Mine is the Army Men series. Objectively mediocre games at best but the concept of toy soldiers fighting over our yards and rooms has always been cool to me
Hell yeah, the Army Men games are so dope. Terribly clunky, combat leaves much to be desired, mediocre map layouts but goddamn do I still find them fun. Specifically Sarge’s Heroes, would love a switch port.
I played a toooon of Sarge’s Heroes 2 on PS2. My next favourites are RTS and PS1 Air Attack
Air Attack rips 🤙
Good grief! Memory of struggling with the difficulty back in the day. Amd the shattering when you finally unleased the “power” of the auto rifle.
The original one back in the day multiplayer on dialup was awesome!
Dynasty Warriors, They are my “Dumb fun” game. I usually just turn off my brain and “grind” even though I usually call out every game for grinding or unnecessary combat.
But something about that series makes me pick up every one and waste tens of hours just killing the same-ish soldiers over and over.
Lu Bu has entered the battlefield!
Same here. And if they come out with another one I’ll grab it. Although I didn’t play 9 because of bad reviews.
But I did recently replay DW8 Empires yet again. Love it!
I picked up a copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms to read finally.
I recently started 9… and it’s… Yeah It deserved most of the somewhat negative reviews, but it’s still a DW game. I honestly think they should have called it something like Empires. As an open world game it’s interesting and unique but it is a little too open for “DW”. IT feels like a half step in the wrong direction but if they continued on and made “Dynasty Warriors 10 World” with that system and improved it, it could be something pretty unique. Just not as the main line series.
If you haven’t read Romance of the Three Kingdoms you’re in for a treat, I really enjoyed those books quite a bit, especially after being such a fan of the series. Getting more of the back story is great, and the characters are way more interesting.
As someone who invested an embarrassing amount of time into each mainline game since 3, 9 was awful. I think there may have been a decent (musou) game under there, but even several years and patches later it’s rough. The battlefields are empty. The traversal is buggy. The upgrade system is grindy in the least fun way. I don’t want to mine metal in a DW game…
The best musou games in the last 5-10 years have been spinoffs like Hyrule and Fire Emblem. I don’t have much faith in Koei Tecmo releasing a DW game that captures the essence of 3-5 in a modern way.
Mine is Alpha Protocol. While it has some minor cult status its really Obsidians least known modern title.
Its clunky and ugly, but one of the best espionage RPGs with tons of meaningful choices and really unbalanced combat (looking at you pistol head shot god). I would kill for a sequel.
I loved the timed dialogue system in it, I can understand why people would hate that, but I think it really put the pressure on a game mechanic that’s usually pretty stale.
I really enjoyed the game and I think it’s one serious weakness was the RPG dice role combat being applied to a skill based combat system, if you can target with the mouse/controller you shouldn’t have to worry about hitting a target and damage rolls as much as they did.
I followed a guide to use pistols and it was excellent.
Game had a great pistol.
Creeper World. It’s like an RTS/TD type game that uses fluid dynamics that is always fun to go back to. The campaign writing and UI are just terrible but the gameplay is great and there are plenty of good community made maps to try.
I second creeper World. awful title for a game, but I’ve played the shit out of all of them. I got hooked on the old Kongregate flash version of the original.
This game series is the best. Somebody suggested the 3rd one to me when I was looking for a game which simulated the feeling of moving across the map with a seige tank line in StarCraft. It was perfect. The move th 3d in the 4th one worked very well too. Excited for the wide scrolling looking one they have coming out next too
Oh god the music loops forever and gets stuck in your brain. I haven’t played the 4th game in a couple of years and the score is still regularly stuck in my head.
Their space version of the game, Particle Fleet Emergence, is my most played game in my Steam library.
I wish more people knew about these games!
Is Particle Fleet similar? I love the Creeper World games but I was always hesitant to drop the cash for Particle Fleet because I just wasn’t sure.
