Games that you're surprised that you like

[c0ldb33r]

What game(s) are you surprised that you liked?
Why do you like them?
Why were you surprised that you liked them?
What complaints do you have about the game?

My current one is Earth Defence Force 2017 for the xbox 360. I absolutely love this game.

Why do I like it? It's action packed, has short missions so I can play it for twenty minutes and get a real sense of accomplishment. The scifi story is both interesting and campy. It draws you in but never takes itself seriously. The best part is fighting the Hector robots. They are so NEAT.

Why am I surprised that I like it? Because it's an absolutely brainless shooter. See an enemy, target it, press the trigger. I don't usually like brainless shooters, but this once really sucked me in.

I've got two relatively major complaints. The first is that sometimes the game just doesn't seem fair. If you've got 100 red ants swarming all over you at once, they'll keep knocking you down and it's hard to get back up. It doesn't really feel fair and it's a bit of a piss off. The second complaint is that this game couldn't keep up a solid frame rate to save its life.

All things considered, this is a $7.99 game now, and it's fun as hell.

http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s182/c0ldb33r/the-earth-defense-force-2017-200703.jpg

[skaar]

I played that for about 2 hours and never picked it up again. I could only take so much redundancy.

Speaking of redundancy - Raid on Bungeling Bay. I actually enjoyed the stupid thing when it was on all the HK multicarts. Still not sure why.

[nintendoeats]

I hated HaloCE. I played Halo 2 out of a sense of duty. I ended up loving it. it had level design!

other than that, Myst. everyone is always complaining about it, but if you get in the right mindset it is a very engaging and enjoyable game, with puzzles that actually makes sense (And I have stories about puzzles that don't make sense)

[SegaAges]

Sneak King

That's right, I said it. I actually enjoyed it. It was not bad for a $4 game

[modest9797]

Viva Pinata. If you don't like it, you haven't played it.

[nintendoeats]

Sneak King

That's right, I said it. I actually enjoyed it. It was not bad for a $4 game

funny story about that game. I was at magic:the gathering booster draft and I bought that from the store on a lark. then the guy kept bugging me to look at the reciept. Finally I did and he had liste dthe game as "haha! you bought sneak king." I allways kind of got the impression that he didn't like me very much.

I still haven't actually played the game, and that was over a year ago.

[MrSparkle]

Viva Pinata. If you don't like it, you haven't played it.

or you dont own the marracas which makes this game about as fun as p laying ddr with a controller.

[nintendoeats]

Viva Pinata. If you don't like it, you haven't played it.

I played it, and I didn't like it. I really wanted to enjoy it too.

[carlcarlson]

or you dont own the marracas which makes this game about as fun as p laying ddr with a controller.

Wrong game man, you're thinking of Samba de Amigo

[aclbandit]

Speed Racer for the Wii. No clue why it's so fun.

[Tetsu]

Nintendogs for the DS. It just wasn't my type of game. I wandered over to a kiosk at a game store that had it on display. There was a puppy on the screen, just staring at me. This is the stupidest thing ever, I thought, and patted its head with the stylus. Fifteen minutes later, I was still there, scratching its belly and trying to figure out how to feed it a treat.

[izarate]

Red Ninja: End of Honor

It's like the bastard child of Ninja Gaiden and Tenchu. The cinematics are well done and the action is pretty good. The camera inside buildings isn't very good but not a showstop either. The graphics are fine, but nothing to get excited for.

I'd read reviews giving the game a 4 but I think that's because reviewers compared it a lot to Ninja Gaiden. Also the heavy hype that Vivendi gave the game didn't help. I got it in a Xbox game lot and put it in my console to test if the game was fine since the disc had a deep scratch. 3 hours later I was still playing it.

[Sotenga]

Team Fortress 2. Not having played any FPS titles specifically tailored for multiplayer until then, and not intending to ever, I just decided to give it a try as it came with the territory of the Orange Box. I ended up enjoying the hell out of it for the most part, though as my XBLA Gold subscription ran out, some of the matches were getting obnoxious and there were some flagrant cheaters I had to deal with. Still, I really liked it and hope to play it more when I get Gold again... and yes, I am glad that the XBOX 360 version will receive the same updates as the PC version. ^_^

[SegaAges]

Nintendogs for the DS. It just wasn't my type of game. I wandered over to a kiosk at a game store that had it on display. There was a puppy on the screen, just staring at me. This is the stupidest thing ever, I thought, and patted its head with the stylus. Fifteen minutes later, I was still there, scratching its belly and trying to figure out how to feed it a treat.

I had the same experience with it, but I ended up buying the game

EDIT: Oh yeah, The Mask for SNES

[Xander]

The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse (SNES).

Serious platformer material. A bit short but surprisingly solid game.

[MrSparkle]

Wrong game man, you're thinking of Samba de Amigo

haha oops my bad your absolutely right.

[BHvrd]

Earth Defence Force 2017 is a great game man, a classic imo.

I would have to say The Sims is my all time "I can't believe I like this" game. I never thought I would like it till I played it and GOD....once I pick it up I can't put it back down, it's like it becomes glued to me. bad addiction.

Usually if I play a few hours i'm like, omg what a waste of time. In that time I could have cleaned my own house, taken my own shower and yeah, that's why i'm really surprised I like The Sims aka, housekeeping game.

