Great, but criminally underrated console games

[Jakew]

Are there any console games you loved to death but never got a decent sequel?

Def Jam Vendetta: Fight For NY ... easily the best 3D fighter ever. The fighting mechanics were great. Followed up by the awful Def Jam: Icon.

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=iuz6llprCOo&feature=related

Gladius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKh_w2MbNLk

Freedom Fighters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWw5aCtOAao&feature=related

War of The Monsters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BaSncL2ymQ&feature=related

Bushido Blade (terrible sequel): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7WZf6Q_QR4

[detourne_me]

i was just talking about bushido blade the other day,  we were playing ninja gaiden.  man i loved that game! so innovative, i really wish there will be a next gen version.

is freedom fighters any good? whats it like? i never got around to trying it out, or state of emergency.

[zuludelta]

is freedom fighters any good? whats it like? i never got around to trying it out, or state of emergency.

Don't know about freedom fighters since I never played it, but State Of Emergency was pretty bad. Dodgy controls, substandard graphics (even if it was made during the PS2's early days), and generally poor level design.

[MJB]

Don't know about freedom fighters since I never played it, but State Of Emergency was pretty bad. Dodgy controls, substandard graphics (even if it was made during the PS2's early days), and generally poor level design.

I agree with Zulu. State of Emergency sucked IMO.

-MJB

[TheMarvell]

-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil
-Beyond Good & Evil

did I mention Beyond Good & Evil?

Seriously, that game was robbed when it was released back in 2003. It's like the poster child of underrated, underground games. It's seriously one of the best games I've ever played and one of my top all time favorites. In other words, it's freaking good. But it sold like crap and the likelihood of a sequel was little to none. Until this years E3 that is, where Ubisoft "unofficially" announced a sequel by showing an untitled teaser trailer of one of the most recognizable characters in the game. So hopefully they'll make some sort of official announcement within the next 6 months and show some actual game footage.

-Psychonauts. I've never played it, but I heard nothing but great things about it.

-Legacy of Kain. Even though the series has 5 games under its belt, the last game to come out was Defiance back in 2003. This is my absolute favorite series, and it saddens me that it's been put on the backburner in favor of Tomb Raider. It deserves another sequel.

-Oddworld. While I didn't care for the Abe games on PS1, and Munch on Xbox was mediocre at best, I really, really liked Stranger's Wrath. That was one damn fine game, almost as underrated and underplayed as Beyond Good & Evil.

-Conan. I don't know why, but this game was a ton of fun. Sure it's a God of War ripoff, but it's a really good one and I doubt we'll see a sequel.

-Knights of the Old Republic. Probably the most popular on my list, but I would love to see a 3rd entry and am shocked there isn't one announced yet. Instead, they're making some lame MMO. Ugh...

-The Longest Journey. The sequel, Dreamfall, was starting to really pull me in when suddenly it just stopped. I was ticked. And last I heard, the sequel (or rest of the game, I should say) isn't going to be released anytime soon...%&#$!

[Volsung]

Bushido Blade, War of the monsters, Def Jam Fight For NY.
i've spent so much hours on those^^

I can add...
Severance

And probably plenty of others that I can't remember right now^^

FFVTTR obviously...

[BWPS]

-The Longest Journey. The sequel, Dreamfall, was starting to really pull me in when suddenly it just stopped. I was ticked. And last I heard, the sequel (or rest of the game, I should say) isn't going to be released anytime soon...%&#$!

That really wasn't much of an actual game, though. I'm hoping that Dreamfall Chapters goes back to a more traditional adventure approach or becomes more action-oriented. I'd really rather not play a game where some of the levels are literally walking down a straight path into another cutscene. And also cliffhanger endings are really lame, despite what Ragnar Tournquist thinks.

[Talavar]

KotOR is hardly an underrated game - it sold tons of copies, got a port to PC, a sequel, won tons of awards, and got re-released as part of the X-box Platinum line.  If it's anything, it was over-rated at the time; I mean, it was a pretty good game, but at the time of its release people talked about it like it was magic or something.

[The Troll]

Going to show my age, but two underrated games that I absolutely loved as a kid were River City Ransom and Super Dodgeball for the NES. I had more fun playing those two games than probably any game ever. RCR was cross between and RPG and a Double Dragon-like game. And every single person in the game had a name. You weren't beating up generic ninja #17 and #18, you were beating up Jeff and Hank. I think zulu's current pic is from the game.

