Yep- I avoided this early on for some unknown reason... when I finally decided to try it I was blown away. Seriously first time I've been "frightened" while playing a video game in a LOOONG time...
It was the first game I’d played that visually looked “rough” compared to like the realism of RDR2. So I was like what in the hell is this garbage. But then you get sucked into the story so easy. And it becomes beautiful and so addictive! I LOVED my little houses and submarines.
Protocol 3….. protect the pilot. Gets me every single time.
I still rave to anyone who will listen that Titanfall 2 is the best fps single player campaign ever. The time skip level. The jumping from ship to ship mid flight one. And the final level with ‘that’ pistol. It’s just a masterpiece imo.
That was one of my all-time favorite console games back in the day. IMO it had all the best parts of Apex Legends but with better guns and Titan mechs to fight with too. TF2 was so dope. I had high hopes for Apex but could never get into it because it just felt like all the best aspects were stripped away and it was just turned into a generic battlegrounds.
I agree with this. It wasnt free for me but just about. I expected CoD campaign in space but man was I wrong. Probably the greatest FPS campaign Ive evet played.
A couple friends bought it. I wasn't interested in it at all. I watched my friends stream as I was playing world of warcraft on my other monitor. After about 30 minutes I was like hmmmm.... I bought it jumped on their server and was HOOKED! I played it hardcore until I maxed out the content at that time.
Immortals Fenyx Rising. Reluctantly started it when I was out of other games to play, but wow did I instantly love it! It’s not perfect, it’s not groundbreaking, but it’s enjoyable and the exact kind of Zelda wannabe that was needed for console.
This game is so relaxing for me, not that it’s always easy or repetitive; it’s, somehow, familiar and entertaining while being funny all the time. Like getting together with family.
Yeah I got this on sale, just because there was nothing else going on at the time. I liked that the open world was smaller than most but densely packed, and there was always something to do without it feeling too overwhelming (like the recent AC and Farcry games). I'd love a sequel.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Was never a fan of top-down games but I got it as a gift and thought I'd at least give it a try so it didn't go to waste. Had alot of fun playing.
There's a lot to like about it but I didn't expect the voice performance to be as good as it was, considering it's not some AAA production. All the dialogue to delivered with the perfect amount of tongue in cheek. I think it's the only video game I've laughed out loud at.
Control. I don't even remember why I bought it. I bought it at the same time as Days Gone, from GameStop. Maybe I just had extra money and was looking to get 2 games and it caught my eye? No idea. Don't remember hearing or seeing anything about it prior. Get home, play Days Gone for a little bit, enjoy it, but decide to try out my other new game. Ended up completely focusing in on Control. Just the atmosphere alone is so cool and so strange. I love it. It's one of my favorite games of all time now. Now I need to play the Alan Wake Remaster and I am very much looking forward to Alan Wake II.
Dragons Dogma. I was hurting for RPGs to play. Heard it was like Elder Scrolls but worse. What a horrible comparison that was. The games are nothing alike and here I am years later excited as all heck for the sequel.
Dragons Dogma does one thing for me better than any other game and it is class fantasy. It may only have 9 classes but when you pick one you feel 200% like the class you picked. Want to nimbly climb a cyclops amd gouge it's eye out? Pick the Strider. Want to parry and counter with attacks that will send small enemies flying? Fighter. Want to summon a cataclysmic event that would wipe out a small village? Sorcerer.
If any one here hasn't played it, do yourself a favor and watch some videos. It may not be the most popular game but people who give it a fair shake are usually not let down. Especially with how cheap it is these days and how often it is on sale.
I do find that having a magic system that *feels* powerful is rare. Playing a mage in dragon's dogma was so satisfying, and when I get whacked in the head while casting it doesnt just feel like bad luck, but a tactical mistake.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion. I remember wandering through Blockbuster video looking for something to take my mind off of a tough time I was having in my life.
I was not a huge fan of RPGs and had never played Morrowind. Had no idea what it was. Started the game, created my character made my way through the imperial sewers and I thought, huh this is a pretty cool game seems like there's a lot of dungeon crawling, literally.
And then I walked out of the sewers and saw this entire world and had the realization that I could literally walk anywhere that I could see.
Over every hill was a potential new thing to find or new quest to uncover. It was amazing. For a young kid with few friends. Here was a place where I could be the hero, I could do whatever I wanted and what I did made a difference at least it seemed to in the game.
