Best "SLEEPER" game you've played?

What is the best "SLEEPER" game you've played? By this I mean:

(A) a game that didn't garner much attention, but ended up being a really great?

(B) a game in a genre you never cared for, but decided to play anyhow and enjoyed it thoroughly?

For me it would have to be:

(A) Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising
This was a great MMO game that IMHO was better than Battlefield 2 in many ways. There were tons of selectable audio bites, you could actually shoot or knife someone in the water. The maps were HUGE too. I really enjoyed this over Battlefield 2, but since BF2 had such a large following, I adopted that instead. There's few Joint Ops servers running these days, but it's worth giving a shot if you want to spend a few bucks on something you haven't tried before.

(B) Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
I never cared for RPG games before. It was just never my cup o tea. I never cared much for middle ages fantasy games either. But Oblivion received such great accolades that I had to try it, and logged a couple hundred hours in it.

 

I'm not too sure about it, but Red Faction was a great game to me and I must have played it through 50 times.

I got it at the beginning of a summer (Forget which year) and played it a lot, I loved that game. I'm not too sure how much attention it received, but I really did enjoy it.

 

B) CS:S
I never really cared much for fps's until this came out...Theres prolly another fps I played before, just cant think right now. But this one was my fav that I could think of

 

(b)i guess mine would be a soccer game PES 07 since i dont like soccer games at all

 

http://www.fortress-forever.com/

Fortress Forever is a Source mod that I've spent way too much time on lately. It is a remake of the old Team Fortress games, so not to everyone's taste. But it's free if you have Source and it deserves more players. Much better than TF2 in my opinion.

 

Alien Hominid!

 

Wow, that just brought back memories haha! I used to play that in my drafting class many years ago

EDIT: Just played and beat Alien Hominid again for the first time in many years

 

Hey, thanks. I'll try it.

 

CS:S and ES4 are not sleeper titles.. maybe Stalker SoC

 

they were working on this before i quit TFC about 5 years ago lol.. i guess it's still in beta stages.

 

Yeah Stalker, that's another one. I haven't gotten very far, but very nice game.

 

SWAT 3 (awesome game before I lost the disc)

SWAT 4 (becoming more well-known, but still not mainstream)

Joint Ops as OP said

U.S. Most Wanted: Nowhere To Hide (nice lan fps game, if you can find it)

...and a few others that I can't think of at the moment, my friend always find pretty good sleeper games for like $5 at Half Price Books.

 

for me:

Arcanum: amazing open ended RPG from the original guys who made Fallout 1 and 2.

 

A: Project gothm racing 4.

 

Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay.

It was a fantastic FPS but more than that - the story was great, and you had to use skill to get through a lot of it. I remember the stealth sequences to get past guards (often you didn't have guns so it gave you a sense of humility). I loved breaking out of the maximum security prison. It was just an awesome game.

 

Quake 4. Seems like an odd choice, but I love the single player campaign to death.

If I must get more obscure, I could definitely second Chaz's vote for Chronicles of Riddick, but I also really enjoyed Timeshift and Tomb Raider: Legend.

 

A) Shadowrun: An awesome first/third person shooter that has become overshadowed by the big 3; Halo 3, Gears of War, and Call of Duty. It was featured for one season by MLG, but now its been dissolved like a fart in the wind. It is my favorite FPS/RPG-type game. Like an odd mix of Halo and World of Warcraft. Only $20 for Vista, and $10-15 for Xbox 360.

 

Ack! Doublepost.

Was Shadowrun really that good? It didn't review well.

 

Beyond Good and Evil and Dead Space a close second.

 

Time Splitters
Red Faction
Dark Cloud
Super Bust A Move
Freedom Fighters
ICO

All games I loved and that none of my friends played (except timesplitters once they finally saw it), not sure if they are sleepers though.

 

Oblivion is ANYTHING but a sleeper. It got MASSIVE press and RIDICULOUS hype and sold millions. With that said I got about half way through and threw my hands up yelling, "done" because it was so straightforward and easy I couldn't handle how simple it was anymore.

As for sleeper games I think Sins of a Solar Empire has not been given the recognition it deserves and is worth every penny spent on it and the micro expansion.

Stalked SoC is an amazing game if you have it with the latest patch. I almost beat it with 1.0004 or something like that, bu then I updated it and my save became incompatible and I tried to reavert the game back and lost my save so I never beat it, but the game is fantastic.

 

Metal Arms: Glitch in the System for the Gamecube.

It was just a sensational third person shooter. Incredibly fun.

 

Natural Selection. A great FPS for the HL engine - still has a decent playerbase 7 years or something after release.

Mafia. Best single player game that I've ever played. Great graphics, stoyrline.

 

In the recent years: Stalker SoC, like many mentioned, a great FPS that passed with so little attention.

 

I'd go with Battlestations:Midway. Thought it was a fantastic mix of action and strategy, and can't wait for the new one. Didn't ever seem to catch on though. Sure loved it however.

Best cheap suprise of a game I bought recently has been Quantum of Solace, snagged a copy at Target off the clearance rack for $7.68, and have had a ball with it. Uses the COD4 engine, so has decent graphics, and some fun action. not perfect by any means, but definitely suprised me for the $$$!

