Games worth trying despite the reviews

[ravenheart]

Hey everyone

I am a long time PC gamer - its my preferred media for fun, and I usually keep up with reviews of games coming out. Normally I don't get too excited if a game I like gets a bad score since personal preferrence play a big part in what games you like and if you can forgive bugs and bad game design.

I forinstance like Star Trek Online even though it is a pretty bad game. I can forgive that because the parts of it that work entertain me. Having said that I agree with reviews which by and large are middle of the road or negative. The game got squeezed out by a studio known for making cheap cash-in games and the game suffered for it. So consider that a warning - avoid that game ... but ... that it is not what this is about.

Lately 2 good mainstream games that I played have gotten horrible reviews and I can't explain why, so let me recommend them in case someone out there has been avoiding them because of their scores.

First up - Avatar the game. I know - its a movie-game - which is usually code for 'crappy-game'. And sure enough - all the reviews seemed to crucify the game simply because it is a movie based game and gave it bad scores. After watching the movie however I decided it was worth getting, if nothing else, just to see more of Pandora. Imagine my surprise when I found my self enjoying the game ... what I played was a pretty good 3rd person shooter. The story felt very much in tune with the movie and the game was well done with good graphic and sound design to boot. It was not perfect - but in the grand scheme of things I would have given the game ~80% - so if you liked the movie - give it a try

And then there is Alien vs. Predator. This first person shooter came out just a few days ago to pretty bad reviews. Xplay gave it 2 out of 5. I was flappergasted. I've been playing it and it is soo much better than that. The reviews in general seem to be giving the game a bad score because it plays very much like the original AVP games which came out 10 years ago. Well ... it was good 10 years ago and its still good today. If anything the new one is even better than the old ones because it was even more emotionaly intense. Lance Henriksen voiced his character from the movies which lends huge amounts of credebility to the story and overall the game just feels very much like you expect from the franchise. Playing as an Alien and trying to sneak up on unsuspecting marines to plunge your little tongue-mouth-thingy through their skulls is incredibly fun and somehow the story justifies it, so it is more than just mindless killing. Even more impressive was playing as a Marine constantly trying to get back to your squad while being caught in the middle of a nightmarish fight between all these scary monsters. It is one of the few games ever I played through scared. One night my wife called me while I was playing - the sound of the phone made me jump Usually that only happens for me in scary movies. How they can give that a 2 out of 5 is beyond me - I would have given it ~90% which is just one step short of the all-time-greats like Half Life. So consider that heartedly recommended.

Now - as I said - I am a PC gamer, and I played these games on the PC - I don't know if they would be exactly the same on the consoles. Also - I am not typically a shooter-player so I played these games with an open mind, just in it for the fun, not for the genre. Also I'd be curious to know if anyone have similar experiences with other 'bad games' that turned out to be good?