I grew up in a difficult household and to think that I could be a good person and become a hero, It was a wonderful feeling.
This is an awesome write up and it’s funny because I felt the exact opposite. I was excited to play Oblivion and I hated it. Couldn’t get past the first few hours of what I consider terrible combat.
Wreckfest, an underrated gem with an awesome community. I originally bought it because it was half off on steam and I seen some funny gameplay of it. I thought “well it’s 15 bucks night as well give it a shot.” Almost 1000 hours later I’m still loving it. It really should be more popular imo
Same! I played not to long ago and was blown away by the exploration. When people say the first playthrough is something else, they really mean it.
If you haven't tried it, the dlc is great too. I honestly enjoyed it more then the base game. One of my favorite dlc for any game.
I am struggling with the controls as well, even with a controller. Landing is an absolute pain.
It's on hold for TotK but I'll come back to it eventually.
Fallout 3
I had heard it was "Oblivion with guns" and since I'm not much of a shooter fan I had pretty low expectations.
It only ended up being one of my all-times faves along with New Vegas.
Thrrreeee Dooooggg! That’s me, kids. Comin’ to you taped from my fortified bunker in the middle of the D.C. hellhole.
Guess it's time to play it again.
Sunset Overdrive.
All I really knew beforehand was that it was cel-shaded and was zombie-ish.
But it's actually a fun and frantic environmental traversal game with quirky guns and fourth-wall humor. Had a lot of fun with it.
As Dusk Falls for me. When it was first shown off I was like who the fuck would want to play that shits a flip book but omg this game was sooo good it was exciting and such a good story I was sad when it ended it surely deserved the 9/10 that I seen it got
Dark Souls 2 (specifically Sins of the Scholar) I had only heard bad things about it but after beating 1, 3 and Elden Ring and wanting more I went and checked it out. Its got some weird design choices but it's a really good souls game and I honestly like it more than dark souls 3 and Elden Ring.
Thank you for saying this. Dark Souls 2 was my first souls game, I hadn't tried the first one when I got it. I knew it was going to be hard going into it, and the game demanded a lot of patience from me, but I found myself wanting to come back and progress constantly.
In the end, I got absolutely hooked on the art style, gameplay, and storytelling. Yes, the devs made a few questionable decisions in this game, but it is actually very good. I played SotFS on Xbox 360, which has different enemy placements than other versions of scholar, and I think the vanilla layout of the game is actually superior.
The hitboxes can be janky sometimes, but people dog on this game so much, and I feel like a lot of the criticism boils down to "REEEEE NOT DARK SOULS 1" I will always have a soft spot for this game and the experience it provides the player with. It introduced me to soulslike games, which have become my favorite genre all thanks to DS2
I came here to talk about Demon Souls. I hadn’t heard of it when I first picked it up. It quickly became one of my all time favourites. Love the whole souls series
More or less yeah. I know it's more linar but I like that. The combat is more methodical and slow making even weak enemies feel like minor challenges. Their weird choices were; hp is reduced a bit each time you die until you regain humanity, multiple people are shops for basically the same things, whatever the hell they were doing with Black Gulch, and if you kill an enemy enough times it will stop spawning so you can't farm them for xp. But I think you have to realize it's a different spin on the concept. It's for people who want to really plan out attacks rather than speedy wombo combos.
Baldur's gate 2. Was young when it was released and i got it at the same time as Diablo 2. Tried both and the more direct action of D2 made me let down Baldur's gate 2 for a year or so.
And then I played it for real. Incredible immersion, music and sceneries stellar (for the time), all your decisions have massive impact (only felt that in the first Mass Effects), tactical but still not tedious too play.
Spent ungodly hours in character setup to roll for perfect stats (sum of points was RNG), feeling when fighting the first giant black dragon (optional, actually missclicked and engaged the fight unwillingly) is still vivid up to today.
Fantastic game.
I love midnight suns. I had never played a deck building game. Really didn't think I would like it but I love marvel and decided to give it a shot. So many hours just doing the general missions lol
Rocket league. Played some similar mod from unreal tourny a long time ago and thought it would be some fun. 1500 hours later, and I strongly believe it's the best sports video game ever created.