SDB - I don't know even how to explain it. the rules were simple, the controls were simple (2 buttons) but nothing was better than beating the ridiculously overpowered Icelandic team to win the world cup. go here for more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Dodge_Ball
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NR5WVMQ2zHU

I think Dodgeball would have tremendous success on the Wii if they could capture the magic of the original.

[Tortuga]

-Knights of the Old Republic. Probably the most popular on my list, but I would love to see a 3rd entry and am shocked there isn't one announced yet. Instead, they're making some lame MMO. Ugh...

Mark my words, as long the KoTOR MMO is being developed by Bioware (which, it is) it will not and could possibly never be "lame".

[MJB]

Going to show my age, but two underrated games that I absolutely loved as a kid were River City Ransom and Super Dodgeball for the NES.

Super Dodge Ball was sooooo much fun. I even picked up Super Dodge Ball Advance for the GBA. Mui fun!

-MJB

[TheMarvell]

Dreamfall sucked as a game, but as an interactive story I was really enjoying it. Until it just stopped out of nowhere that is. The creator of the game actually believes cliff hangers are a GOOD thing? Gah, if it's one thing I freaking hate about stories in games these days, it's that it's the NORM now to end your game prematurely. The way I see it, why invest in this epic story with epic characters if it's not going to go anywhere until *maybe* another sequel or two?  :banghead:

and I know KoTOR is not underrated, but I still want a third entry regardless. As for the MMO they're making, I said "lame" in reference to MMO's in general, not this one specifically. The only one I liked was WoW, and in hindsight, those games require you to do a lot of "videogame chore work" in order to advance. I'm just not a fan of MMO's, and I think it's stupid of them to make ANOTHER Star Wars MMO when they already have Galaxies out there, which apparently people say is a broken game. I'd rather have them work on a Kotor 3 instead and have a great, complete story. For as much as I liked Kotor 2, there was another game with a tacked on ending to make a deadline.

[Jakew]

i was just talking about bushido blade the other day,  we were playing ninja gaiden.  man i loved that game! so innovative, i really wish there will be a next gen version.

I know. The way you could cripple your opponents leg or arm, or throw sand in their face was great. If your opponent was good at the game, you could have some epic fights. I loved that section with all the bamboo trees, which get sliced down during your swordfight.

is freedom fighters any good? whats it like? i never got around to trying it out, or state of emergency.

State of Emergency was awful. Freedom Fighters, however, was great. Cool graphics and rag-doll effects, and you could command a decent-sized squad. The gun battles were pretty epic towards the end, when you're fighting armoured soldiers.

[Verfall]

I'm gonna go off on a tangent and mention Naval Ops Warship Gunner 1 and 2. I played both those games for ridiculous amounts of time, just building ships and testing their weapon loads and stuff. The first one had a generic story line but was more "playable" as in there were fewer useless weapons. The second had a much better, if cliched, animeish storyline that I think I've played through 6 times or so, but was much tighter in how to build an effective ship in the "end game".

Very niched games, but I loved em to death.

[daerdevil]

Troll has it with RIVER CITY RANSOM and SUPER DODGE BALL for NES.

I really wanted that GLADIUS but it's not BC with the 360 and I don't have my PS2 anymore.  I think M$ has given up the whole BC support.

Here's my addition for the xbox and xbox360:

Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders- Think Dynasty Warriors meets Lord of the Rings meets Genghis Khan.  It's an awesome battlefield simulator where you take control of the leader and fight in real time.  Never heard of this one and it is quite well done.  Here's a link.  Definitely check out the movie section for a real treat.
http://www.kuftc.com/
more cool videos
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=kingdom+under+fire+crusaders&ei=UTF-8&vm=r&fr=yfp-t-501-s&fr2=tab-web&tnr=21&vid=000152839691
http://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play?p=kingdom+under+fire+crusaders&ei=UTF-8&vm=r&fr=yfp-t-501-s&fr2=tab-web&tnr=21&vid=000158256380
Oh did I mention you can play campaigns for both good and evil sides? 

[gengoro]

1.Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks.  Screw MK vs DC and make another.  Its was just an action game and it had better gameplay than their 3D fighters.  Which aint sayin much honestly.

2.Tech Rommancer for Dreamcast.  Awsome mech fighter.

3.Shogo: Mobile Armor Division for PC(sorry).  Great anime shooter.

4.Garou: Mark of the Wolves for dreamcast.  I guess it was snk's response to street fighter 3rd strike.

5.Bushido Blade of course. (2 was great damn it :evil:)

[Previsionary]

2.Tech Rommancer for Dreamcast.  Awsome mech fighter.

Say what now?! Someone actually knows of that game. Gengoro...you get 5 cool points for referencing a game I still play today. :P