[TonyTheTiger]

I don't have many situations where I walked into a game expecting not to like it and got turned around. Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is one recently though. MK: Deception and Armageddon are awkward and broken pieces of trash. MK vs. DC is actually pretty fun.

I do have more than a few instances of games that I didn't know existed that upon playing them caught my attention. Eternal Darkness is one of them. I also have some guilty pleasures that no matter how much I'm told the game isn't very good I'll always like it. M.C. Kids and U.N. Squadron are up on that list.

[KEVMAN569]

Earthbound.

It just really has an interesting story. It also dwells away from the typical RPG cliches like those in Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.

I was surprised by this one because I really don't like RPG's at all. Something about the lack of action that just bores the hell outta me.

I do haveto admit the difficulty is a little too high for me. Maybe that's because I'm new to the RPG genre.

[Daltone]

Clayfighter 63 1/3 (N64) - after this got critically savaged I decided to pick it up to indulge my love of awful games. It was only a couple of quid. I don't know if it's just that the expectations were set so low, but I thought it was at least moderately enjoyable in short bursts.

Mario 64 (DS) - On the N64 the platforming didn't really do much for me - at the time I just wasn't that interested. Then I got it packed in with my DS, and bugger me, it's not half bad is it? The stylus control is a bit uncomfortable, but ultimately.. yeah. Not bad.

Deep Fear (SAT) - I got this whilst going through survival horror burn out. I thought that, realisitically, I'd play it for a while and then it would go and sit in the collection not doing much. I was really surprised when the setting inexplicably hooked me, and I ended up playing all the way to the end.

[The 1 2 P]

The original Spyro and Crash Team Racing on the PS1. I only played them because my niece owned them. So one day I played them and Spyro is surprisingly fun. I liked running around bonking enemies. As for CTR, I loved that game so much that upon beating it I bought the Japanese import version so that I had another excuse to play thru the whole thing again.

[poloplayr]

The Magical Quest starring Mickey Mouse (SNES).

Serious platformer material. A bit short but surprisingly solid game.

One of my all-time favourite games. Such a polished Class A title.

[Maxx]

Dai Senryaku VII: Modern Military Tactics for Xbox. So crappy graphics, but I can't stop playing... I liked it so much I bought the PS2 factory sealed just to have.

I have tried and tried to get friends to like this game so I can have someone else to play besides the computer. I have even given away copies just to get oponents. Alas, I'm the only one I know to like the game.

[HyruleHero]

For me, one game as a kid I never thought would be any good is Princess Tomato for the NES.. I was never an RPG guy, but this story was kind of fun...The finger wars were a little much...but for a quirky idea and title it worked. Koodos to Princess Tomato!!

[SpaceHarrier]

Bullet Witch (Xbox 360)

I read how 'broken' the game was ahead of time but something about its design intrigued me anyway. Had a blast playing it, despite the glitchy lighting and kind of straight-forward progression (kill brain, open gate). Loved the car hurling mayhem of it all.

[Graham Mitchell]

Portals. I knew it would be a cool puzzle game, but I couldn't have predicted the Cube-meets-2001-with-a-sadistic-HAL-9000 ambience, which really is the reason I love it so much.

I guess you can add Bioshock to that list for the same reason. I really couldn't get into FPS prior to this generation, but I think they've gotten so good that they're quickly becoming some of my favorite games of this generation. Not all of them, mind you (I wasn't so into the Resistance 2 beta) but a lot of them really hit me.

[Frica89]

Clayfighter 63 1/3 (N64) - after this got critically savaged I decided to pick it up to indulge my love of awful games. It was only a couple of quid. I don't know if it's just that the expectations were set so low, but I thought it was at least moderately enjoyable in short bursts.
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I also liked that game. Critics crapped all over it, but I thought it was a pretty fun fighting game. I really liked the characters too.

Another game that comes to mind is WWE Crush Hour. It's a car-combat game featuring wrestlers, and its pretty damn fun if you're playing with somebody else. I think I'd seen it get scores of 2 out of 10 in magazines.

[j_factor]

Shooter: Space Shot. I believe its original retail price was $9.99, which generally means it's not even worth thinking of playing. And it has the absolute most generic name ever (not to mention redundant). Eventually I happened to get it as part of a lot, and figured I'd give it a quick spin. I found myself strangely hooked. Not exactly the best game ever, but it's a fun diversion.

[Simply Dave]

Puzzle Quest on NDS

This game had me hooked forever.

[Julio III]

Sonic Unleashed
The reviews all slate but I have really enjoyed it so far. Also, the reviews kept complaining about the werehog levels but I quite like them, bear in mind that I haven't played any of the games they compare the werehog levels to such as God of War

Call of Duty 4
I bought this because everyone raves about it but was very dubious because I don't like first person shooters in general, absolutely hate Halo. In fact, I don't really like 3D shooting games that much at all, apart from the odd one like Goldeneye/TimeSplitters2. I also was very dubious about the real life setting, especially as it was Modern day, I would have preferred WW2. Note that I've never played this game multi-player, only single-player but its been utterly fantastic. It very much feels horrible, like you are *in* a war, and it integrates the story/cut-scenes excellently. However, the checkpoint/respawning system is far too videogamey.