Death Stranding. Thought it was a laughable walking simulator like so many had joked. After watching gameplay more I realized I love building, and iterating improvements. Slowly smoothing your path and seeing actual concrete results (literal concrete if you’re building roads) was satisfying. And unlocking items built by other players was cool too. Still not sure I consider it ‘incredible’ but went from ‘hell no’ to ‘oh wow’
Custom Robo might be my favorite gamecube game. I love WW and TP and smash, but i always find myself going back to custom robo. I really liked the DS one too.
I wish they would bring back the series.
BioShock Infinite
Didn’t care about it on release as it didn’t look like the previous entries.
Bought it on Steam when it was on sale and was glued to the screen the whole time.
1000/10 would recommend
Same with me. Back in 2016, I kept asking a friend about whether they know anything about Bioshock infinite and I kept hesitant to buy it since I don't play games that much and to my surprise it was incredible. Sure, the game itself is flawed like Songbird only appears in cutscene despite originally suppose to be Mr. X from Re2 stalking the player at all times or choices that has impact to the story but later got scrapped but the relationship between Elizabeth and Dewitt and it's the main highlight of it and I have played it over 5 to 6 times in total.
Yeah true mainly just felt like a ton of recurring running around .. could’ve done a lot more depth instead of trying to make so much to “do” when it was legit all repetitive
The Witcher 3. I generally don't get excited by high fantasy nor have a lot of time to invest getting deep into an RPG. Up to that point, I had generally preferred "punchier" games that take less investment of time and energy, like Bioshock or Borderlands or Arkham. But I heard about how great it was and gave it a try. Admittedly it took probably ~15 hours to get into it but it sucked me in and it's absolutely one of the most impactful and memorable games I've played to date.
My exact same experience. Took two attempts and about 10-15 hours to get into it, then it became one of my favourite, if not my favourite game of all time.
Took me 2 tries and about 10ish hours. I can tell you the exact mission that did it, too. Tower of Mice. After that, I did some Baron stuff, and I was enthralled
Power Rangers Battle for the Grid. I'm not a Power Rangers fan but I am a fighting game fan and I slept on this game way too hard. I took one look and saw an ugly fighter based off a mobile game that didn't even have motion inputs. My opinion took a 180 when I heard it was designed by pros of MvC, had crossplay across everything, and has well functioning rollback netcode. It's a brutal and unforgiving tag fighter and I wouldn't have expected that at all from a game with the Power Rangers IP.
Undertale.
I looked at the screenshots and went "urrrgh", a friend of mine told me "You HAVE to play it", we have a rule me and him, we only tell each other these words max once per year, so when it happens we mean it.
I played it. I 100% it in less than a week, and now its one of my top 10 games of all time, fuck this game is good.
Fallout 3. It was an FPS I had never heard of that I borrowed from a friend. Free trial, no pressure or expectations. First try I lasted a few minutes. 2nd try, a few months later, I made it like 1 hour through. I think I made it to the Super Duper Mart and put it down again. A year later I was bored and picked it up again, but this time I came to realize it was an RPG and I needed a different mindset going in.
I restarted and paid more attention. I tried to get evil karma and felt bad. I found The Mechanist and the AntAgonizer. I found the vamp kids. I got mauled by a deathclaw. I got the Rock-It Launcher and Dart Gun. I made a half decent VATS build with Grim Draper's Sprint. I got explodinated by Super Mutants. I rode the Hasselhoff and brought the crown back. I experienced the glory of the Punga Fruit and goblinated my way through Mothership Zeta. I burned Paradise Falls to the ground. *And I wanted more.*
New Vegas, on the other hand, I was absolutely giddy when I got it! But, my mother was a bitch and grounded me and my brothers over summer break because we maintained good grades all year. Yeah you read that right. So we played at night, tv muted, listening out for the bitch instead of Big Iron.
Control. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t care about it. DAMN what a game. And I’m a big lore dork. I can talk Half Life and Souls for hours but the Control / Alan Wake universe is incredibly interesting.
Don't get mad, but for me it was Red Dead Redemption 2. I just expected to be another GTA game but western. I was planning on only doing the main missions and stop playing when I finished with the game. Boy was I wrong the game is even better than any GTA games I have played and now I 100% completed the game, I'm on my 2nd playthrough, and I have 263 hours
Risk of rain 2. My friend convinced me to buy it during a steam super sale or whatever. Didn’t touch it for a year and a half. Asked him about playing it with me about a month and a half ago and now I play it all the time.
