1y ago

What games can you recommend that didn't get the appreciation that they deserved?

I've been recently been thinking about Arkane Studio's Prey which is a immersive sim, with a pretty good rogue like dlc, that probably has one of the strongest hooks of any game I've played. If you liked Halflife, System Shock, or Deus Ex it's definitely worth a play.

Are there any titles that might not have been commercially successful that you feel everyone should give a shot?

112 comments

I feel like Outer Wilds was drowned out by Outer Worlds, and the two often get mixed up, usually to Outer Worlds’ favor.
One of my top 10 games.
- Seems to me like Outer Wilds outshone Outer Worlds if anything. I never hear anyone talking of Outer Worlds anymore, but Outer Wilds is still brought up as one of the greatest indie games out there.
  
  In a way, yeah! But I stand by the fact that a lot of people bought Outer Worlds thinking it was Outer Wilds.
- Mannnn. Outer Wilds is so freaking good. I had put it off for a while, but then last year I decided to go through it. It managed to be the perfect game at the perfect time. Raw intrigue and fascination turned into somehow helping me cope with the loss of my sister and dad who I had lost very recently at the time.
- Outer Worlds is an actual work of art that still manages to play and feel great.
  
  the PC version is pretty fucked in the “feel great” department. the engine itself renders frames at arbitrary framerates just fine, but the animations (including the camera) only update at up to 60 FPS, with no in-game option to cap the frame rate to that animation rate. vsync doesn’t work properly with high refresh rates, and external framerate limiters aren’t able to get a good match. it’s borderline impossible to get this game to feel smooth with proper frame pacing, even with a vrr display.
  best i could get was to use external tools to force the game to set my monitor to 60 hz, then turn on vsync in game, but this added a ton of input lag
- Really unfortunate they both came out around the same time. Although I think the actual target markets were different.
  
  Yeah, completely different markets. My friend bought the wrong one and for months he wouldn’t try outer wilds because it “wasn’t his sort of game” when it totally was.
- Best game ever made, really is. First I'd played in years that felt like a fresh new experience.
  
  It really did
- I've never heard about Outer Wolrd, however, have been recommended Outer Wilds and it was supposed to be my summer game (but I forgot)

No Mans Sky. It used to suck, but now I find it quite fun
- TBF, it kinda sucked on release. I still remember the monoliths of Hydrogen.....
  still, I use it as one of gamings biggest comeback stories because it is.
  
  I like the part about how it reminds me of Minecraft, but in space and with tools/weapons that never break and the ability to add more inventory slots. (There are less material options for building player housing though, but at least this limitation has led to some very creative community bases.) That, and I always find it rewarding to discover as many of a planet’s plant and animal species as possible to earn those chip things you can learn crafting recipes with, and many of the planets’ terrain looks pretty awesome since while it is all procedural copypasta, there are countless possible combinations of available ores, rock models/colors/usefulness, terrain color, animal appearances/traits, plant products, hazards, etc. You can use all of this to determine which planets near your spawnpoint are useful and which ones are useless, out of millions of possible planets. I also like how after coming back to that game after more than a year, I found that unearthing the buried tech things gives you 4 of that data thing you need to complete all the tech-trees in the early game instead of just 1. And unlike many games, they update all platforms at the same time, which is great since I find the console controls on the Switch edition easier to remember than the PC controls.
  But I do wish the planets had more than just one climate and biome so they’d be more realistic and those 2 undiscovered rare polar animals keeping you from earning lots of nanites would be less painful to track down. My current home planet is a swamp world that has Florida-like temperatures even at the poles and on mountains.

Heat Signature
House of the Dying Sun
Thumper
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space
Gunpoint
- Aww man, I loved Heat Signature and Gunpoint both. They definitely deserve some more love.
  
