What was the last game that surprised you?

lucifer-mnm said:
GTA3 and GTA Vice City - Having not played the earlier games I wasn't sure they would really click with me. However both were fantastic. The range of activities in the games was fantastic. Do the main story if you want, do the side quests, do achievements or just put the radio on and cruise around. Fantastic games that took up a lot of my time.

Batman Arkham Asylum/Arkham City - Again not a comic book fan or Batman fan. was given a steam code for Asylum and downloaded but didn't play it for over 12 months. Fired it up one day bored. Intro ran then boom I was in the game. I thought I was watching a rendered cutscene. Again fantastic games.
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back when GTA was still fun. did you play San Andreas? it was an incredible pastiche of mid 90s pop culture and the cities were so varied (with countryside connecting!). i always think Vice City was the most fun, and maybe even most memorable, but SA was practically art in its scope and application. plus you could make CJ live like a glutton and have a heart attack and die, which was cool. i used to like taking over friend's saved games when they weren't around and piling on the pounds so their CJ was on the verge of death when they loaded up :)
 
hikikomori said:
back when GTA was still fun. did you play San Andreas? it was an incredible pastiche of mid 90s pop culture and the cities were so varied (with countryside connecting!). i always think Vice City was the most fun, and maybe even most memorable, but SA was practically art in its scope and application. plus you could make CJ live like a glutton and have a heart attack and die, which was cool. i used to like taking over friend's saved games when they weren't around and piling on the pounds so their CJ was on the verge of death when they loaded up :)
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San Andreas was the best one for customisation reasons alone. Weight, training, fighting styles etc... unreal
 
In a good way: TombRaider (2013)

even though it felt quite linear, and had some serious game breaking bugs on launch, it was a great game.

In a bad way: CoD: Ghosts.

not sure how a game on an engine as old as this can run so poorly, even now it doesn't work right for me. waste of a preorder (and £40!). won't be making that mistake again.
 
robmol said:
The Walking Dead season 1 - so many feels
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Yep, exactly this. I thought that what is essentially a point and click zombie game would bore the ******** off of me. Instead I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster and felt genuinely invested in the characters
 
Devrij said:
Yep, exactly this. I thought that what is essentially a point and click zombie game would bore the ******** off of me. Instead I was taken on an emotional rollercoaster and felt genuinely invested in the characters
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I really enjoyed the first season, anyone played the second? The writing was great, but I do think Telltale need to mix up the mechanics a little more, depending on how many series they decide to make. Maybe larger environments, a little less linearity? I didn't always feel like my choices mattered. Episode 2 (the farm) was INCREDIBLE!
 
Binary Domain.

It is not really a mainstream game at all (only like 1 thread on this forum I think), didn't review well, and basically sounded / looked like a mediocre Xbox port, just like all the other dodgy third person games you get on consoles, but it actually has quite a lot going for it.

My mini-review here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=24529341&postcount=14 but I'll pick out the positives here:

+Epic boss fights and lots of them
+I love squad based shooters and especially those that force you to mix your party up so you don't just use the same characters through the whole game
+Interesting storyline that actually got me thinking about the morality of the the whole thing *SNIP*
+Good graphics IMO aside from a few sections, the characters look great and have excellent animation (facial expressions etc) for the most part, far superior to many AAA titles. The screenshots on the Steam store really don't do it justice.
+Voice acting is pretty good, except for Rachael
+I'm a bit of a sucker for RPG elements like upgrades in shooter games, and it works well, especially as you get rewarded with credits for headshots, multi-kills etc i.e. a bit like Bulletstorm, there is actually an incentive to have spectacular combat instead of just hiding behind a crate blind-firing.
+Good cutscenes for the most part
+A few spectacular set pieces albeit not quite Max Payne 3 standards
+Interesting respect system i.e. how you interact with your teammates affects how they interract with you
+Nice damage system i.e. you can literally shoot robots apart piece-by-piece, perhaps going for the legs first to slow them down, or a headshot to send them haywire, or just chipping off the armour to find a weakspot.
 
In a bad way Watch Dogs surprised me because I just haven't connected with the game world or characters. I enjoy playing it and I'm even fine with the driving I just don't feel that spark.

In a good way Mass Effect 3 surprised me. After so much negative press I waited until I got it cheap but really enjoyed the gameplay and got into the game every bit as much as the other 2 games.
 
Game Dev Tycoon

Cost next to nothing, simple yet disturbingly "where the hell did that hour just go?" addictive.

Since its also moddable it also has generous replay value (people have actually created small expansions for it)
 
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Mass Effect 3- Surely that ending surprised everyone?

Sleeping Dogs- Only heard about it a few days before release, bought on release day after watching a few YT vids thinking it might be ok. Was blown away. It was a strange one as nobody really knew what it was going to be like right up until release.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag- I was very surprised by a lot of things in the game...Chiefly how bad it was. It is like a greatest hits of everything I don't like about games!

Thomas Was Alone- An incredibly simple game about moving different blocks around. By the end I cared more for them than any character in some so-called blockbuster games, AC4 included.
 
Spec Ops The line

You go into it expecting another shoddy bandwagon TPS, instead you get exquisite story telling married to some pretty good mechanics and fascinating characters with really solid development.

Oh, and manic depression for a good week afterwards. That white phosphorous scene haunted me for months...
 
hikikomori said:
back when GTA was still fun. did you play San Andreas? it was an incredible pastiche of mid 90s pop culture and the cities were so varied (with countryside connecting!). i always think Vice City was the most fun, and maybe even most memorable, but SA was practically art in its scope and application. plus you could make CJ live like a glutton and have a heart attack and die, which was cool. i used to like taking over friend's saved games when they weren't around and piling on the pounds so their CJ was on the verge of death when they loaded up :)
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I really didn't enjoy San Andreas one bit tbh. Not sure why. I know that I hated the soundtrack compared to what was in GTA3 and Vice City.
 
I'd have to say the one which most recently surprised me is Archeage.

I follow most MMOs through development, but Archeage was one that was just totally off my radar. I had no interest in it, looked at a few screens and the odd video ages ago and just thought, meh.

Nothing really sparked in me about it. Then I got into the Alpha, and the next thing I know I was hammering hour after hour into the game, 30...40....50 hours a week. It pulled me in like no other game has for quite a long long time. Will that pull be sustained? How long will it last? I cannot say, but in terms of being a completely off-the-radar surprise for me, its nailed on.
 
The Wolf Among Us. You look up what it's based on and it leaves you thinking 'WTF is that?'. After playing it though you find out the characters are fantastic, the story is good and the world as a whole is both intriguing and incredibly likable.
 
Moothead2 said:
The Wolf Among Us. You look up what it's based on and it leaves you thinking 'WTF is that?'. After playing it though you find out the characters are fantastic, the story is good and the world as a whole is both intriguing and incredibly likable.
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I loved the first episode and was so excited for the second; however I didn't think much of it after that. It felt to me as though they'd had as much time as they liked to work on the first episode and just had to rush all the ones after that.

Then again, maybe it was just second album syndrome.
 
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