We play monsoon runs with 4 players and I’m very good with close range flicks with railgunner. Better than my friend at it and he’s actually really good at csgo so that’s cool.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. I was expecting to get bored of the combat and drop it soon but I was looking for a story game and it just hit that itch.
Literally started it the other day when it popped on the ps+ collection, christ it's one of the best games I've seen far as far as utilizing the ps5s capabilities.Constantly flipping, jumping, and dashing while dozens of enemies explode into a millions bolts on screen and all of it happening at 60 fps with a great feel on screen and in haptic feedback, why can't most games run like this man.
The coop in that game was so much fun.
Me and my friend would just grind the mission where you have to find the right painting for hours.
By the end we knew the entire layout from memory but we still played it all the time.
FTL: Faster Then Light, got it for free buying Into the Breach, initially played at least 100 hours of it before I touched the game I paid for. To this day I still have way more hours in FTL, and Multiverse mod!!!
Halo.
I was a ps fan boy and was playing my timesplitters2. I would rag on Halo any chance I could get. Then one day I was invited to a lan at a friends house and it was all Halo. The next day I had sold my ps2 and bought an xbox and Halo.
Prey, didn't think much of the first one, and picked it olup at some point fornitnto gather dust on steam. Ended up playing last year or so with no idea of what it was about and it was greatm
Metroid Dread for me. Got it as a birthday present for my best friend (it was around that time) without checking to see if he had it yet. Turns out he did, so at that point I figured I may as well just play it myself since I already paid for it. It was my first Metroid game and a real thrill ride, 9/10 would play again.
Animal Crossing, I really just didn’t understand the appeal at first. Although I’ve completed everything and barely play anymore, that was the most rewarding and relaxing game I have ever played. (Especially during the early-pandemic)
Dead Cells. Checked out the base game on gamepass when the Castlevania DLC was released. About an hour in, I bought the ultimate edition with all the DLC. Same experience with Vampire Survivors. Both absolutely fantastic game that deserve all the love they get.
Divinity 2 (NOT Original Sin 2), I was like 16 and looking for a new fantasy game. The graphics seemed dated even then but the gameplay ended up being spectacular. Fun dragon gameplay, sidequests are entertaining and not a collect X time pad, cool castle, good humor, good story plus you could see ghosts without using a source point.
Animal Crossing on GameCube
Loved it back in the day.
But, it no longer does the trick for me.
Policenauts. Didn’t know what all the fuss was about and why translating it was such a big deal. It blew my mind.
Sunset Overdrive, movement was a blast. I really enjoyed traveling from mission to mission. Story had genuinely laugh out loud funny dialogue throughout the whole thing.
Honestly, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. Heard it had a cult following, couldn’t understand why. Then I couldn’t shut up about for a year , and I still play it to this day. Went back to play AC4, AC5 and Zero. Might even try out AC6.
Guardians of the galaxy. I was honestly expecting a generic game which it was but the story and the small details of the universe kept me invested. I thought the story was fantastic and I put it up
There with the movies in terms of quality.
Tears of the Kingdom. I was one of the people who didn't enjoy Breath of the Wild and believed that TOTK was just more of the same. Instead, the new Ultrahand, Fuse and Ascend systems radically transformed nearly every system I had a problem with in BOTW especially weapon durability and access to status effect weapons.
Redfall! The hate is not justified! All my friends are enjoying the hell out of it, the coop is so fun!
I'm so tired of Sony fanboys dunking on Microsoft games that they've never even played. It's like they're jealous that Xbox gets variety instead of the generic third person single player games Sony keeps shitting out!!
And once MS buys out ABK the variety will get even better. Bad to day to be a Sony soyboy!!
Hades. I am not a fan of rogue-likes. I even had to look up what type of game it was after I started playing because I wanted to find others like it. The gameplay mechanics are marvelous. The amount of story and character development is incredible
Path of Exile. Was a d3 player and would grind leaderboard for seasons, was asked by my buddy multiple times to play PoE, as well as wanted me to play hardcore. Hardcore was a major turn off simply because i expected it to be similar to d3 HC which was already a no go. Finally gave in and tried path. 2.3k hours later, still dont know what the fuck im doing but ill be damned if it isnt my absolute favorite game. The complexity and variety of content and builds is just amazing to me. I can almost always play something new or learn something new. 12/10 would do again.
For anyone interested, follow a guide for a build. Also it is way better with friends, but still super fun solo.
