What was the last game surprise you?

By that I mean what was one game you played that wasn't necessarily on your radar, but afterwards the game surprised you in how much of a quality game it is. For me that game is Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. I played Heavenly Sword and found it lacking so when I picked it up I wasn't expecting to get blown away. That changed when I saw how much care was placed in developing the characters, setting and story. I found it to be on par with some of the highest quality games available.

Thats my pick, what is yours?

Pacman Championship edition DX.

Didnt look all that fun at first but then I played it. It was just as people said, a modern revival of the yellow man.

NIER. Didn't look amazing in the previews or anything, got a very poor review here & wasn't well received in most places. But there was something about it that made me go out & buy it. Now it's probably my GotY 2010, one of my favourite games this generation & a game that I'll always be fond of.

The latest aliens vs predator game.

I played the multiplayer demo on xbox live, and thought the gameplay and graphics were terrible.

Picked it up on steam for 5$ during a sale, and loved it. The singleplayer was a lot better than I thought it would be, and it looked great on computer.

Serious Sam

I thought it might be a mediocre Duke Nukem rip-off, but during Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter's free weekend, i thought i would give it a try. At one point, i decided to play some co-op with my brother, and I can only describe it in two words: HOLY CRAP!

Demon's Souls greatly surprised me. I actually only got the game originally because a guy on my friends list would go on and on about how hard it was and told me that I wouldn't be able to kill the Tower Knight. I took it as a challenge and Demon's Souls ended up becoming my favorite game this gen. I think I've killed each boss around 30 times and I have reach Soul Level 712

Demon's Souls greatly surprised me. I actually only got the game originally because a guy on my friends list would go on and on about how hard it was and told me that I wouldn't be able to kill the Tower Knight. I took it as a challenge and Demon's Souls ended up becoming my favorite game this gen. I think I've killed each boss around 30 times and I have reach Soul Level 712

BPoole96

Thats insane :shock:, how much does it cost you for a skill point now?

On Topic: Probably Morrowind, its the last game that honestly shocked me in how good it was. I bought it on a whim because i vaguely recalled hearing about "The Elder Scrolls" and fell in love with it.

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

Demon's Souls greatly surprised me. I actually only got the game originally because a guy on my friends list would go on and on about how hard it was and told me that I wouldn't be able to kill the Tower Knight. I took it as a challenge and Demon's Souls ended up becoming my favorite game this gen. I think I've killed each boss around 30 times and I have reach Soul Level 712

Snugenz

Thats insane :shock:, how much does it cost you for a skill point now?

Well 712 is the highest level and iirc it was like 70 million souls to level up once. I made it to about 350 before I started turbo grinding

I tried looking it up but I could only find that it takes1,684,037,410 souls from your starting level to reach 712

Nvm I found a chart

Enslaved would be my choice as well.

[QUOTE="Snugenz"]

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

Demon's Souls greatly surprised me. I actually only got the game originally because a guy on my friends list would go on and on about how hard it was and told me that I wouldn't be able to kill the Tower Knight. I took it as a challenge and Demon's Souls ended up becoming my favorite game this gen. I think I've killed each boss around 30 times and I have reach Soul Level 712

BPoole96

Thats insane :shock:, how much does it cost you for a skill point now?

Well 712 is the highest level and iirc it was like 70 million souls to level up once. I made it to about 350 before I started turbo grinding

You're crazy mate :P

I've heard of Japanese version players using that "glitch" to get to max level, but i didnt think i'd see anyone get their legitimately, so kudos ;)

My highest character is like 105 iirc, so i've got a looong way to go.

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

[QUOTE="Snugenz"]

Thats insane :shock:, how much does it cost you for a skill point now?

Snugenz

Well 712 is the highest level and iirc it was like 70 million souls to level up once. I made it to about 350 before I started turbo grinding

You're crazy mate :P

I've heard of Japanese version players using that "glitch" to get to max level, but i didnt think i'd see anyone get their legitimately, so kudos ;)

My highest character is like 105 iirc, so i've got a looong way to go.

