Be Excellent To Each Other

G'day all. I'm writing a feature on the most underrated games of 2008. Except I can only think of about three, and at least one of those is a bit crap. Does anyone have any suggestions?

The videogame industry being what it is, I'm willing to include any game that wasn't ridiculously over-hyped. Anything that averaged less than 90% on gamerankings, etc, is also fair game.

Oh, and feel free to include Xbox Live Arcade games and the like too.

How did A Kingdom for Keflings go criticwise? I effing love that game.

A recent one, but most of the gaming press didn't get Mirror's Edge

Edit: Oh, and The Club

THE CLUB

SEGA SUPERSTARS TENNIS

I already had Mirror's Edge, but The Club is a good one!

Is Sega Superstar Tennis a joke? I've not played it, but heard it was awful.

I am playing it for the first time now, on the 360.

It's OK, but if I had paid full price for it I would have been disappointed. There isn't much game there.

It is very Sega though, I appreciate that.

There's plenty of game there, what are you talking about?! It's tennis! That's like saying there's very little game in Pro Evo. For the record, it's not just tennis, but lots of awesome tennis mini games too, all with SEGA goodness. It definitely isn't shit. And I'm not sure where you heard it was awful from - it's Virtua Tennis with a lovely colourful SEGA skin. Okay, it's Virtua Tennis 3, but still. Perhaps the fact that you heard it was awFUL and it is in fact awESOME, makes it the most underrated game of 2008. Buy it and play it. Guaranteed fun.

I think the problem is I am yet to unlock some of my favourite games that I know are on there. That and since it takes forever to save, I turned autosave off, and accidentally lost over an hour of progress, grumble grumble.

That said, if everyone said it was shit, they were indeed wrong, so I guess it qualifies.

Well, here's my paymaster's review for starters:
http://www.goodgearguide.com.au/index.php/taxid;2136213068;pid;5257;pt;1

It also averaged 69% on gamerankings

Anyway, I just remembered that I actually own this on PS2. Will check it out tonight.

Pfft, all your tennis games are belong to Top Spin.

I quite enjoyed Sega Superstar Tennis.

The Club was definitely, DEFINITELY underrated. Had a lot of fun with that. Need to get back to it, really.

wii music

i didn;t liekt the bemo of segasuperstars.. VT3 is far better..
(and wii tennis rules)

Bully: Scholarship Edition - an absolutely fantastic game. So much so that I completed it to 100% (I don't think I've ever done that before with a sandbox game).

Never played that... is it worth checking out?

Undertow - sleeper hit for 2009 when people finally come to appreciate its sheer brilliance I reckon.

Moto GP 08.

Not underrated for fans of MotoGP though, surely (which is its target audience)?

Omega 5.

Brilliant little shooter with great score mechanic. More of this sort of thing please.

Forgot about that. Awesome game.

Nah, it's shit.

thought so

You idiot.

thought so

In the same way as Fifa only targets football nuts yes. I doubt half of them even know about it.

It got completely ignored, it didn't even appear in release lists, probably because of the abortions against nature that were the Climax games.

Like soggy biscuit?

STALKER: Clear Sky

Mount and Blade

The PC port (well, originally it's a pc game it seems) of Devil May Cry 4. It's actually better than the console versions. I'm fed up with these reviewers rating the pc games lower just because it isn't playable with mouse and Keyboard and because it's not a game "aimed" at pc gamers. Just fuck off.

Same with fallout 3. How come the xbox 360 version has 2,5% more on gamerankings. The pc version looks better, plays better with a mouse and it has mod support. Even the gimped PS3 version has better ratings than the pc. But i suspect that in this case is the lower standards of console game journalists.

Okay, I've decided to go with the following eight:

Mercenaries 2 (unfairly eclipsed by GTA IV/Saint's Row 2)

The Club (rollicking arcade action unhampered by story bollocks)

Mirror’s Edge (it's high concept. Not many people cared)

Castle Crash (glorious 2D hack em' up on Xbox Live Arcade)

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway (mainly because of the existence of CoD5)

Sega Superstar Tennis (played it at home, it's good)

Midnight Club LA (mainly because of the existence of latest Need for Speed game)

Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise (you know... for kids)

What does everyone reckon? Any outrageous omissions or stupid inclusions?

Castle Crashers was underrated? It was hyped to death then priced 50% too high.

Well, in relation to Braid it was pretty underrated. And it means I get to bang on about Golden Axe (my favourite game as a nipper).

Fixed for you. I am really intrigued by Midnight Club, it could well be the new Burny Pee if it's as good as I've heard.

Your hatred of Braid amuses me. I think the pricing was fine, and strangely so do most people that bought it...

Yes, but just because a lot of people think it's fine doesn't necessarily mean they're right.

Certainly, for a game you'll play once and then never again (except to rush through it all in a speedrun for an achievement) it is NOT worth the asking price.

By all means, knock it down to 800 points and I'll buy it.