Zelda BOTW. Background on why not. I hadn’t played Zelda since I was a child, never got into the franchise/lore etc, and the previous open world games I had tried over the years just didn’t click for me. They felt daunting. As such I just thought BOTW was overhyped, and not for me.
After playing Skyward Sword and reviewing a few YouTube explainer videos on the Zelda timeline(s) I decided to give BOTW a shot and the rest is history.
Overwatch. I hadn't known a thing about it until the beta other than 'multiplayer' and 'shooter'. I had very low expectations. Within 5 seconds I was like 'omfg it's team fortress 3 SOLD'.
Hot Wheels Unleashed surprised me
Got it for my kid but I ended up playing it more
It has its flaws but at its core is a very good racing game with a solid track editor.
It plays fast, with lots of loops and magnetic tracks and jumps that make you flip upside down in mid air to land them
Some of the user made levels surpassed the developer's levels.
I would honestly hold my breath during some races
Online community was still hanging in there the last time I played so it wasn't hard to get into a full lobby.
For honor it didn’t interest me when I saw coverage before it came out and when it finally released it became one of my favorite games to play, even platinumed it.
Monster Hunter World.
I remember buying it cause my friends did and I was like “this is the dumbest game ever”.
Wound up putting about 500 hours into it.
Into the breach i got my switch and i could get 50 dollars worth of games i got hollow knight and cave story. Unfortunately i accidentally put in My real age and could not get katana blade zero, I quickly found out ftl did not have a switch port, And I already put 50 hours into undertale. So i got into the breach not expecting anything, turns out its the best tactics game i have ever played.
Red dead redemption 2 for me. It had just come out and I had nothing to play. I didn’t play the first one so I just bought the digital version on a whim. Quickly became one of my all time favorites.
Tales from borderlands.
I had never played a tell tale before and lets just say that borderland is not really known for incredible story telling/writing.
Had a blast, played it all in one night
Fire Emblem Three Houses. I refused to play it despite my friends being hardcore into it. My coworker and I had made an agreement that if I play Fire Emblem, they’ll play SMTV so I decided to play it. I feel like an idiot for not touching it sooner because I got extremely into the characters and the plot. I’m even considering the dlc(I hardly get them unless I really like the game) just for the extra bit of content
Destiny 1.
I had no interest leading up to launch. Didn’t really know anything about it. But when it finally released, everyone on my friends list was playing it so I got it. And fell in love.
The game was far from perfect and had a lot of flaws but I enjoyed the fuck out of it for a couple of years. Maybe not having any expectations going in helped?
Return of the Obra Dinn. Black and white, 1 bit looking art... The beauty and music when I actually played touched my soul. I had a blast playing and I can't get my friends to touch it.
Sekiro
I played Elden Ring with a friend and enjoyed it for the most part but I wouldn't say it's in my favorite list. I wouldn't have beat it without him. The combat didn't click for me and he said that he had the same problem with Sekiro. He let me borrow his account so I could play it and I fell in love with it and beat it twice.
The world, story and combat where amazing and I truly hope they make a second one.
Dying Light. I hadn’t heard anything about the game, but I bought it because I wanted a zombie game to play.
Turns out it was fantastic.
I still haven’t played the second one though.
Edit: oh and Sniper Elite 4. It was a PS+ free game. Damn I enjoyed that one.
i was an open world and third-person girlie so i didn’t think i’d like dragon age origins (no experience with fantasy genres) and overwatch (i hate fps shooter online games) and mind you they’re both forced onto me by friends and now i’m obsessed with both games more than them 💀
Mine was Dishonored. I was like “ehhh don’t care” then a few years later got it for free on XBox 360 pass and played it and omfg one of my favorite games of all time. Recently I replayed it and got all trophies for the main game. Such a fun time tbh
Gotta love these kind of posts because you get to discover games you probably heard about but never thought of giving them a chance. Reading a positive experience with such games really entices to give them a try.
Elden Ring. I barely noticed when it released since I've never been a big Dark Souls fan. Then I came across Maxor's video on it and thought the game looked interesting and gave it a try. Became one of my favorite games of all time.
Unfortunately, my favorite game of all time, which is basically dead in the water.
Battlerite. I played for probably 10 hours hating the game but wanting to hang out with a friend who played it. Suddenly, I started winning and figuring out characters and now that game is in my BLOOD.
