Games you were wrong about

[Sam The Man]

I also thought the DS wouldn't catch on and that the PSP would outsell it.

As for games there is only one and thats Football Manager. My mate kept telling me to get into it and how addictive and brilliant it was but i just couldn't see the point of not being able to play the football and just manage and sort a team year after year. I also didnt like how all the players aged and that after a while you would be left with none of the real life stars that you have come to know and love but i picked it up anyway on the cheap and soon i was totally addicted and can honestly say that some of my most satisfying and rewarding moments in gaming have come from the series that is FM.

I can usually tell 95% of the time by looking at pics in mags or online and reading about a game wether or not its going to be one for me with mabee a few that i didn't care for when seeing pics off but later buying due to excellent reception and loving (Bioshock, Mass Effect)

And even though i honestly wasn't expecting anything special from FFXIII i did buy it on release day (FF Fan) and was shocked at just how boring, frustrating, annoying & linear it really was.

[merf]

I seem to be getting my racing games all wrong recently.

I loved the demo of split second and started out praising it in 1st play, after a couple of days though it became obvious what a vacuous empty cheating simplistic turkey it was, too late though and think my 8 score in first play was already registered

At the same time i hated the blur demo and picked it up on a whim didn't really bond without the single player either in that but about a month after i bought it I fired up the online and loved it.

Finally in my cocked up racer trilogy comes the latest NFS, hated the demo fairly vocally but left my pre-order in once the reviews starting showing up, didn't dislike the game on playing nut took a few hours to really warm into it and now love it.

Dunno what is going on as normally know my racers.

[Flabio]

Ditto on the DS. In my circle there was genuine belief from most of us that it was a gimmick doomed to failure in the face of the clearly superior PSP.

The one friend I have who disagreed has never let us live it down.

[briareos_kerensky]

DS for me too. I was skeptical about the Wii too, and an early preview of the console at an Activision event left me largely unimpressed.

I thought Ygddra Union would have been a grind-intensive Fire Emblem knock-off with cartony graphics. Mechanics were completely different and it became one of my favourite games across all consoles.
Etrian Odyssey, an other game bought for pretty characters...I think I've spent more hours on the first game than all Advance Wars combined and I've played the other two even longer.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Mario Galaxy - the pre release shots and hype just looked so boring.

Still play this now with my daughter, either taking turns or using the co-op element.

[QualityChimp]

I thought the DS and Wii would flop too. I thought the graphical juggernauts of the competition would crush them!

Fallout 3. Had no interest as I thought it'd be a stale dice-rolling RPG with loads of stats screens during battles.

My 360 RRODed and I'd won a copy on PS3 so tried it out. Before long I was rushing home to play a little bit more of it. Scavenging in building while hiding from Super Mutants as they walk past was terrifying!

[abigsmurf]

The Wiimote.

Although I suspect a large amount of this is down to the technical limitations of the controller (and the lack of Wiimote+ support) but... I thought there would be far more creative, better implementations of it than there are. I was expecting massive things from it.

Not saying there aren't plenty of great Wii games but I was just hoping that the Wiimote would allow for far more interesting gameplay mechanics than have been implemented. At the moment you get snippets of creative usage in party games but outside of that it's either a mouse replacement or used for occasional "shake the wiimote".

How about a sniper game with realistic aiming? At the moment all lightgun games assume you're aiming at something on the surface of the TV, not at things that may be 50m away or 100m away. The Wiimote can sense distance, this allows for true 'iron sights' aiming. No one has implemented this as far as I can tell.

[eastyy]

The Wiimote.

Although I suspect a large amount of this is down to the technical limitations of the controller (and the lack of Wiimote+ support) but... I thought there would be far more creative, better implementations of it than there are. I was expecting massive things from it.

Not saying there aren't plenty of great Wii games but I was just hoping that the Wiimote would allow for far more interesting gameplay mechanics than have been implemented. At the moment you get snippets of creative usage in party games but outside of that it's either a mouse replacement or used for occasional "shake the wiimote".