  Both games are by Tom Francis. His new game Tactical Breach Wizards is 'coming soon' as well
- A lot of the games people have mentioned here are either obscure games I've never heard of or newer titles in niche communities. But Gun Point is an obscure game I have actually played, I think they could have picked a better name for it though for a game where most combat isn't firearms based it's slightly misleading and probably deterred some people.
- House of the Dying Sun was one of my first oculus rift games and so so good

Hardspace Shipbreaker. You're a wage slave (literally) in a space dock, taking apart ships and throwing the bits into the right bins. Doesn't sound super fun, but it is. 1) You're chopping up ships but you get to use LASERS!!! and the energy grappling hook. So satisfying. 2) The physics is 90% spot on. You're in 3d, but it's not purely inertial. There's a dampening field that slows things down, so it doesn't get too outta hand. There are a couple of other quirks, but they're not hugely impacting. 3) The soundtrack is perfect. It's a very bluesy, banjo style for a very bluecollar type job. 4) The voice acting is amazing. Every line from Weaver is just perfect. You hate Hal with a passion (you're supposed to). The writing is a little hammy, but they have to rush it bc it's really a minor bit of the game. (Spoiler, it's very pro-labor and anti-capitalist, so if that triggers you, don't play it.)
Hardspace: Shipbreaker - Launch Trailer | PS5 Games It's also on PC and game pass.
I've played it thru twice. The first time as-is, but the 2nd time I shut off the "15 minute shifts" option. I think that breaks things up too much. I think open-shift is better. I bought the vinyl soundtrack. I'm not a huge fan of vinyl, but this is the right style of music that would benefit from it.
Hardspace Shipbreaker - OST Full
Hardspace: Shipbreaker - Americana Beats to Chill to
- Underappreciated for sure, but to be fair, it's super repetitive. If they'd added a secondary component or loop where you could black market trade or participate in the economy of the game some how to drown out the monotony of breaking the same ships over and over, I'd have played it more.

Uplink - A hacking sim game that's actually quite addictive in a playthrough. Will make you feel like you're in the movie Hackers.
Spycraft: The Great Game - An adventure game that had as consultants CIA director William Colby and KGB Major-General Oleg Kalugin.
I don't know a lot of people that have played these, but they definitely rank up there for me as some of the more interesting and unique games I've played over the decades.
- Shoutout to Uplink! Not something you look to for realism, but it's a really well designed hacker sim. Lots of fun!
  
  Played Uplink as a kid, later learned about fragmentation for computer memory. Was cool to find out the inventory system wasn’t just a cool game mechanic but was based off how actual memory works.
- Heyyy time to see if the benefit of 10 years helps me complete Uplink.

Jazzpunk, everyone should play Jazzpunk.
Far: Lone Sails is a beautiful art piece with unusual gameplay, and the sequel is great too.
Bedlam is kind of a love-letter to 90s and 00s FPS games. The gameplay isn't amazing, but if you spent a lot of time in games like Quake, Unreal Tournament or Halo CE back in the early days of online multiplayer, this game is for you.
Kairo is weird.
Sable is an interesting adventure with a really nice art style.
Interplanetary is an excellent strategy game about firing weapons at other planets.
Neon Drive is a fun rhythm game with 80s aesthetics.
Bastion is well worth your time.
- Bastion was huge when it came out. It definitely got forgotten after a couple years though.
  
  I still have it on several devices, like the old iPhone, an iPad and a PS Vita, I haven't got to play it yet :(

Mad Max. Not the best game ever, but much better than I expected.
- I picked it up on sale after watching Fury Road, which in turn I put off watching for years because I really like the first trilogy and did not want to have that memory tainted by some cash grab Hollywood sequel. Boy was I wrong about the film, and I was equally blown away by the game, to a point I felt really guilty getting it for 10 bucks or so. I really, really wish there was a multiplayer, though.
  
  I almost gave up in the beginning because I had never played a game that relied so much on hand to hand combat. I'm so glad I pushed through.
- Mad Max is honestly probably one of my most replayed and enjoyable games that I own. If it wasn't for Sims 3, it would have the most hours in my Steam library. For me there's something just so cathartic about driving around the wasteland looting scrap and beating up warboys lol. And then getting some mods/trainers involved and exploring the dev areas out in the Big Nothing is great too. I've gotten some really great screenshots out of that game.
  
  The lighting and weather is so good in that game.
- My biggest disappointment in it is that my favorite zone of the map only has one mission, but that mission is great. Apart of that its cool riding cars in the desert.

