Games That Just Surprised The Hell Out Of You

Can I jump in on Borderlands 2 without ever playing the first? Or do I need to go through the 1st to understand the story of the 2nd?

Crazy enough, Double Dragon Neon is the most current. I had no idea I'd enjoy this game as much as I have. It's totally a tribute to 80's pop culture for guys like me growing up. The game can get pretty dang wacky. I love everything from the wise cracks, "touch doooowwn" or "hole in one" when cracking someone with a baseball bat or the other many references to things like Wierd Al-style song stuff or He-Man or whatever. Sort of reminds of Ms. Splosion Man(another awesome surprise), but Double Dragon'ish. The combat system is quite satisfying, deeper than I'd have expected for sure. It has some problems at times (Abobo just doesn't look right) but was immensely satisfying to me. I finished my first play through today.

I was expecting Darksiders II to rock because, well, the first game did. So Darksiders I counts as one this gen.

Bayonetta: Haha I bashed this one so hard leading up to it's release. The critical acclaim made me take a closer look. Good thing, too. It's awesome-sauce to the max. Heck, not just Bayonetta, but PLatinum Games as a dev in general. Vanquish was just as awesome. I'd take it over Gears any day, gameplay wise. Oh, and Bayonetta 2 is on my hit list for sure 😉

Ninja Gaiden 3: I had all sorts of problems with Hayasashi's comments leading up to it's release so I had my suspicions, but I had no idea the series would drop in quality so fast and so hard. Ouch! But I have hope for the Razor's Edge update. I'm not expecting earth shattering different, just more hardcore and more dialed in… oh, I hope.

There's a ton others Im sure. And while I'd like to have included stuff like Batman, Castlevania LoS, Mass Effect, Uncharted and others, I either knew they'd be good, or they already had a solid reputation leading up to having played them. So no surprises here. Awesome games, nonetheless 😉

Cool, well, it has a learning curve so be patient with it. Be sure to read the combat tutorials before investing a lot of effort. There's more to the system than meets the eye, at least for me. I question if a dedicated throw button was necessary. The RPG-like elements are pretty cool, though. The Dragon super I found to be real effective so it's a good upgrade path. Oh, and don't waste money on purchasing lives, not sure if it's a bug, but you seem to default back to 2 lives at the start of a new level off of continuing from a save game. Maybe that's a bug, dunno.

Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/14/2012 10:25:30 PM

yes, I agree, the knee bash is sorely missing BUT the game does work the grapple throw well into the rest of the gameplay. It's also nice being able to just grab those robots out of mid-air and chuck them. And btw, scratch what I said about the grapple button. I remember in games past where it would be annoying picking up an item that would be mapped to a shared punch button, because when you wanted to punch yet a weapon was beneath you, you went down to grab the weapon instead of the punch. Sometimes could be annoying.

So online co-op is coming? AWESOME. needs it for sho!

EDIT: It also took an adjustment to the fact that characters can't be thrown until first stunned. This is classic DD design. I know. They could reimplement the knee bash by pressing forward INTO the stunned character while pressing either punch or kick. This way one could delienate from a throw or head bash. WayForward needs me!

Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/14/2012 10:52:20 PM

I know but don't be let down. The game has TONS more moves than the old games. I should write them though. Maybe they could patch that knee bash stuff in, or something.

Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/14/2012 10:59:09 PM

Oh and World, I definitely like having the "display damage" option turned on from the options menu.. It gives you a clear idea of exactly how much damage you're inflicting. Like when I leveled up my "balanced" attribute I could clearly tell I was dishing out way more damage and living a lot longer too 😉

Last edited by Temjin001 on 9/15/2012 1:31:47 AM

I have to agree with you Ben, Uncharted 1.

Red Dead Redemption. I'd barely even heard of the game, next thing I knew, all of my friends were playing it. So when I finally got my hands on it, I knew itd be good, I just didn't know itd blow me away like it did, now it sits in my top 5 games this gen.

Infamous, another game i'd barely heard of, one of my friends brought it and Uncharted 1 & 2(another 2 games that blew me away) and I just knew I had to have infamous, now it and its sequel are another entry into my top 5 games this gen.

And Demons Souls.. I heard about it and knew I wanted it but was scared away. fate brought me to it, a buddy was about to trade it to gamestop for 8 bucks, I leapt at the chance and offered him $10 for it. I didn't know what to expect, but after hours of getting my ass kicked I mastered it and now it and dark souls are some of my all time favorite games.

