Game Buying Pleasant Surprises - 2008 Edition

[travis]

To complement the 2008 Regrets thread, what game did you purchase with trepidation, only to be rewarded with joy and awesome?

For me I'd first say "Battlefield: Bad Company" multiplayer. With CoD4 dominating the first person shooter arena at the time, I thought this game might fizzle the way "Frontlines: Fuel of War" did. Happily, Bad Company provided a more arcade-feel experience while still allowing for some strategy and teamwork. All of the vehicles work well and the weapons feel different from each other. There are occasional one-sided runaway victories, sure; but for the "fun" factor alone I keep returning to this game.

Honorable mention goes to Ticket to Ride for XBLA. I knew the board game was excellent and therefore feared for its translation. They did an excellent job. Huzzah.

-travis

[Haroshia]

King's Bounty It'll probably go overlooked, but a damn good game. Reminds me of Might and Magic in all the good ways. Loved it.

Audiosurf It's like 3 bucks on Steam right now, and totally worth it. Highly recommended musical game. Great for relaxing after work and just bumping with the beat of some tunes.

Castle Crashers The most fun that I've had on XBox live in a while. The multi-player is great, and it's just a solid beat em up. Great when you have friends over and you're a bit tipsy. Took me back to the old days of the XMen arcade game :)

Not sure if 2008 but The Witcher SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good. Wish I could find my CD again so I could try the enhanced edition. Very innovative with the delayed consequences system, and fun combat (even if it got a bit easy near the end).

PORTAL Seriously I didn't think PORTAL would be my favorite part about the Orange Box

These are just a few that I think were overlooked in 08 (with the exception of Portal)

[masshysteria]

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - This game borrowed heavily from other games. The cover shooting mechanic from Gears of War, the acrobatics from Prince of Persia, and the locals and feel of Tomb Raider. But the sum is greater than its parts and it is a charming package with a lovable hero.

Little Big Planet - As kids, we'd play Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers for hours on our NES. This game brings back that joy. It really is a clever platformer.

Metal Gear Solid 4 - I never thought anything could capture the brilliance of the original PSX Metal Gear Solid. While the gameplay and graphics were great, I couldn't help but feel disappointed with 2 and 3. Four did a great job sorting out the messed up story and made me care about the series again.

[Stephenls]

I just picked up Armored Core: for Answer on the PS3 on a lark, because I remember liking the first Armored Core game on PS1 and I really need more PS3 games. I'm enjoying immensely the bits of play I can do on it between the bouts of "I'm playing this game because I have to review it" that take up most of my gaming time.

I also picked up Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, but that wasn't so much a lark, nor was it a surprise that I found the dialogue amusing and the gameplay ultimately demanding of more free time than I really have.

[Thalaric]

I picked up Bangai-O Spirits for the DS on a whim, primarily because it was a game developed by Treasure. It turned out to be a really fun waste of a weekend, being some crazy action/shooter/puzzle game with it's own level editor and letting you upload and download custom levels from the internet. Now I'm back to other games, but it is fun to pull out ocassionally to waste an hour.

Wild Arms XF was another one I picked up mainly because I was looking for Tactical RPGs at Best Buy, and it was a lot of fun. Less about grinding and more about swapping your classes and builds on the fly to deal with the threat you are facing.