For me right now, Shadows of Doubt. It is an early access game and it's got a fair bit of jank, but it's crazy how unique it is. It had a week or so of popularity and then it fell off. The devs just released an update for it too!
If you like the immersive sim genre, might I also recommend Cruelty Squad and Gloomwood. Those two have very unique aesthetics and really cool mechanics.
- I doubt that. (Get it? Shadows of doubt? I'll see myself out.)
- It's so great. One time, I threw a bin at a bar's window and the next time I came around, it had been covered in plywood.
  The game feels responsive, it just needs a bit more variety in cases, mod support would be great, too.
- Just started on SoD today. Pretty wild how free form it is. Fantastic.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst. Everybody loved the first game, but nobody played the second game, including me for a good few years. But once I decided to try it I realized how much I had been missing out. It's really good. Making it open world really works. There is fast travel but I never once used it because just running around is so fun. If you liked the first game, please try Catalyst!

Titanfall 2
- Titanfall 2 definitely got a lot of appreciation.
- Definitely didn't get the appreciation it deserved on launch. I seem to remember it was launched right after that year's Battlefield and right before that year's CoD. Terrible decision. It definitely stood the test of time though and is very highly regarded now.
- Bought the game at Dollarama in Canada for $4 a few years ago. Still haven't played it.
  
  The campaign has some absolutely wild parts of it. It's worth playing through that if nothing else

The Talos Principle It's not just a puzzle game.
- Good timing, too, Talos Principle 2 was just announced
  
  No it wasn't.. It was announced two years ago, they did announce the release date three days ago though.
- Nice, that's one I have in my library not yet installed. Bought it when there was a cheap bundle with others by that company, but was mainly looking at The Place which kinda turned me off of those style games. I'll have to be sure to give it a shot now.
- Needed more crates.

If you can handle dying a lot while learning the ins and outs of the world, S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Anomaly is a wonderful package completely for free. Especially if you add the G.A.M.M.A. modpack to it, makes the game play significantly deeper, much harder (in some bullshit and also fair ways), but also just crazy immersive; makes you feel like the actions you take do matter, but if you were to die, you'd just be another loot bag for some other Stalker to come across
- I haven't played Stalker but I did finish Into the Radius which is heavily inspired by it.
  
  Oh Into The Radius made me shit myself in fear more times than I'd like to admit

Bomberman 64
Eternal Darkness
The Conduit
Halo Reach
- Eternal Darkness is one of my favourite GameCube games. I feel like it might be long enough ago that they could do a remake with modern sanity effects.
  And Halo Reach is my favourite Halo game, loved it.
  
  Nightdive Studios (they, among other titles, remastered System Shock, which has received pretty good reviews) wanted to remaster Eternal Darkness, but Nintendo - who owns Eternal Darkness - doesn't want that to happen.
  Also, the original developers of Eternal Darkness want to create a spiritual sequel, but that seems to be... an eternal project. Check out Shadow of the Eternals, if you want to follow that project. There's a gameplay video from like 2013 or 2014.

The old Thief games (succeeded by Dishonored)
Condemned: Criminal Origins
Those are the two I got for now.