I didn't get legitimately :P

I reached 350 legit and then I used the Soul Sucker spell on black phantoms to get tons of souls. One soul suck would get me like 35 million souls

[QUOTE="Snugenz"]

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

Well 712 is the highest level and iirc it was like 70 million souls to level up once. I made it to about 350 before I started turbo grinding

BPoole96

You're crazy mate :P

I've heard of Japanese version players using that "glitch" to get to max level, but i didnt think i'd see anyone get their legitimately, so kudos ;)

My highest character is like 105 iirc, so i've got a looong way to go.

I didn't get legitimately :P

I reached 350 legit and then I used the Soul Sucker spell on black phantoms to get tons of souls. One soul suck would get me like 35 million souls

Well its more legit than suiciding and collecting the exponentially increasing souls like the Japan version :P. Soul Sucker is a legit spell afterall.

Magicka.

However, if you go buy this game on steam, please disregard the DLCs, they are kind of overpriced and doesn't add too much.

The game itself is amazing value with great gameplay. Too bad that it's plagued with technical issues when you try to play online.

Well I was going to say Knights Contract, but then you said quality, that's when everything fell apart. So I can't really say I've had any game surprise me like that.

Hmmm....probably Borderlands.

It was a new game from a developer that isn't really that amazing in comparison to other FPS developers, but my friend and I wanted something new to play that wasn't L4D.

It consumed all of our free time for a few weeks as we played through it over and over with the different characters. It was really really fun.

Boarderlands, my first go I didnt like it. Bought it on sale and couldnt put it down.

Demon's Souls greatly surprised me.BPoole96

Same.

Then there's Mortal Kombat, more recently. I took a big gamble on it because I had no experience with real fighting games except some very casual SC II with my friend, and a bit of SF IV (which I still suck at) and even when I got MK in the mail I was thinking "I'm going to play this for 15 minutes and put it down forever." But nope, somehow the execution side of the game was just simple enough that I could figure out what I was doing. I'm still working on it, but I've made progress a million times faster than I did with SF.

Without a doubt it would be Mass Effect 2 for me.

I bought the game because all the lemmings ranted and raved about how great the story was and how it was the best RPG ever to grace the gaming world. Then I put it down after 7 or 8 hours bored out of my skull and disappointed beyong belief.

Poor graphics(except character models)

Crappy story-remember that guy whos ass we kicked in the first game? well we gotta do it again which means we have to recruit. And then 6 hours later I'm still recruiting team mates? Seriously that's what lemmings consider a great story?

Topped off with some of the worst third person shooter gameplay I've experienced this gen.

It had some great Characters and development on that side and there was a lot of back story to the whole universe and different races and such. But I don't care about that stuff. Back story is great as long as the main story is there with it and it's not.

TF2 couple of days ago

Thought I would like it but I didnt

Batman: AA... i had not cared for the game one bit untill i played the demo... i mean it was a super hero game, those tend to fail, i had no clue it would be one of my favourite games this gen..

deathsmiles. After the US localization I became addicted to danmaku shmups. Ended up importing a japanese xbox 360 and buying 7-10 more of them lol. Before that I just played them casually - like ikaruga on GC and psyvariar 2 on DC.

another one would be "the dream machine". Originally I figured it'd be a pretty boring point and click adventure, but I LOVE and will watch/play anything made out of claymation. Not only was the art direction awesome, but the game was surprisingly very good/addicting. The plot of the first free chapter got me hooked. I ended up buying all 5 chapters although 3 of them aren't out yet.

Deadly premonition at the first hour of playing it thought this game would suck but after beating it now its one of the top 10 games of this generation for me.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is a big one. The atmosphere and score are incredible and really make the game a beautiful piece of work. Gameplay could be refined but the game overall really was something special for me.

Red Dead Redemption. I've attempted to play the GTA games and never find myself finishing them. Cut to getting halfway through it and realizing how much I love the game.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I really didn't play the Castlevania games but I picked this one up off PSN and played it on my PSP. It was incredible and really changed my outlook on the series. Now I just need to buy Super Metroid on the Virtual Console for a side-scroller thought to be just as good as SotN.

Outland. One of my favourites downloadable games this gen!

Vanquish... master shakes was right!!!!campzor

Alan Wake

L.A. Noire. I don't care for Rockstar games, but L.A. Noire was actually really good. I enjoyed the investigation and interrogation aspects of the game very much.