Games you were wrong about

[MarioMark]

You all forgot about Pikmin! I remember thinking what the hell is this sh*t!? But then I played it and was like woah!

[Atticus]

Deathsmiles II. Didn't click initially (the first Deathsmiles was love at first sight), I even sold my copy after a few weeks. How could I not have fallen for the (mostly) brilliant bosses, the amazing music, the Christmas theme sooner? Maybe I just needed to adjust to the polys and get my head round the scoring. Glad I picked it up again after I (hastily) sold it.

[SmokeMeAKipper]

The first Sly Cooper. I'd started editing the video games page for my student newspaper (York Vision - word up) and it was the first game that arrived in the post for review after getting in touch with the big companies pleading with them to send us free games. When Sly Cooper arrived and I booted it up I thought "[sigh] Another childish platformer" but boy was I wrong. I loved it and couldn't stop playing it. It was the best platformer I'd played for a while and had a nice sense of humour.

There's probably more I can think of but that leapt out at me because of the recent re-release of the HD version.

[Lyris]

Assassin's Creed. I looked at the back of the box and thought it was another boring, grey, "we wish we were making a movie but are stuck making a game" game.

Shame on me for actually believing the people designing the package would want people to pick up and buy the game. When my friend made me play it later, I saw it was a varied and interesting-looking game.

[SUMIRE]

Phantasy Star Online CARD. I thought it would suck, plus I didnt really like card based games. I think ended up liking it as much as the PSO.

[Finsbury Girl]

Lots of shockers for me.

FFVII as I was playing the first few minutes I was like "WTF was everyone going on about this is ****house!"

MGS played the demo from official PS magazine and hated it. Oh how I changed my tune when playing the real mccoy.

Also thought I would hate Halo....ooops!

[SmokeMeAKipper]

Yes - FFVII for me too. My friend bought it on release and I watched him play for the first hour or so. I was like "that looks really boring, don't understand what the fuss is about". Especially as he just seemed to be pressing circle to attack during battles and nothing else.

A little bit later when it was released as a Platinum title I took the plunge and gave it another go. I was glad I did and couldn't understand why I thought it had been boring before! Loved the story and the characters, I thought Barrett was hilarious. I've played every FF game since (except the online ones...)

[Flabio]

Watching someone else play an RPG is probably one of the dullest things you can do though...

[SmokeMeAKipper]

As I found out first hand!

[Guts]

Watching someone else play an RPG is probably one of the dullest things you can do though...

To each their own. I'd much rather watch someone play an RPG with an interesting story, setting and characters for a few hours than something like FIFA or Tiger Woods for example, but then again I don't care about sports.

I didn't always think like that however. My friend used to play Fallout 2 on the PC when it came out in 1998 and I thought back in the day that it was the most boring, ugly looking crap that I'd ever seen coming from games like Mario and DKC. A few years later I played it myself and it became one of my favourite games of all time (along with Fallout 1).

[eastyy]

god hand didnt think much of it to begin with but it really grew on me

[Rep]

Batman: Arkum Asylum. It was suppose to come free with a Graphics card I bought 12 months ago, but couldn't be bothered to collect it since It didn't interest me. Bought it for a fiver in the Steam sale last week, it's incredible.

[nakamura]

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. Hated the demo, love the game.

[Team Andromeda]

Wrong in a Good way

Jonah Lomu Rugby - Looked nothing special at all in the screen shots, much less the Games World TV video, but my GOD what a game with perfect controls and perfect playability. Its the Sensible Soccer of the Ruby Game

Olympic Soccer - Again this game looked terrible in the screen shots , but to play the game was to play the closest I've ever come to a decent 3D version of Sensible Soccer

SOUKY- Looked at the screen shots and though it didn't look anything special so I would leave it. Luckily enough Goldsmith told Lee how good it was , and Lee (VGI) in turn told me, and he was so sure I would like it, he lent me a copy. After 10 mins of playing the game, I hit pause and was onthe phone to buy it

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball - Thought Team Ninja were having a laugh untill I played it, and it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and relaxing games around

Kung Fu Chaos - Only thanks to great impressions on this board , and the cheap price at Play.com did I buy this. So gald I did , the game is brilliant and better than PowerStone, amazing laugh in 4 player mode and features some of the best and most imitative level design


Wrong in a Bad way

Daytona USA 2 - Sure so this was be brilliant after reading the EDGE preview, Model 3, better AI, cars crashing out how could it fail to be anything less than brilliant . How wrong I was

Daytona USA CCE - The through of a remake and the CS Rally Team was almost the perfect dream. But GOD only knows what happened , dull AI, poor handling (nice graphics though)

Donkey Kong Snes)- To think this cost ?60 . All that hype,all those nice graphics can't cover what a crap boring simple game this is.

Perfect Dark (360) - Utter crap , should never have been shipped

FFVII - One of the most dullest overrated boring games of all time

[Adam Stone]

What an awesome thread.

There's been a number of surprises the past few years, some pleasant others really not so...

I'm another who was so wrong about Fallout 3. Not vocally mind, i wasn't one to openly share my disinterest, but i remember looking at screenshots and videos thinking 'it just looks so gray and dull to me'. After a year or so a friend forcefully glued it to my hand so i thought i might as way take the plunge... I enjoyed the opening, was pretty impressed with the vast openness but quickly lost interested after exploring the Super Market. I left it for a few months feeling like i didn't miss anything special...

Some time after I borrowed Oblivion and Dragon Age. I chucked in Dragon Age, selected a female Mage and quickly turned it off after ten minutes... I was far, far too interested in the epic world of Oblivion to get involved in Dragon Age (first impressions were 'the battle is crap and it looks pretty poo'). I played Oblivion for two hours straight, barely got out of the cave, and suddenly had an overwhelming urge to return Fallout 3...

I rubbed off the dust, stuck the disk into the drive and was literally blown away. 200+ hours later and I consider Fallout 3 one of my most beloved titles of all time. Since then I've returned to both Oblivion and Dragon Age and adore them both. Regarding my first impressions towards Dragon Age, god that was another person thinking those things. I'm still playing it now and adore it.

On reflection, it's funny how a frame of mind, or external circumstances can alter our perceptions of videogames. It wasn't that any preconceived ideals were wrong, but rather my first reactions to these games were unfairly misplaced. Deep down, I know Dragon Age, Oblivion, Fallout etc etc are exactly my type of games, however me playing them during a not-so-great time period completely changed my perception of these games....

Another I GOT IT WRONG is the Kinect. I worked on the Kinect on and off for a year before release. I must say I was not a fan... Saw many games, many ideas, but they all failed to feel right or, ironically, connect with the player...

However after having played in a more relaxed environment with friends and family i've absolutely loved my time with the kinect. Although it still has much to learn, if perceived as an extension to the 360 fanbase it's a wonderful device offering hours of fun. It can't do basic functions, like allowing the player to freely walk, but it will make you collapse on the floor crying with laughter. It is an awful lot of fun, hats off.