I'm not sure how successful it was, but there's a fun horror (mostly) walking sim called Apsulov: End of Gods. It's based on Norse mythology and has a refreshing take on Loki, especially if you're tired of everything Marvel has put out. The visuals are great too.
There's another one called Close to the Sun that's essentially, "what would happen if Nikola Tesla built a giant fucking cruise ship for the world's smartest minds at the time and then everything goes wrong?". The story is really interesting, and I've been hoping for a sequel.
I don't think Murdered: Soul Suspect did very well from what I remember when it came out, but I had a ton of fun playing that game. They could have done way more as far as mechanics go, and some aspects are pretty cheesy, but I'm a sucker for detective games and trying to piece together information.
Speaking of which, The Painscreek Killings is so good. You play as a reporter who's tasked with invesigating a cold case in a tiny abandoned town. I really liked this one because there is absolutely no hand holding when it comes to playing detective. You absolutely have to figure everything out yourself. Back when I used to stream, I had a regular viewer tell me it was their favorite game that I played, because listening to me trying to figure out the story and my next step was like listening to one of those old crime radio shows. It's one of the few games I wish I could play again for the first time, since I know the outcome now and how everything fits together. The developer is supposed to be making another similar game, so I'm eager to see how that goes.
- Murdered: Soul Suspect
  So fun story...
  The year this was being shown at E3, I got my best friend in as my 'photographer' for the show under a press pass, and set up a bunch of private gameplay demos of games (by this point nothing interesting was shown on the show floor anymore).
  When we went to our appointment at the Square Enix booth, they immediately ushered us into a room with nothing but two Japanese guys, and were like "ok, go ahead and ask your questions."
  Apparently they thought we'd sat through an earlier gameplay demo which they never set up, and we were suddenly sitting with the game director and their translator for a half hour interview about a title I hadn't even seen or knew anything about - and an interview conducted through a translator on top of that (and I'd intentionally been trying to avoid ending up in interviews in the first place).
  It was one of the more surreal experiences I've had in life, and very much reminded me of the times I'd be in a book discussion in high school for a reading assignment I hadn't done, frantically grabbing on to any thread that seemed legit and running with it.
  
  Oh man, that's great. I can only imagine the relief you had once it was over.

Binary domain
- Also in the 7/10 but satisfying shooter category: Rogue Trooper

Hands down, Devotion by Red Candle Games. It was only on sale for a week when it came out, and was getting well-deserved rave reviews, but was pulled because an idiot put in an art asset that said “Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh moron,” and Red Candle’s Chinese partner lost their business license and pulled the game from Steam. GOG was going to carry it, but they wimped out because Cyberpunk 2077 was about to come out in China, and they didn’t want to risk their sales, so they claimed “gamer voices” for why they were backtracking on carrying it, and refused to answer anyone asking them for details. The game is available, but only on Red Candle’s website,
but they were only able to get a store up and running after people had forgotten about the game.
It takes place in 1980s Taiwan, and is an amazing domestic horror - you play as the father, Du Feng Yu, cycling through three different years of his family falling apart, trying to figure out what happened to his young daughter. Some parts of it just hit way too hard, like this screaming argument between Du and his wife, when you’re playing as the daughter listening to it from her bedroom. It gets heavy. And then there’s the tongue thing. IYKYK.
I absolutely love this video by Jacob Geller, An Uncanny Really, looking at how Silent Hill 2 and Devotion handle the uncanny. Devotion absolutely deserves to be compared to Silent Hill 2.
This video, by Super Eyepatch Wolf, Devotion: The Most Disturbing Game You Can Not Play, is also really good, and opens with a lot of history for understanding Red Candle’s first game, Detention, which is also really good and takes place in a high school in Taiwan in the 60s during the White Terror.

Wildermyth is a lovely combination of storytelling and tactical combat. My only significant gripe is that I want more of it: More tales, more character customization... just more. (Although I now see that a cosmetic pack is available; I'll have to check it out.)
Gigantic caught my attention when I was looking for an Overwatch alternative, because of the art and the praise from fans. I wish development hadn't shut down before I had a chance to play it. (I hear there's an unofficial client and server out there somewhere, though, so maybe I'll get to at least try the work-in-progress that was never finished.)
- Wildermyth is just so endearing I loved my time with it.
  Taking the same character through each campaign was pretty fun like I was making a serialised demi-god: Doofus and the mountain horde, Doofus and the ancient threat etc. Because characters age though the campaign, it has interesting implications in the world lore. Like we're an archivist document the various legends of Doofus, acknowledging where they contradict and maybe speculating on how the differences in each culture's legend of Doofus reflects back.
  Downside is I optimised the fun out of the combat in always having Doofus at the center of the strategy, each encounter then played out the same.
- Now I'm wishing I'd gotten the chance to play Gigantic! If you discover a playable client and server, lemme know, because I'm loving how that looks
  
  I have good news for you:
  https://www.polygon.com/24074441/gigantic-game-relaunch-rampage-edition-steam-release-date

The Way is a fantastic adventure with a surprisingly rich story. Totally flew under the radar and exceeded every expectation I had for it.