~Wrote

Alice 2 impressed, I knew I'd like it but the reviews almost scared me away and didn't address the more interesting psychological story elements.

Catherine was amazing, and this comes from a guy who doesn't dig puzzling. It even made sitting around drinking with your buddies a fun gaming session.

Soul Calibur IV's character creator was great and allowed me to create almost all of my favorite characters from other games including FF.

Catherine! Demon's souls! Dragon Age Origins!!! Totally did not know what to expect and they were the titles I had most fun with 😀

Oblivion. My first experience with an Elder Scrolls game.

Resistance 1. Just the massive everything. The enemies, the battles, the online, the environments. Amazing game.

GTA4. I always expect greatness From a GTA, but the shift towards realism got me enthralled.

MGS4. Basically same as GTA, except the storyline is what got me.

Heavy Rain. Well it's Heavy Rain. If you're on this site, you know why it was good.

Assassins Creed series, specifically the first one. I remember climbing buildings for the first time in that game and just being utterly amazed and astonished with the gameplay. I still remember the layout of Acre if that says anything. Then the second one absolutely blew me away and improved everything. Then Brotherhood brought some fun stuff. Then Revelations.. Well that was just ok I suppose.

Uncharted series. Each game has successfully made me say "holy shit" while playing. Even Golden Abyss on the Vita.

LA Noire. Just everything. This is my single favorite game of the generation.

I really could not get into the combat system in this game, it was far too complicated for it's own good.I hated when you were critical, you would hunch on your toes like a little mouse trying to recover yourself with them crystal shards… which never worked. I will be selling this game soon…

Little Big Planet,Flower,Heavy Rain and RDR top my list but I will never forget Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Skyrim. Buggy or not those games sucked over 1000 hours of my life and honestly I dont regret one single minute.

I guess you could say Bethesda surprised me the most, although in more ways than one. Not having a hold of the Ps3 by now is just plain unacceptable. It's crazy to think what their games would be if they did….Get your sh*t together Bethesda, your games deserve it.

Heavenly Sword. Fun combat, ok story and amazing performance. Way underrated.

Gears of War 1. Amazing graphics at the time and very fun to play.

Heavy Rain. An amazing emotional journey with a twisted story.

I think these 3 made me say wow louder than anything else

The ones that suprised me were Valkyria Chronicles, Mirror's Edge, and Sacred 2.

Mirror's Edge being the biggest shocker for me as I hate platformers and also don't have much faith in EA, but I have to say they knocked it out of the park. Valkyria Chronicles definitely looked like a game I would enjoy as I love the 2 genres it mixed, but I never expected it to blow me away the way it did, it is the only game that has got me to shed tears since FF VII. Sacred 2, all I can say is thank you! It reminds me of several of the games I loved from back in the day. The difficulty is so oldschool on Niob, and the loot system was fantastic(if you actually knew how to use it).

The disappointments are actually a very short list for me as I rarely ever buy games that I am unsure of. The one that I bought was RDR, ugh…I hated everything about it. I still cannot, for the life of me, figure out why people talk so highly of this game. The other was Uncharted…I got this one with a system so I didn't really buy it, and with all the acclaim it had I thought there was no way I wouldn't like it, however it is/was the easiest most boring game I played this gen. Don't get me wrong I thought the production values were great, but the game felt like it was built around what a 5 year old could beat.

I said the same thing about Bioshock and ME2.

FEAR is a great series, part 3 is a little less tactical but of higher quality. Plus you get two characters with different gameplay options.

I've said this many times before but Catherine, I remember at first thinking it was a weird erotic flash game for the PSN. But as the media flooded I became more and more intrigued. I became so excited for it that I felt I had to import it 5 early with the US released – Something I never do.

Playing the game was like someone just opened a window in the stuffy, saturated room of the industry this gen, this game was everything against this gen's movement. No DLC & the game delivers plenty of extras which could have been. No online, just a very well polished single player game, it even has co-op multiplayer, which is something I was sad about dying this gen.

Then the actual game itself, A real polished structure as you live out Vincent's life for a week. Story clips during the day, the social-sim elements in the bar and the puzzle sections as nightmares! Now, I don't even own any other puzzle games, but this game was so well rounded, I didn't even mind playing it – I really enjoyed the Nightmare sections.