Guild Wars 1. Unlike other MMOs it is entirely separately instances in combat, the level cap was very low, it had a focus on narrative storytelling, and a max parysizr of up to 8(depending on area of the game). It also came from the era where subscriptions were the model for MMOs and it didn’t require (or even have) subs. You just bought the game and you got to play. There were multiple campaigns (basically separategames worlds with different proffestions and skills) that you could cross between with any of your characters assuming you owned that campaign. Very different game from gw2.
Played GW1 when it first came out and it was a rush. You actually depended on each other to win campaigns and sometimes get the bonus. MMOs were still young then so botters were practically non existent. I loved the story. Felt like I was playing a DND campaign with all the cutscenes!
Still one of the best MMOs in my opinion. At the time, the landscapes were beautiful, especially in Old Ascalon (sp?)
I played Guild Wars starting from the beta and loved it. I was super excited for the sequel - even bought the collector’s edition - but didn’t end up playing it that much.
I played the hell out of this video game called Axis and Allies that I found for like $5 in cheap games section of Office Max around 2008. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it or share my experience. I’m sure it wouldn’t hold up if I played it today but back in '08 I was a pro.
It was actually a board first, and there have been a number of electronic versions throughout the years. I had one such adaptation on CD growing up in the late 90s, but I’m not sure it would be the same one you played.
Cool game, though. I sunk lots of hours into it.
Axis and Allies was a board game too I think?
I’m late to this party, but you might appreciate the open source Axis and Allies engine called TripleA.
My step-dad was a big WWII history buff, and he had the pc version of Axis and Allies installed on the family computer! Loved it and occasionally fire up TripleA for nostalgia.
Not unpopular back in the day but it sure is now – Battlefield 1943. I play on xbox all the time, the servers are still online and you can still find full lobbies. I’ve been playing it on and off for a decade. Its just chaotic low-stress fun.
I forget which achievement it was but it was bugged keeping me from getting all of them. Curse you 1943! Still, an amazing re-visiting of the OG map/game. ❤️
Amazing that the servers are still online. I just checked and the game is included with Gamepass as well. Maybe I’ll try it out again some time, those maps where great.
Me and my buddies used to troll that game back in middle school. We would get onto the enemy carrier, sneak up to the planes, and set C4 on them. We would laugh our asses off blowing up the planes as soon as the enemies took off
Dragon Age 2. Lot’s of people think it’s the weakest game in the Dragon Age series and there is a lot to not like: dungeons and outdoor areas are largely the same recycled maps with different layouts, story was a bit lackluster compared to the previous title, party controls were a step down from Dragon Age Origins. I still enjoy it for the party dynamics and the main character dialogue wheel had more varied option that didn’t along with previous Bioware titles that had the good, neutral, and evil/jerk responses.
I’m a huge Dragon Age fan, and 2 is my absolute favorite. It gets a lot of (perfectly valid) criticism, but the ‘found family’ themes really resonated with me. And I love how it focuses on the people in this one city instead of having a big, save-the-entire-world narrative like most RPGs. It felt so personal.
Plus, snarky Hawke is one of the most fun protagonists I’ve ever played in a game. It really doesn’t deserve the bad reputation that it got.
DA1 and 2 Are absolutely my favorites of the series, I could barely make it through inquisition.
New Super Mario Bros U. Many people may hate it for being the same as the others NSMB games but it was the first Mario game I played and I very much enjoyed it. I revisit it to collect all the star coins.
The New Super Mario Bros. series is far from the first Mario games I played seeing as I was born in the 80’s - but damnit they are all among my favorites. File this in the category of “I had no idea people didn’t love these as much as I do” up until only a handful of years ago when I started spending more time on online video game communities.
I’ll argue that New Super Mario Bros. wii is my favorite of the bunch, but U is also wonderful!
I also think the wii version was better than the switch version but they’re both awesome games. I also had no idea people didn’t like NSMB for switch until the announcement trailer for Wonder dropped. But for someone who’s first Mario game was Super Mario Bros 3, that whole series/style of gameplay will forever be what Mario is to me.
