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.
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.
I played a toooon of Sarge’s Heroes 2 on PS2. My next favourites are RTS and PS1 Air Attack
Air Attack rips 🤙
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.
Maybe not an unpopular game, but my unpopular game opinion is that I prefer Fallout 3 to Fallout New Vegas. Both are fantastic games, but I prefer the more bleak and desolate Capital Wasteland to the more lived in Mojave Wasteland. Plus I kinda liked the karma system of fo3.
I like both, but Fallout 3 is my favourite as well. I really enjoyed the aesthetic, the music, everything. It was my first game and got me obsessed with the universe.
They have such different atmospheres you can enjoy both the same. I really had fun roaming around the sewers and ruins of DC in 3, while the more pure RPG aspects of New Vegas are great in 3D.
Not a series but the Saboteur is an awesome AC/GTA clone set during WW2 that I never see anyone talk about
Edit: special mention for Klonoa 2. My dad picked it up for me when I was a kid and I recently replayed it. It’s a pretty challenging 3D platformer with a story that will draw tears
Is Klonoa not liked. I’ve recently been playing this on Gameboy Advance and PS1 and they’ve been great
I’ve never heard anyone talking about Klonoa. Idk if it just ever took off outside of Japan but out of everyone I know no one else has played it
It just recently got a well received and covered remaster/remake thing.
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.
The most unpopular/niche game series I’ve really liked is the Princess Maker series. Japanese games which only received official English translations recently, niche genre (life raising sim), some silly fanservicey elements… but it reminded me of playing with dolls when I was younger, and in some ways the Sims series also.
Another series I liked which is much more well known but still has a small presence in the gaming consciousness is Star Fox. Character cameos in the Super Smash Bros series don’t count.
Daaaaaamn, I found a copy of Princess Maker 2 on the internet all the way back in 2002 or so, only years later I found out about the original translation and failed attempt to release it in the USA. I personally love PM2 and should play 3 sometime properly.
The Princess Maker series are now officially available on Steam! Unfortunately the translation quality is quite poor and the unofficial DOS copy of 2 is much better in that regard, but it’s nice to have access to multiple entries in the series now.
they also cut some content which was against steam rules. (underage nudity and such)
SSX Tricky
My whole family has put in way too many hours, it’s the only game where we actually are competitive against each other. Even my dad, who plays 0 other video games likes to play with us. I wouldn’t say it’s unpopular, just irrelevant today for most people, but not for us…
For a long time, we each had some PS2s to play, but not I emulate on the steam deck and and play even more than before. I’ve never had a game before where I actually try for high scores and practice.
My oldest brother is definitely the undisputed champion, but I can beat him when my favorite character, Moby, is maxed out, while his, Mac, is default level (which is the case and will remain the case on my steam deck)
Also, I still play Black Ops 1 zombies. I think they added more to the zombies in future games than I’m interested in. I own black ops 3 and hear that Shadows of Evil is amazing but every time I sit down to learn it, I just lose interest. Maybe there’s extra friction because I’m usually playing solo.
These are both great games that are highly lauded, though. Unless I’m crazy, SSX tricky is/was incredibly popular and BO1 Zombies, specifically Kino, was also prolific.
Damn, I wish I had friends to play pls Zombies with 😭
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. ❤️
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
I was genuinely unaware for a long time that P.N. 03 on the Gamecube was pretty strongly disliked, and now seemingly forgotten.
I love everything about this damn game - the ridiculous “inside a macbook” looking aesthetic, the Drum n Bass-esque soundtrack, the fact that it’s a game based on getting a high score (which is probably the one game mechanic I miss the most in a lot of more modern games), what more could you want?!
Removed by mod
Dang is it really not popular? That game was a large part of my childhood. It was also the best fable game
I thought it was decent but fable: the lost chapters was the game for me. I loved the hell out of that game.
chicken chaser!
NGL I loved 2 and 3 and they accounted for massive parts of my childhood gaming
Section 8 and Section 8 Prejudice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_8_(video_game)
A fantastic pair of games which died too quickly because everyone saw the power armor and thought it was going to be a standard run and gun Halo style game. When in fact it had a mechanic that required dropping shields with certain types of weapons before you could then use other types to penetrate the armor. It also had a power management mechanic allowing you to move faster or use other abilities if you had the power remaining to do so.
As a result all the Halo/COD bro’s bounced off the game because the few of us who took the time to understand and master those mechanics would just absolute wreck their faces. This unfortunately also included many critics/reviewers. Which results in a whole lot of “this game sucks”. In this case the bliss of ignorance killed both games.
I enjoyed them immensely if briefly. They died too soon.
I remember playing at least the first one back in the day. It was a solid shooter for sure. The problem now is that the video game market is so huge that unless you are providing a quality product which is being constantly updated people will move onto the next big thing.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
It was actually a board game 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?
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.