Then you have all the choices you make during the game, helping out characters and making conscious decisions, and being stuck in between the conscious of Vincent as he communicates to the two girls. This game had an interactive narrative similar to the nature of Heavy Rain something which I think is the future of video game narratives – I just didn't expect it from such a game. I really do rate this in my top 10 games of all time and it's the only game this gen to do so.

id have to go with infamous, resistance 3, uncharted 3, AC2, GOW3, ME3 and last but by far the biggest shock GTAIV.

infamous has to be the biggest pleasant surprise this gen!
i thought oh here we go another developer that thinks they can make a superhero game.
this is going to be so generic and lame!
then i watched all the trailers and yawned, that looks so boring!
then i played the demo, and enjoyed it so much i could not stop playing it!
i have not played a demo that much in my entire life!
and its been happy ever after ever since.
still one of my favorite games of all time!

resistance 3 ended up SOOOOOOOOOOO much better than what i was expecting!
just the whole old school feel to it, it was such a breath of fresh air!
the no more regenerative health, the survival feel to it.
for once it did not feel like you were at war, it was a extermination!
only thing that was disappointing was the scale of it.
especially after R2s epic boss battles, i was really hoping they would return but sadly they dident.

and that funny enough was a perfect link onto uncharted 3, because it was exactly the same!
so much better than its predecessor simply because the gameplay, story, everything about it was just so much better thought out!
except again the scale.
the thing that the series are known for!
the thing that made the series so popular in the first place!
resistance became popular because of its quirky weapons, and amazing big boss battles!
so in short its scale.
uncharted became famous for exactly the same thing, its amazing scale!
so both sequels removed them.
sigh.
uncharted 3 also removed the polish its predecessor had.
uncharted 2 was nail bitingly well polished!
1 more coat of polish and you would of stripped the paint it was that shinny!
did not find a single freaking bug in that game!
3 sadly was the opposite, found many of bugs some game breaking ones.
and the scale, the hollywood summer blockbuster feel was sadly lost.
ND lied to us, they said they had heaps of big epic moments that made the train level from uncharted 2 look like childs play!
but sadly the opposite was true, everything from uncharted 3 looked like childs play compared to uncharted 2.
and the removal of the epic boss battles with the choppers and tanks from uncharted 2 was the final straw.
sadly describes games perfectly this gen!
2 steps forward, 2 steps back.
we can never have a game that is just perfect, it always has to be it does this, this and this better, but it also does this, this and this worse.
why cant everything just be better?

AC2 luckily though the exception to that rule.
it was better than the original in every single way!
i mean who was expecting the quality, polish, scope, scale and attention to detail and NO REPETITIVENESS!!!!!!!!!!
after AC1?
exactly, NO ONE!
AC was a brilliant game, but just was far too repetitive and had no where near enough variety!
AC2 did everything AC1 did well and made it better, than took everything it did poorly and turned it into pure perfection!
for once it was a game that was all better, nothing worse!
for once we had a game that was not only 100% quality, but also 100% quantity!
so much variety, so much content, and everything was pure bliss!
and that is exactly why to this day, so many years later, its still one of the generations best games!

GOW3 simply because like resistance and uncharted it threw out everything the series is famous and beloved for!
we love GOW because of its nail biting unforgiving, its difficult well thought out puzzles, its intriguing story, its awesome level design, its amazing boss battles, its deep complex gameplay, its strategic but fast paced at the same time.
GOW3 was the exact opposite!
there was no nail biting difficulty, even on chaos difficulty it was not that hard!
i platted 3 in a few days, i still have not been able to get half the trophies of the first 2 GOWs there so hard!
there was no in depth combat system its been simplified so much!
the level design, well, let me ask you this.
how many times do you return to the area where the flames of pandora lie?
it feels like the game takes place within a house, and theres 5 rooms and each level takes place between the rooms repeating every room multiple times!
the bosses while massive were not that much fun either.
GOW3 has actually gotta be the only game this gen that actually has managed to make every single bit about the franchise WORSE!
most games get 1 thing right, one thing better than their predecessor.
a redeeming factor.
GOW3 sadly does not have ANY!
if it was not for GTAIV, it would be THE most disappointing game of the generation!