Hylics 1 & 2. There's actually a sorta sleeper cult around the games where it seems like a lot of people know of them or have played them, but no one ever talks about them. Pretty standard action-rpg but everything's claymation. Oh, and the second game changes genre multiple times.
Cruelty Squad. Amazing immersive sim. Looks like trash, best gameplay I've encountered in a while. That game goes hard.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. I thought this was more popular, however considering how many people give me a "what's that" when I mention it, it makes me think it wasn't as popular as I thought. It's a very well made spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio Future. Even has JSRF's composer on a few tracks.
QT deserves more eyes on it for being an incredibly cute and wholesome parody of PT. There's a free "demo" version on Itch.io, and if you like that then I'd highly recommend buying the full version on Steam.
E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. This game is... hm. Basically it started off life as a Warhammer 40k game, but got released as something else due to the studio failing to secure the licenses they needed for WH40K. It's a much older indie game from back when Valve had standards regarding what made it onto steam. It's also kinda special because it's one of the few times the Source engine was used commercially outside Valve. It's also pretty jank, but overall pretty fun. It's got some pretty decent RPG mechanics on top of a first person shooter, complete with classes. You can hack basically anything but also anything can hack back. A door can hack you.

Marvel's Midnight Suns. It wasn't a huge flop, but not successful enough to get a sequel, which makes me very sad. I think it failed because it had a useless ingame shop, which made the game look like another cashgrab, when in reality those who bought the Legendary Edition have every skin included. Legendary edition has often been on sale for 50€ and that's definitely worth it. I enjoyed the game a lot and both the base game and DLC offer great characters that are both fun to talk and to play with.

Everyone talking about Starfield reminded me to go back and play Outer Worlds again. I had forgotten how good that game was.
- I love the outer worlds, it has such a unique style to it, very much fallout humor in space with a little bit of arcanum thrown in for good measure. IMHO outer worlds > Starfield, when I saw that neon was just one long hallway with a few neon lights and signs, I knew what I was getting into and just stopped playing. Starfield has no identity, it's bland, space combat is annoying at best, and it's just an unoptimized mess. Outer worlds is unique, and when I see it I know exactly what it is, I can't say the same for Starfield.
- Man i thought that game was so boring lol
  
  Agreed. It seems to be very polarized.

Project x Zone 1 and 2
Probably my favorite crossovers in video games besides smash ultimate

Fuga: Melodies of Steel. A pretty interesting JRPG+resource management game about animal kids in a giant tank from a lost civilization, fighting in a war to save their families.
CyberConnect2 has been making games for this setting since the PS1, though the previous games were more of 3D puzzle actiion games. But these games never sell as much as they deserve, Their commitment is amazing to keep trying anyway.

Avent rising. They should have had a sequel but I know it would have likely just gotten botched and I would have hated playing it.
- They were supposed to have a whole series IIRC, but the contract got cancelled because the initial offering didn't sell very well. It didn't help that the marketing didn't really know how they wanted to talk about the game.

NOVA DRIFT is easily the best SHMUP if have played in my life and it´s on a 60% discount right now. From the tight controls to the artstyle and the gameplay, everything about this game is perfect and the dev is listening to the community.

As the first of these is a platformer, the second is a topdown shooter, and the third one is a match 3, so commercial success was not that expected anyways, but I really think they excel at what they were set out to do.
Dustforce
Assault Android Cactus
Tidalis
- I feel like Dustforce got decent buzz when it came out. I imagine it was helped by its phenomenal soundtrack. The game was too hard for me to really enjoy. But that soundtrack, I still listen to it occasionally.
  The same artist did the soundtrack to Tunic, and while not as good to listen to outside the game, it adds so much to the ambiance of the game and elevates it.

