Kane&Lynch Series: The Thread ^^
I think the worst thing that K&L1 did, was getting Gerstmann fired for his bad review. And yes, I think that Gerstmann did this game a disservice with his review, but don't think that he should have been fired for it. After Gerstmann was fired, the K&L-series lost every chance to get critical acclaim and has been equally threaded by gamers. I'm not saying that that K&L games are AAA masterpieces (especially not the first one), but they were not as bad as people made them out to be. The second one was especially great and wouldn't it not be for SplinterCell:ChaosTheory, it would be my personal BEST COOP game ever.
Also alot of games mentioned in this thread I also greatly enjoyed while the general consensus was that they sucked: SkywardSword would be a recent one. Just goes to show how good "bad" games can be given the chance.
This is a good choice. I agree they're buggy, wonky games, but I liked them both, especially the sequel. Kane & Lynch 2's visual style, with the simulated compression artifacts and shakeycam was amazing, and the strange, ambient "music" soundtrack was creative and interesting.
I wish the developers would (in the case of a third game) go beyond creating interesting
characters and actually try telling a good story
with those characters, but still... I'd buy a third K&L in a heartbeat. (On Steam sale, lolz.)
Alan Wake gets some criticism for how repetitive the combat is due to lack of enemy and weapon variety and that's a fair point, but I still love the game and consider it one of the best of the last generation.
Alan Wake is a great game. My main problem with it is the poor, derivative writing. I expect a lot better from Sam Lake. (And speaking of "derivative," AW just outright copies so many elements of Twin Peaks that it's both wonderful and embarrassing. Wonderful because, hey, interactive, explorable Twin Peaks! Embarrassing because I know the team could put a more interesting, original spin on a lot of it.)
The Shining Force Neo and EXA iterations on PS2.
Neo and EXA get mentioned more for what they were not (namely worthy Shining Force SRPGs) while less attention is given to what they were--vivid, colorful, fast-paced hack n' slash adventures that really pushed the hardware and had all sorts of ways you could structure your playthrough and upgrades, including a memorable, non-linear world with huge difficulty spikes all over the place.
For bright, fun, loot/upgrade hackathons, there's nothing quite like these on PS2, and while I'm not putting them up on the top shelf (not even close) Neo and EXA are definitely more collectible/playable than the level of (deserved) grief they get for not living up to what the Shining Force community wanted.
Read the reviews for more of the failings and quirks (hint: turn the character voices down in Neo), but also take note that graphically these are games that really benefitted from being released late in the PS2 life cycle. PS2 should not be able to do what SEGA attempted here, and it shows (ie. slowdown), but also with an amazingly vivid, distinct and iridescent gameworld in which enemies fill the screen, bombard you with effects, NPCs dish out tongue-in-cheek humor and if you wander down the wrong lane, you can easily have your ass handed to you.
Neo and EXA might be poor "Shining Force" games, but they are
damn good successors to the Dreamcast's Record of Lodoss War.
When I realized that, my disgust disappeared and was replaced by pure love. (Rest in peace, Neverland...)
