Board 8 > Have any "popular" games actually exceeded your expectations?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Xenoblade

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For me, last year the two games that did so were:

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess - Expected it to be easily my least favorite Zelda out of what I've played, but I prefer it to both the N64 ones now.

Super Metroid - Expected something inferior to Metroid Prime. Instead I got top 5 material.

Also on my last playthrough of Wind Waker I had similarly low expectations and it's now my favorite 3D Zelda title.

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San Andreas and RE4

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Phoenix Wright

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How are we defining "popular" in this context?

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"Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?" -Royal
"Oh sure, walk to the sun"- Guybrush

Stuff that either received a lot of general attention or is oft-regarded as "overrated".

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

RE4 springs to mind. Older popular games I played before I knew how popular they were (RPGs particularly) so I can't count them.

Not a popular answer here, but World of Warcraft and Diablo 2 also. Back when Arthas/Diablo were in that same 4 pack in the contest, I specifically remember making fun of Blizzard fans in an IRC channel I frequent. The truth was that I had never played either game and simply perceived them as bad due to their popularity, and the fact it was cool not to like WoW especially.

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:>

San Andreas

Amazing game

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Probably PGR2 then. Never heard the term "overrated" be thrown into the same discussion with this game, but this was one of the largest XBL games with the Xbox and I was originally disappointed that I could not find the Crimson Skies XBL bundle and had to settle with this. What I experienced is one of my Top 5 favorite games

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"Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?" -Royal
"Oh sure, walk to the sun"- Guybrush

RE4 was actually exceeding my expectations until the final boss and the realization that the game's level design actually got steadily worse as the game progressed (the fact that the level design is the exact opposite of repetitive helps disguise this though).

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

RE4 aswell
Fallout 3
Braid
Bioshock
Borderlands
Dead Rising
Devil May Cry 3

With alot of these reaching my top 20 games of all time. It's not that I had low expectations for these games except for maybe DR, it's just I didn't think I'd love them as much I did.

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Uh...

inFamous exceeded expectation, but that's not like super-popular around here.
Left 4 Dead did too, but again, not like that super-popular.

Oh, just "exceed" and not "vastly exceed" your expectations? A lot of games then, but PGR2 is the highlight of them all. Surprised to see San Andreas mentioned, don't know why I said missing, here, unless you didn't like GTA III or Vice City, which makes me sad if that's the case

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"Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?" -Royal
"Oh sure, walk to the sun"- Guybrush

Probably the biggest ones for me were RE4, Bioshock, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect 2.

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The Real Truth posted...
San Andreas

Amazing game

Hey what do you think of my choices?

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

Super Mario World/Super Mario Bros 3. I grew up playing the Genesis, and I only got the chance to play these gems extensively a couple years ago.

Persona 3 FES. I bought into the B8 hype, and was not at all disappointed.

Halo. I'll never forget the first day I played this, at a friend's Halo party. I was terrible, but I was hooked.

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FFVIII.

The sequel to my favorite game at the time, and it became my NEW favorite game. It's still up there near the top, too.

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I was hyped as Hell for Metroid Prime, got it at launch, and it still totally blew my mind and I loved it.

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Play Der Langrisser.

Mass Effect 2 big time. I went in expecting to love it, and then I... more than loved it.

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Bioshock went way above what I expected, and is probably the best example from the past ten years of games I've played I can think of.

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P3P (expected japanimu crap... got japanimu awesomeness)
Assassin's Creed 2 (expected an improved AC1... got near perfection)
Half-Life 1 (expected something worse than HL2, got something equal)

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I grew up on the N64, so I didn't expect to love Super Metroid as much as I do. Also, Assassin's Creed II. I liked the first, but I didn't expect 2 to be so good.

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Assassin's Creed 2 and Mass Effect 2 both blew me away since I went into them expecting them to be really overrated. Also Halo ODST, even though it's probably the least popular game in its series.

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ME2, I expected a boring shooter... never intended to play it. But then I got a free digital copy for purchasing DA2 and it was pretty good.

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-Merc

The entire MGS series.

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RE4 and TWEWY

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