Underrated games

[Ragey Erasmus]

What games do people feel have been good but never quite took off?

I'm a strategy fan and one of the old games I'm suprised never really got anywhere was Warzone 2100 (now free to download). Obviously it is dated by modern standards but at the time it was pretty revolutionary with a design system allowing you to design whatever units you wanted as opposed to most games where you have a selection.

 

[LittleGuy]

Freespace 2, probably the best space simulator and one of the best games ever period and sold poorly.

 

[ratsapprentice]

Dark Reign - strategy game that is up there with Total Annihilation, AOE and Red Alert. Loved that game as a kid - used to be big into RTS games as a younger.

Counter Strike: Condition Zero Deleted Scenes - ok so this is basically a single player campaign of CS: CZ. If you like over the top 80's/90's action movies you should love this. It's stupid but awesome.

Rising Storm - One of my favorite MP games of the last 5 years, like a realistic version of COD 1. Very fun - Banzai charges are awesome.

Rainbow Six: Raven Shield - possibly my favorite game of all time (up there with HL2 and UT). It's the apex of tactical shooters IMO, just a phenomenal game. It's a shame we just don't see any games like this anymore, in fact, this was the last of it's kind.

 

[Big Ewis]

Cake 2, from id software. *Quake. The first one was awesome and although it had its issues they managed something very intelligent, completely fresh and separate from Wolf then Doom, both artistically and strategically. 2 was good and another step up, but never had the darkness of the first one and the insane gameplay appeal of the third. The dooms were all masterpieces (not a sentence you read every day...), but when they got to Quake 2 it got meh for the first time in id software history, for me. Good but never took off. Ever. Not a great reception.

As for just purely underrated:
LucasArts' Herc's Adventures on Playstation. Gigantically underrated.
'Blood' and 'Shadow Warrior' on PC.
NBA 2K1: best NBA game I ever played in terms of gameplay.

 

[Saints1]

The Warriors on the PS2 by Rockstar. Absolutely brilliant.

 

[LittleGuy]

Singularity, was another one, really cool shooter with some new concepts, got good reviews but flew very much under the radar