

Controlling a tank also makes me want to kill myself. Not even joking, that mission was so awful that I almost quit the moment I had to start driving it.
 

Snow Queen

Mannceaux Signature Collection
Joined
Mar 14, 2013
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Gender
Transwoman (she/her)
Ignoring the [PROTOTYPE] hate above because we are all entitled to our opinions.

I want to make mention of Metal Gear Solid. No, not the one for the Playstation, but the one for the Gameboy Colour. While not as detailed at the aforementioned version, Metal Gear Solid for the GBC is a really good title for the console. It has all the good stuff about MGS(PS) crammed into one 8-bit game. While it doesn't have as many little secrets and funny bits, it really is an outstanding game for it's time.
 

Fig

The Altruist
Joined
Jul 23, 2011
Location
Mishima Tower
One game that deserves my praise right now is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. It was one of the my first RPG games that I got into and I still love the game to this very day! The plot was and still beautiful, the game mechanics and battle style is amazing, and most importantly, the dialog is what makes the game have a lot of personality. There have been times where I had to put down my GameBoy and laugh and what I just witnessed in the game. Other than Pokemon, Superstar Saga is what lead me to continue playing RPGs and the experience has been amazing ever since. Superstar Saga will always be a classic game to me and I think everyone should give this game a try and enjoy the wonderful experience that one will get out of playing Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga! ^^
 

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