Favorite Underrated Games

    1. Pharaoh Rebirth+
    1. Momodora Reverie under Moonlight
    1. Pause Ahead

Hmm… I might well have some contributions.

The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker
Her Story’s less mechanically perfected, but more intriguing cousin. You type to talk to your patients, each with delusions (or are they?) more off the wall then the last. Choose recommendations that help or hinder - depending on whether you really want to help or just wish to play with them. This is complete with a lovecraftian madness system that haunts you with visions for overstepping your bounds. On top of that, one of the patients has been randomly selected by the game to be the murderer of your predecessor, Dekker, and you have to solve it. All live action; the acting and writing is impeccable. It lasts over 12 hours to boot. I’ve never been so affected by a game before. I felt my own sanity wavering as I just gorged on the hours and was taken in by various patients.

Anatomy
One of the most effective horror games ever created. Genius minimalism.

The Red Strings Club
Only just came out, but certainly not enough people playing it on here. A cyperpunk narrative point and click, dialogueathon wherein you work to save depression, anger and fear from being eliminated from the human condition by a corporation. How? By making cocktails and doing pottery.

Echo
Utterly gorgeous third person puzzle stealth game wherein withholding actions so that your murderous clones haven’t access to them (say sprinting, shooting, vaulting, entering water, pressing buttons, playing the piano) is the puzzle. It’s all wrapped up in a more than interesting wrapper justification and well voice acted.

Absolver
This is the better alternative to any fighter of the For Honour Ilk and utterly unique. Expended a good hundred hours learning all the fight styles and moves from being fought with them by AI and players alike. Excellent PVP, Dark Souls jolly cooperation in the hub world and exquisite deportment. Everyone selects the bow emote before beating the ever-loving snot out of each other. Beautiful.

Lakeview Cabin
Another one I’m surprised at the lack of love for. A very challenging and dark episodic serial killer survival puzzler that has expanded into Alien/The Thing homage, etc. A lot of exploration and experimenting to work out any way to survive any one of its episodes.

Stories Untold
Probably quite popular for how niche an episodic text adventure point and click puzzle cross is. Masterful pacing and atmosphere. Incredible story.

Hunt Showdown
Put down the PUBG, burn the Fortnite, maybe play Darwin Project when it comes out as well… but pick up this. Early access and from the evil Crytek, it might be, but this is the great alternative to and antidote for all the battle royale nonsense. Set in the stunningly realised Louisiana swamp and farmland in the 1800s, you’re free to hunt in a duo or solo. A hunt wherein the target is actually up to you. The level may advertise banishing a giant spider monstrosity to hell, but you might well be more interested in simply taking out all the other hunters on the map as they run around for clues as to the monster’s location. You might just want to take out a few wandering swamp mutants and extract early to keep your hunter alive for another match (perma-death forever hanging over you). Ideally all three. Finding the monster suddenly becomes a stand-off test of wits. No one wants to kill the monster only to be ambushed during or after. Everyone might be dead or long gone, but you still fight the idea of them everywhere you go.

It’s the atmosphere that is so perfected here. Sound is more important than in almost any other game. You need to be able to detect the direction of a distant rustle, disturbed crows flying, a mutant’s death, other hunters proximity speaking and most importantly, a gunshot. The pressure is palpable. It might be visibly clear, but run into that hanging chain and you might just get shot from that bush in the corner.

The big issues with the servers and optimisation? Getting better all the time. Still has a year of development left, but with so few people on the site recognising it, I have to throw out a recommendation!

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This is awesome. The only game on your list I’ve even heard of is Absolver. Love it.

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[quote=“Torgo, post:2, topic:653, full:true”]
I’m unsure how to approach this one. There’s a difference between obscurity and poor ratings. Some games brilliant but totally unknown to the wider world. Other games are very-well known but the world has decided they are stinkers.

I agree.
My favorite game most consider a stinker is Alpha Protocol.

My favorite unknown game is a new indie game I can’t shut up about, Where the Water taste like Wine.

My favorite underrated game is Maken X on the Dreamcast. Never played anything like it since, and likely never will. A first-person slasher (by Atlus, of all things) that has you playing as the sword, taking over the minds of various characters/bosses you defeat (and thus changing your weapon and attacks each time). Loved it, and always felt reviewers were too harsh on it. What perhaps stands out most (other than the unusual gameplay) are the fantastic and crazy character designs.

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Played this year


and was surprised how much I liked it. It is one of these builder games which I really hooked me.

  • Dark Messiah of might and magic

  • Haunting Ground (demento)

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pretty good puzzle games with a good amount of content