Ghost Recon: Wildlands. It’s your typical Ubisoft open world game, boring gameplay even on extreme difficulty but the world is so beautiful, and I love just driving around the map with no HUD.
lol the South American road trip simulator (jk, mostly)
The Predator DLC was awesome though. A buddy and I co-oped that on the highest difficulty and it took about a week of nightly playing to beat him.
Still the best representation of the Predator in gaming that I’ve seen.
boring gameplay even on extreme difficulty but the world is so beautiful, and I love just driving around the map with no HUD.
Hey, this is basically Skyrim and I’ve got 2k+ happy hours in that
I’ve been thinking about getting Breakpoint during the summer sale. I played a little bit of it a while back, but ended up refunding it for whatever reason. I’m craving it again though. I’ll probably get it and dive into it after finishing Final Fantasy 16.
Does Diablo 3 count? It got panned at launch and I do understand why. The story was predictable and dumb. Making the whole game revolve around a damn auction house made it unsatisfying. But man, the game itself played so well - I loved smashing my way through a dungeon as fast as I could wiping whole screens at a time. And they did do “loot 2.0” with the expansion, which killed the auction house and made the gear you picked up actually worthwhile sometimes.
Diablo 4 feels kinda meh to me by comparison.
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Not sure how unpopular it is, but “The Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary” is a great remaster of a game which I think is a bit forgotten now. It’s still a really fun and charming citybuilder with unique mechanics.
I think there is a FOSS projects based on Settlers 2 called Widelands. If you like that, it might be worth checking out.
Nice! Thanks for the tip. I really enjoyed Settlers II back in the day. Will give this a try
I don’t think it’s unpopular as in “people don’t like it”. I get the impression that very few people in the US have ever heard of this series, which is a shame.
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Clash Royale. I think Supercell, a billion dollar company, simply assigned all their least competent personnel to that one dev team.
The core gameplay, unfortunately, is still sharp as fuck though. ~sigh
I quit that game years ago for my mental health. I was obsessed with it, but I remember spending over an hour every day trying to get x wins to get the daily chest. I miss playing it sometimes, but ultimately I think it’s bad for me lol
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dropped the game a couple months ago because I couldn’t deal with the monetization changes but I miss the gameplay so much
I feel like I’m guilty of this within the Borderlands series – I love all the things about 2 that OG fans seemed to dislike, namely Anthony Burch’s writing and the weapons spread, and I actually think 3 is pretty respectable as a shooter; it’s a lot of fun to play, it’s just a weak sequel to 2. The things that fans seem to love about The Pre-Sequel (the ice and the butt slams and the new player characters) left me cold, and I think the first game pales in comparison to the second.
That’s funny, because I love 1 and Pre-Sequel the most in the entire series. 2 just feels so dated, and I can’t stand listening to the dialogue anymore, but Pre-Sequel has that something about it that I loved about 1.
Exactly, seems like I came to the right thread :P
I loved 3. Granted, it was my first Borderlands game, but I thought it was a lot of fun.
Borderlands 2 is an absolute masterpiece. The humor was adorably cheesy, the characters were much more interesting that OG and Pre-Sequel imo (totally in love with zer0).
I should probably install it and find some friends to play with.
Wow! You’ve articulated my thoughts about the series exactly…
i feel like there are two ways to interpret this question. some games are unpopular because they’re widely known, but considered to be not good, but others are merely niche games that never got widespread recognition.
for the former, Mad Max (2015) got mixed reviews and seems to have been generally regarded as MEDIOCRE, but i still keep coming back to it every so often. for the latter, I wanna plug an old PS2 game called Steambot Chronicles, that has never gotten the recognition it deserves. Its a steampunk mech sandbox rpg, and is legit fantastic, but my partner is the only other person i’ve met that has even heard of it.
I’ve heard of it! I just started my latest playthrough, and I was wondering if it ever got any love on Lemmy.