How about a sniper game with realistic aiming? At the moment all lightgun games assume you're aiming at something on the surface of the TV, not at things that may be 50m away or 100m away. The Wiimote can sense distance, this allows for true 'iron sights' aiming. No one has implemented this as far as I can tell.

we need a really good sword fighting game (or jedi lightsabre game )

though the best use of the whole wii sensor and remote is this

[NemesiS]

Another vote for Fallout 3. Bought it when i was living abroad and just couldn't get into it. Once i was out of the Vault, i was just overwhelmed and couldn't seem to get anywhere so gave up. Bought it again when i got back and it just sucked me in. Still playing it 200 and odd hours later and still only got about 1/3 of the map filled in, lol.

Guitar Hero was another that i instantly hated as it looked like a ridiculously silly gimmick when it released on the 360, (i never had the PS2 version). I happened to play it in a store abroad and bought it on the spot. Superb

[Prototype]

I wasn't wrong about it.

But I was in a party with Charlie, and he asked what I was playing. I said the Batman demo, and he started laughing at me like a little girl. Taking the mickey about Batman and how I should grow up. Well he was wrong on that one as he bought the game and enjoyed it.

[Roddie]

I remember seeing Donkey Kong Country on a TV in a Virgin Megastore in the run-up to Christmas and thought it looked awful. Obviously by the 25th December I must have come round to the idea as I was gutted when opening a SNES game sized parcel only to discover it was Aladdin and not DKC! Thankfully, it was hidden in another box under the tree and while I ended up enjoying both games, Donkey Kong Country went on to become one of my all-time favourites and is still top of a handful of SNES games I keep returning to.

The other main one I can think of is Resident Evil for the Gamecube. I originally bought it for a fiver from Blockbuster. Originally only buying it for the double-disc case that I wanted for my NTSC copy of Animal Crossing (and the Freeloader). A few years later, a friend told me that REmake was what he bought his Cube for in the first place and I've since gone on to form a bit of an obsession for the game (and Jill Valentine).

[Blaiz0r]

Too Human,

I really wanted a Diablo style game for the console, and with the incredible hype this game got I thought it would have been ace, I played the demo and was left completely despondent.

A year or so later a friend started getting into it and ensured me it was fun, I picked it up for £12 and absolutely loved what it had to offer, sure it still had bugs, but once you picked up the combat and learned how to quickly farm for loot, it had a great deal to offer and was satisfying to play.

For £12 it was worth the money, maybe not for £30 though

[Goemon]

Virtua Fighter

If you trudge back through old threads on NTSC you will find one started by me ranting about how flawed it was. I think I got quite a lot of flak for that...

Love VF to death now, I consider it one of the best series' ever made.

3rd Strike

Never actually played it but played SF3 quite a bit and thought it was naff. I tarred 3rd strike with the same brush and always slated it whenever it was talked about.

I missed it completely on DC and PS2 but bought the Xbox anniversery edition with SSF2T and 3rd Strike on it, mainly to play SSF2T online. I ventured into 3rd Strike for a look, ran into Singho online, and the rest is history!

Again, I consder this one of the top games ever made.

[Dennoman]

Crackdown

Didn't like the demo and was pretty bored with the game when I first started it, but once I got into it I just couldn't stop. So much freedom, it's incredible.

Crackdown 2

Seeing how much I loved the first one (#1 underrated gem of this gen for me) I thought this was going to blow me away. It didn't, at all. Complete re-hash of the first game, only they managed to make everything worse.

[Neon Ignition]

Mass Effect 2

After my experiences with the original I was convinced that the sequel would be an epic duffer. It was a fairly quiet time for releases so my impulse to buy new games took over and I ended up giving it a shot and in return ME2 managed to be one of the surprises of the year for me. So much better than the disappointing original and even to the point I'm tempted to pick up the PS3 rerelease next year