My big one, because I am playing the successor right now would be the Commandos-reinvention line of games by Mimimi Software:
Shadow Tactics (feudal Japan)
Desperados III (Wild West)
Shadow Gambit (undead pirates)
They're very faithful reproductions of the old Commandos-formula, real time tactics about sneaking and stabbing through a dense map full of guards covering each other, finding spots where to get in with specific abilities of your varying characters. In the newest one in particular, your pirates are recruited in any order you like, and being supernatural in nature they have some wild abilities. Your starting character can briefly freeze time for a target. Your Quartermaster can possess people. A skeleton has a golden head he can toss to make guards come over to try pick it up and then make their corpse disappear by using his fishing pole to drag it into the endless chest he has on his back.

DOA2. It unfortunately turned into the fighting playboy bunnies with huge jugs series, but the second one was actually a really solid fighting game
- I still have this on my steam deck via dreamcast emulator.

A Robot Named Fight! https://www.arobotnamedfight.com/
"A Robot Named Fight is a Metroidvania roguelike focused on exploration and item collection. Explore a different, procedurally-generated labyrinth each time you play and discover randomized power-ups to traverse obstacles, find secrets and explode meat beasts."
It's such a good game, almost everything is perfect IMO, I have over 200 hours in it and still go back to it every now and then. The lone developer also made the source code public a while ago, so there are mods, forks, spinoffs etc. being worked on.

Tyranny

I've been interested in Soulslike games and got Code Vein on sale recently. I think I'm about halfway through and it's pretty good. Playing at the 2nd hardest difficulty, dying here and there but also one or two shotting most bosses, which suggests it's found a good sweet spot for difficulty where it's not overly punishing but also not trivial, though I kinda wish I had started it on the hardest difficulty. I'm not sure how popular the game was but I suggest it.
- The ultimate anime waifu creator. I'd also recommend giving it a try for any souls fans out there. Also don't be ashamed if you look up a guide on the cathedral.
  
  Haha walking into the cathedral was a cool gaming moment. I get there and am looking around, wondering who could have even built this, and then Louis asks "How is this even possible?"
  They did a pretty good job with the follower conversations. Yeah, the random ones can get repetitive, but it added a bit more depth when Louis voiced what I was thinking. In another (annoying) area, as you get to the end, he says he hopes we're done here soon.

Offworld trading company was an amazing PvP game but "economics" never was gonna sell.

Deathkarz 1999.
Had more Hours in that game than in iRacing now

Environmental Station Alpha is a good metroidvania IMO, and it has just over 1000 reviews on Steam. It has good platforming, combat, sound design, and chunky pixels. Not the most expansive or complex metroidvania, but it’s surprisingly polished and costs less than $10.

Fly'n, it's a brilliant platformer from like ten years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UECUVRWpFM

Are visual novels allowed? If they are I strongly recommend you:
Hotel Dusk and its sequel, Last Window. Time Hollow.
All these three games are for the Nintendo DS.
- Visual novels absolutely count, their different format allows them to tell stories in unique ways. This post is for everyone who wants an opportunity to share the titles they never get to talk about.
- Arent they connect to Another Code? I already planned to buy the remakes
  
  Hmm, I don't think so, maybe there are hints from one game to another as in easter eggs, as Hotel Dusk and Last Window are made by the same company, but I haven't seen anything related to that.
  I will get the remake as well just to support this and see more of Kyle Hyde! (And I have never played Another Code games, so that would be interesting as well).

I was mildly a Borderlands fan, but then I played Tales from the Borderlands and fell in love. It's such a great game with amazing writing and music that I'm always surprised to hear that most people, including fans of the main Borderlands games, have never heard of it.

If you like Soulslikes The Surge is a really good sci-fi take on the genre. It succeeds in the vagueness, the atmosphere, and the combat. It has a bit of a gimmick with how you obtain parts by targeting and dismembering limbs which is really fun. However the story kinda goes off the rails near the end and the last few areas of the game are arguably the worst designed levels of the game. Plus the boss fights can be a PITA despite being super cool design wise.
I don't see it brought up as often as things like Nier or Mortal Shell though, and IMO it's better than both of those.

N64 Timesplitters, had tons of fun with friends in that
- GameCube not N64
  
  I‘ve never had a Gamecube so it was probably PS2, it‘s been a hot minute lol

I really liked Unsighted and didn’t feel like I saw a whole lot of hype around it at the time.

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