Games which exceeded your expectations

[Champloo]

Killer7 took me by surprise. When it was in early development, I always had my eyes on it, but soon after the previews it received seemed pretty negative. When it finally came out, it received some good reviews (Edge, GameTM) but overall they tended to rate it mediocre or just plain bad and most agreed that the gameplay was boring. When I picked it up however, I found that I loved the style and even the gameplay was, whilst repetitive, a lot of fun. The shooting was surprisingly addictive, trying to pick out the critical spots never got old and on top of that, the story was fantastic.

Xenogears, likewise surprised me. I only got around to playing it about a year ago and I had heard a lot about the story being brilliant but to be honest, I assumed that it would be similar to half the other JRPG's you hear have brillinat stories, generic and dull. I was pleasantly surprised, as the story was fantastic but moreover so was the battle sysem. Great game all round and unlike a lot of RPG's it didn't become a chore to play, even after having clocked around 60 hours finishing the main quest.

[member2127]

Wario Ware

[Team Andromeda]

Far too many to list but here's a few

Panzer Dragoon series

Exhumed- Came out of nowhere to be my fav FPS ever made (still today) The level desgin as never been bettered imo

JSR- Again come out of nowhere to just blow me away

Sonic Adv - I expected big things with this but was blown away with just the intro, never mind the full game.

Sonic CD- I think only GameFan really got what this game was about, mosy missed out of the the depth this game really had.

Revenge Of Shinobi - Was expecting more of the same from the Arcade, I was not expecting one of the best platform games ever made, with near Mario levels of perfection and game desgin , and I did not expect a music score that good.

SOR II - After I read it was 16 meg I was expecting something great, I was not expecting to play handdown the best scrolling beat them up evere made, with Neo Geo like graphics and Sound.

Lunar - Again I think only Gamefan really gave this game the mark it merited . Unmatched story, music and set of characters in a RPG.

HALO.

O.TO.GI - Jawdroping and the sequel was even better .

Wave Race 64 - Was sort of expecting a F-Zero on water, was not expecting it to be the best .Water based simulation game ever , with water physics that have yet to be bettered and a game that is just so much fun .

Star Fox (Snes) I knew it would be good, but not this good.

Manic Minner - Even the title screen was class, I don't think the game will ever age .

Gift From The Gods - Had it free with my ZX and just got that pack based onthe Box art , never expecting the game to be so good.

GoldenEye 64 - Came out with little hype of build up, and remians one of the best FPS ever .

Duke Numkem 3D - After the right ups was just expecting more Doom, instead I got one of the game I've ever played with such Imagination and care lavished on each level. With some many memorable set pieces, bosses and bits of speech .

VF II - If only to show what the Saturn could really do .

Thunder Force IV - Knew it would be great, but not this ****ing great. Loved to put it on and what my Amiga and Snes freinds shut thier trap when making fun of the MD graphics and lack of colours (this showed up most Neo Geo shooters).

Batman Returns (Mega CD) - The driving parts still remain just as Playable as when the game 1st came out, and the music score and graphics were just a sensation when this 1st came out. Forget what the press said about Thumderwak , This was the game to show what the Mega CD could really do month before Thunder Hawk shipped . John O?Brien I could almost kiss you .

REZ - With mixed reviews and write ups just didn't really know what to expect. 2 mins into the game put all those fears to rest , and Area 5 and Adam Freeland music score is just as jawdropping now as the 1st time I played it.

Swtich (Mega CD) Came from notwhere to be one of my most loved game of all time, and never fails to bring a simle to me face .

ICO/SOC - Pure magic all the way through .

God Of War - Just ****ing love this game, and being a massive Ray Harryhausen fan made this game all the more enjoyable as it was like taking part in one of his movies.

Shenmue II - After part one this game had a lot to prove in my book, and disc 3 and 4 (magical) more than did that.

CodeVeronica - Ok I knew this was going to be great, but its was just bloody Fabulous even better than RE 4 in my view. With the best characters and story out of any of the RE series

[EvilBoris]

Call of Duty 2, I never like WW2 games, but COD2 was oozing with atmosphere, was fast paced and highlyPolished.

God of War, ordered this after reading it's god review, I was blown away by the graphics coming out of the PS2, the sheer sense of scale the game portrayed was amazing. The story was great and it was fun.

Oblivion, beautiful and engrosing, I never thought I'd enjoy this kind of RPG so much.

Phoenix Wright, just a joy to suck up the story, just as I thought I'd seen all the gameplay features it threw me another one.