Also, Defense Grid: The Awakening would be my pick for genre I never play but LOVED this one. Had never tried a tower defense game, but I played this one NONSTOP... love it!

 

Non-PC, it'll be funny, but Pokemon Colosseum. Because a more mature storyline and completely different approach to world graphics made it really stand out compared to the standard games.

PC? Traffic Giant was fun, long ago.

 

Painkiller

 

For me it would have to be Vampire Bloodlines. The Gothic chicks are hot and there is a lot to explore.

 

World of Warcraft

 

Anyone remember the old Descent series? I do wish I could get the game to work on XP.

 

(A) Age of Wonders (a fantastic TBS game that got little publicity)

(B) World of Warcraft (before WoW I never got into the MMO scene)

 

WoW is not a sleeper. Anything released by Blizzard is hardly a "sleeper."

 

(B) a game in a genre you never cared for, but decided to play anyhow and enjoyed it thoroughly?

another sleeper would be XIII by ubisoft.

 

In my opinion, I think its really that good . At the MLG tournament, it was sold out, but just after, FASA Studios closed down and it was taken off the Circut. You can often find it on sale online for under $10 for Vista. Just a note, the game is made strictly for competitive multiplayer gaming and therefore lacks a campaign mode. The unique gameplay of Shadowrun is what keeps gamers entertained. It adds a completely different dimension of strategy that is desired from the normal FPS Imagine Halo with the ability to teleport through walls, force push, and temporarily turn semi-invisible.

I could write a whole review on the game if you'd like .

When I get my laptop in a few months I'll probably settle with Shadowrun and Orange Box for quite a while.

 

Which ones?

Go to www.gog.com and get them there. They work fine on XP or Vista. You can also Get Freespace and Freespace 2, although you can also find them for free online greatly enhanced

 

A) Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine. Classic Lucasarts.

B) Peggle. Argh, Peggle. Took over my life. I'm pretty sure popcap games count as its own category.

 

I highly enjoyed American Mcgee's Alice back in the day I liked the new twist and the story. It made me see Alice in Wonderland under a different light.

Umm another game I liked which wasn't overly popular was Black & White although idk if that counts as a sleeper much. The original one was really good and I'd have liked to have had a more expanded story and world for that game ^_^

 

I realize that. (A) is the sleeper. (B) is...

 

If I could make out with you.......

When I get home I'm gonna hit up this link.

 

The 1st one I should have mentioned, but the 2nd and its stand-along expansion took away quite a few fans from the HoMM franchise. Still not good enough to wrest the crown away from Master of Magic though.

 

You can do gog.com...the games are cheap...(in fact, gog.com maybe using the below emulators as the two websites are partners...like dosbox and gog.com)...

But there's a Descent engine emulator ( www.dxx-rebirth.com) built specifically for XP as long as you have the .hog files from Descent and Descent 2 diskettes or CD...also, when I bought my new laptop with a T7600 processor, there was plenty of computing horsepower to run Descent under DosBox...

 

(A) Freedom Force (or its sequel, Freedom Force vs the 3rd Reich)
Act of War
Silent Storm
Ground Control 2
Nexus - The Jupiter Incident
Missionforce - Cyberstorm
Alien Shooter - Vengeance (mindless fun available on Steam)
Psychonauts
Sanitarium (favorite point and click adventure game...very creepy)

(B) DiRT and Flatout - Not a big fan of PC racing, but these two got my attention...I still mess around a lot in the Flatout mini-games... (short attention span)

 

Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines - Absolutely the most atmospheric RPG I have ever played. Simply wonderful game that had so much more potential, but I believe the game was rushed out. Even with its flaws, it is still a brilliant game.

X3 The Reuion - Its basically a huge space world for you to do almost anything you want in. I have probably sunk 250+ hours into this game. You can build up a trading empire, design your own factories, have a battle fleet.... Also, the mods for this game adds on a ton of new ships and other items.

 

XIII or The Ship

 

Are you a hot female? Then I'll make arrangements!

 

Nexus - The Jupiter Incident. I did buy that and had fun with it. It was hard though, but will have to revisit! Thanks for reminding! (+1)

X3, oh yes. I started that one, because I love space shooters. But never got too far, I lost patience, but will have to return to it some time. (+1 for reminding me!)

 

A. Perfect Dark for the N64, a huge improvement on Goldeneye that unfortunately did not share the same popularity.

 

Goldeneye had an awesome campaign mode, but PerfectDark's Co-op Mode and multiplayer were crazy. The slayer and Farsight were revolutionary weapons! I'm gonna play it tonight haha.

 

A) a game that didn't garner much attention, but was a great game that didn't get the attention it deserved?

Conquest of the Aegean.


(B) a game in a genre you never cared for, but decided to play anyhow and enjoyed it thoroughly?

Company of Heroes.
I detest most mainstream RTS games, but like CoH a lot.

 

I loved the farsight weapon. That was revolutionary. While the laptop gun wasn't revolutionary, it was nevertheless fun to watch transforming.

Another game that was revolutionary was a game for the Playstation 2. I can't remember the title now, but it was a game where you rode around on a horse and you fight these huge bosses. There was no common enemies. Just these huge bosses and you had to hop on to them and stab them in different spots.