ME3 self explanatory.
exactly like uncharted 3 and resistance 3,
gameplay was sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better but unlike the other 2 games, the story was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much worse!
unlike most games it was not 3 steps forward 3 steps back.
it was 1 step forward 3 steps back!
the gameplay and epic boss battles, epic space fights were f*cking awesome!
the big space battle towards the end seeing all the massive ships shooting eachother and exploding felt straight out of star wars!
it was epic!
but that said, everything that makes ME great was crap!
the story, the choices, the characters, the personality, the emotions, the side missions, the whole point of the mass effect universe was in tatters!

and GTAIV is again pretty self explanatory.
after all the delays, and hype i was really hoping for and expecting such a awesome game!
i was expecting the scale and ambition, the customization and variety of activities to do of san andreas.
that was such a amazing game, from its pure fun gameplay, to its gang theme and gang wars, to the upgradeable weapons, to the upgradeable cars, to the jet packs and vehicles, to the massive landscape and areas, to the activities you can do.
it was really, truly, the most impressive GTA game!
not the funnest, or the best that was vice city.
but truly the most impressive!
and here comes along next gen systems, with that i was expecting the scale and ambition of san andreas but in HD!
but sadly what we got was a very boring, plain, restrictive, unambitious one.
so not only were the missions disappointing, i thought this was grand theft auto 4 not taxi driver 4!
90% of the missions contain of you getting a car, driving somewhere, picking someone up, driving them somewhere, than taking them home!
HOW FUN!
NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!
not to mention the whole realistic tone the game had, the cars were just no fun to drive!
the cover system was frustrating, the guns felt really weird, the game was just the exact opposite to the term FUN!

that has to be THE biggest shock of the generation!
not only were we expecting the best game ever made, and we got one of the worst!
so not only was it the biggest shock of the generation because of its quality surprise, or should i say lack of it, but it was also a even bigger shock because its turn of tone.
GTA has always been controversial, it has always been balls to the metal fun, fun for the sake of fun!
and allot of the time crude humor, or even disgusting and degrading!
4 was not though, it was the complete opposite!
and that alone is why it is THE biggest shock of the generation!
and also the biggest disappointment of the history of video games!
and that is also why im VERY, VERY, VERY worried about GTAV!
i suffered through 4, i dont think i can do it again………

Last edited by ___________ on 9/15/2012 6:03:11 AM

i hope so!
i really hope they go back to the gang wars of san andreas, they were so much fun!
im hopeful though, there was a supposed intern working at R* north a few months ago who wrote a massive article on GTAVs content.
apparently going to have upgradeable cars, weapons just like san andreas had.
so hope so, that would be sweet!

Speaking of Siren: Blood Curse, I started playing it last night after I woke up at about midnight. Played the first two chapters and now I'll admit to being a bit leery of going back to it. That is proper horror 😀

Last edited by Lawless SXE on 9/15/2012 7:57:17 AM

Darksiders 1 took me by surprise, I was really interested in the story but man everything just came together incredibly.

Binary Domain is still in my opinion the best controller and handling third person shooter I have ever played. It cleans gears of wars control wise with only the melee options being a little limited. The story was well done and blasting robots was just amazingly satisfying.

Starhawk, I never thought a multiplayer console game would suck me in so much.

Most of you probably wont know this one, but a free game on steam called Alien Swarm, I can't tell you how big of a surprise this game was. Me and my friends just got sucked in and ended up getting almost all the achievements for that one. It was just so slick playing, excellent controls and replay value. Putting it on the hardest difficulty was a pure test of coordination and teamwork.

Deadspace 1 is my favourite survival horror game. Took me by surprise also.

There are probably some more that I will remember later, however I think the biggest surprise was Binary Domain.

Batman Arkham Games: As a huge batman fan i wasnt expecting much but both games were amazing.

Uncharted 2: UC 1 was great but i was hooked from the opening of until the last second.

MGS4: Played the demo at least 80 o more times, it was my first Metal Gear game (i know crazy, lol) and bought the game and loved every minute of it and is one of the few games that i consider perfect.

Burnout Paradise for certain. I'd never played a burnout title until that one either. I played the demo for more hours than I played GT:Prolog. I even managed to lay my hands on the Japanese demo so I could play the car in that one too….lol

I put an obscene number of hours into playing Burnout Paradise. I still see folks on my friends list cranking that game up on occasion.

for me it was THE WARRIORS on the psp, it followed the movie closely and the music was right on. great game