[Hirst]

Tokyo Highway Challenge/Shutokou Battle (DC) - I remember a long, long time ago back when I only had a few games for DC that I was browsing around looking for driving games and chanced upon a review of the sequel which said it was a pretty solid racer. At the time the sequel was ?30-ish but you could get the first for about ?8, which I did. Amazing game. Silky smooth framerate, shiny cars, great effects from the lighting and above all superb feel for speed. And exhausts that go BOOF and BAM and flames shoot out, ace! Great car selection, all the favourites. The cars at maximum tune were frightening, especially the oldskool S30 Fairlady Z and the Porsche. The music was incredible and absolutely suited the game, tense atmospheric music while you're driving about changing to intense music when you get into a race. Amazing game and the followups were brilliant too in their own way, but this game has a kind of magic to it - reminds me of Sega arcade driving games a lot. I believe a lot of the team involved on it were ex-AM2. And then I got the Japanese version with the special "works" Levin/Truenos!!

[prinnysquad]

Chikyuu Boueigun 1 and 2.

Budget games.

Just ... superb.

[Concept]

If you can ignore the crummy last third, then I'd have to say Fahrenheit is a game that exceeded my expectations. I was expecting it to be above average, but the atmosphere and well written, acted and structured beginning and beyond middle were absolutely superb.

I'd also include Riddick - which I thought the likes of Edge and even ourselves were harsh on. It's a superb game and far more of a spiritual sequel to Pitch Black than the second film itself was. I expected something akin to Doom III - a technically sophisticated game built around very simple and repetitive principles, but it's deeper than that. In many ways it's not far of the things Half-Life 2 managed to achieve.

[Dogg Thang]

I still haven't played Riddick. I must give it a go. Is the XBox version the best to go for?

[Richard.John]

SM64

Played it on demo pod in Tokyo and just knew it would rule the world of gaming.

Halo

I read about it but nothing prepared me for the actual experience of playing the game. The finest FPS ever IMO. Truly combat evolved.

JSR

It was the embodiment of cool, and came at a time when the DC could do no wrong. I loved it.

[MattyD]

I still haven't played Riddick. I must give it a go. Is the XBox version the best to go for?

You might not like the low resolution in the Xbox version if yo're used to PC gaming. But then, the Xbox version is so much easier to set up and play... Otherwise there's no difference. Great game though, if a little short.

[dc-arena]

That's what I remember.

They did indeed, then the next month bumped it upto 8/10 claiming it was a typo. Sure it was boys, sure it was.

[Concept]

Going back a bit, but I recall someone had a go at Edge on their old forums which the writers grew irate about and apparently traced the ip back to someone at Rockstar (insinuated anyway). Or at least that was how I remember it.

This was a month before the 6/10 was issued I think. At the time it was claimed to be a printing error - could have been something else, could have been poor timing. Who knows.

[Concept]

I still haven't played Riddick. I must give it a go. Is the XBox version the best to go for?

It's a great game that's really only ruined by loud and extremely sub-Hans Zimmer-generic music during the shooting (the rest of it is okay). Sounds like a small thing, but in the end it really begins to grates and feels out of place against the general tone of the atmosphere.

It has some great RPG/adventure elements which take some of the City 17 aspects of Half-Life 2 on another notch, the melee system is at the very least as good as Condemned and probably more diverse, the combat is extremely satisfying, it's beautifully atmospheric, it features an excellent vehicle section, and the transition between first and third person lends a sense of weight and physicality to the character. It also helps that the voice acting and general graphics are completely first-rate - and with good reason. I haven't seen a more extensive cast list for a game other than Shenmue.

Put things this way... Riddick is far from being your usual mildly above average licenced game some reviews painted it out to be. I'd put it in the top five first-person games to arrive post-2000 (the others being Half-Life 2, Halo, Far Cry and Prime).

As MattyD points out though, the lack of AA in the Xbox version really shows in places. To counter that, the game is suited to the Xbox pad, and although the PC version looks lush, I found the Xbox version more impressive simply due to the fact it's pushing the host hardware further. Bar the decrease in screen resolution and texture resolution, it's exactly the same as what's on the PC.

[Dogg Thang]

Cool, thanks for the info. In spite of the lack of AA, I may just go for the XBox version for the ease of it. Cheers.

[MikeRox]

They did indeed, then the next month bumped it upto 8/10 claiming it was a typo. Sure it was boys, sure it was.

Didn't they mark it down because Rockstar wouldn't send em a review copy and they had to *oh so shockingly* actually buy (I know, I know, who the hell would ever buy a game? ) the game to review it?