I'm going to get MC:LA fairly soon, as I really liked MC3 and I've been watching the Shield recently so I fancy burning round Los Angeles pretending Vic Mackie's chasing me.

No reason FeeX

1 - Yes it does. That's the whole basis of economics.

2 - Yes it is; I had more fun playing it than I had playing Rockstar Table Tennis, GTA4 and Flatout:UC. Given that it was cheaper than all of these, it was a bargain!

That's the one that sprang to mind for me.

I buy games, then trade then, unless I think they're somehow special.

I've never traded The Club. Because it's special.

I should be reviewing it in a Snappy fashion for some site or other so I'll let you know.

The GamesTM review of it is the worst review I've read in a while it didnt even say what it was like to drive.

I expect it'll be in the Burnout Paradise/Need for Speed mould of arcade racer.

Oh please. A lot of people bought it - and I've read a lot of comments on sites like Eurogamer saying they wish they hadn't. A lot of people buying something does not necessarily translate into actual quality. After all, people bought Rise of the Robots, didn't they?



That is simply your extremely strange opinion.

World of goo.
Chuzzle (older but still amazing fun).
Trials 2 second edition (very very close to being my favorite game of the year).

All were less than a tenner, and all I paid for and have absolutely no regrets about doing so.

Oh of course I was expecting that but I hate playing need for speed games, whereas the old burnouts I loved and also outruns. But its not even mentioned it does say that burnout, forza 2 and project gotham 4 are all better games but doesnt even give any reasons why. It also says its story is rubbish but is there a racing game with a decent story? and the games that are said to be better dont even have a story. All I got from the review is that the world is meant to be impressive but its rubbish for racing as theres no noticeable landmarks.

Isn't world of goo hugely critically acclaimed?

Yes it is. However, only because it's so ruddy addictive. It's a low budget game that kicks the poo out of $200m games (ones like GTA4).

lmao, I think I have become obsessed with hating GTA4.

So if you ignore:

1) The obvious critical acclaim
a) The Metacritic ranking putting it in the Top Ten XBox 360 games ever
b) Gamerankings putting it 4th in XBox 360 games released this year
2) The anecdotal evidence that it is good and priced fairly
a) Ranks 8.8 on Metacritic
b) Pretty much universally loved by those BeeXers who bought it

Then yes, I suppose my opinion is strange.

However, if you wish to use logic and sense, then my opinion is not only widely held, but correct.

But of course, you know more about this game than I do, despite never having played it.

Oh yes, that was fucking ace. For anyone looking for a point of reference, it's like a next-gen upgrade of Kickstart 2. Simple, compulsive, excellent leaderboard features, the only real failing is the crappy soundtrack.

I'd also vote Cortex Command as sorely underrated. Yes, yes, it isn't properly finished yet, but the current playable version is tremendous fun.

The Strong Bad games were also much better than most people (except John Walker,good man!) gave them credit for. Cue hardened adventure sites shooting themselves in the foot by giving one of the better adventures of recent years scores on a par with the usual half-hearted dreck.

I turned off the music, the 'yeng' of the motorbike was intoxicating.

Great graphics (even though it matters not one iota) I think they used something very similar to the Doom 3 engine.

The physics are amazing, LOVE the levels with moving planks, paint cans and so on.

/loads it up

That proves nothing. Awards were spunked across Undertow as well, and it was only when you played it that you realized it was Dawn French instead of Myleene Klass (or whatever).



The impression I got was that while it certainly was a memorable experience, it wasn't quite worth the money, especially given how short it was. That's where much of my dislike comes. Having played the demo, I was surprised not to find the transcendant game experience that critics had gushed so ridiculously over (EuroGamer in particular) but instead a platformer with nice music and a somewhat novel time-rewinding function. While it entertained me, it certainly didn't to a great enough extent to justify its price tag - and especially not as - again, I knew if I pushed the big 'unlock full game' button I'd likely finish it before I finished my beer.

I also didn't care for the constant whinging from the creator about how hard done by he was by 'the industry'. Bless his cotton socks selling a game that barely lasts an afternoon for more than any other XBLA title ever (at that point).



That was in reference to my surprise that you could play three very good Xbox360 games and not have gotten as much fun (by whatever measure) out of them as you did from Braid. Fair enough, it's your opinion, but I am struggling to put myself in your shoes there to understand it.

And again, if Braid was cheaper, I would buy it. If it eventually turns up on one of those discounted bestseller lists like Assault Heroes, Worms et al, I will finally take the plunge. But for now, I can't justify to myself spending that much money on a game that I am essentially renting for the long term, that I didn't feel grabbed by, and that I am likely to play once and not come back to.

Braid is 1200 points, yeah? So when did £10 become "a lot of money", exactly? I spend more than that on, well, loads of stuff. That's a single bottle of wine, of less than half a bottle of non-shit whisky. It's less than any of my normal orders at my local curryhouse. It's a lot less than I spent at the cinema when I saw The Dark Knight. It's not, to me at least, a scandolously huge amount of money to spend on a computer game.