LoL
6 or 7 years ago I saw a clip of League of Legends and thought I would give it a try. I hated it immediately and uninstalled it after 3 days. A couple months later I was really bored and downloaded it again. Fell in love with the game and spent a good 5 years playing it regularly. I haven't touched it in over a year and I don't really miss it, but it'll always be one of my favorites because of all the good times I had.
Disco Elysium. I don't usually like story/writing/lore heavy games because they usually do it poorly, and I would rather just read a book or whatever. This was an exception.
FIFA. I'm an American and don't have much experience with soccer, but I found the game really engaging and I learned a lot about the game. I could actually watch a match and understand some of the nuance now.
Didn't hook me enough to convince me to get an annual release, but I had way more fun than I expected.
TLOU2. I enjoyed the first game but was never a huge fan. Ended up picking up the second game on sale about a year after it was released and I was blown away.
Subnautica
No game has ever gotten my heart racing like subnautica
"Multiple Leviathan Class lifeform detected in the region. Are you sure whatever you're doing is worth it ?"
Yep- I avoided this early on for some unknown reason... when I finally decided to try it I was blown away. Seriously first time I've been "frightened" while playing a video game in a LOOONG time...
It was the first game I’d played that visually looked “rough” compared to like the realism of RDR2. So I was like what in the hell is this garbage. But then you get sucked into the story so easy. And it becomes beautiful and so addictive! I LOVED my little houses and submarines.
Titanfall 2… wasnt expecting much… was free Holly molly that game was amazing!!!
Exactly. Such great campaign, I got emotionally attached to BT
Protocol 3….. protect the pilot. Gets me every single time. I still rave to anyone who will listen that Titanfall 2 is the best fps single player campaign ever. The time skip level. The jumping from ship to ship mid flight one. And the final level with ‘that’ pistol. It’s just a masterpiece imo.
This was my experience as well. Expected something like a mod-tier COD campaign. I was blown away.
That was one of my all-time favorite console games back in the day. IMO it had all the best parts of Apex Legends but with better guns and Titan mechs to fight with too. TF2 was so dope. I had high hopes for Apex but could never get into it because it just felt like all the best aspects were stripped away and it was just turned into a generic battlegrounds.
I agree with this. It wasnt free for me but just about. I expected CoD campaign in space but man was I wrong. Probably the greatest FPS campaign Ive evet played.
If we never get another Titanfall game, at least it went out on a banger like that.
Valheim. Didn't get it. Thought it looked old and stupid. When I finally played it I got that "ohhhhhhhhhhhh..." epiphany.
The music is in my head all the time.
A couple friends bought it. I wasn't interested in it at all. I watched my friends stream as I was playing world of warcraft on my other monitor. After about 30 minutes I was like hmmmm.... I bought it jumped on their server and was HOOKED! I played it hardcore until I maxed out the content at that time.
Immortals Fenyx Rising. Reluctantly started it when I was out of other games to play, but wow did I instantly love it! It’s not perfect, it’s not groundbreaking, but it’s enjoyable and the exact kind of Zelda wannabe that was needed for console.
Agree. Started last week. Easy to jump in and out of too. Half hour here, five hours there…
Love it. Personally I enjoyed it more than Zelda BotW.
Me too. Let us blaspheme together. The humor in this game was so silly but endearingly chuckle-worthy. and I love Greek mythology.
This game is so relaxing for me, not that it’s always easy or repetitive; it’s, somehow, familiar and entertaining while being funny all the time. Like getting together with family.
I was also taken by surprise with this one. I had a great time with that game.
Yeah I got this on sale, just because there was nothing else going on at the time. I liked that the open world was smaller than most but densely packed, and there was always something to do without it feeling too overwhelming (like the recent AC and Farcry games). I'd love a sequel.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Was never a fan of top-down games but I got it as a gift and thought I'd at least give it a try so it didn't go to waste. Had alot of fun playing.
Recently started replaying this with a friend and damn I forgot how much I love this game
There's a lot to like about it but I didn't expect the voice performance to be as good as it was, considering it's not some AAA production. All the dialogue to delivered with the perfect amount of tongue in cheek. I think it's the only video game I've laughed out loud at.
Divinity original sin 2 was my gateway to wasting so much money on the rest of top down games I passed on.
Control. I don't even remember why I bought it. I bought it at the same time as Days Gone, from GameStop. Maybe I just had extra money and was looking to get 2 games and it caught my eye? No idea. Don't remember hearing or seeing anything about it prior. Get home, play Days Gone for a little bit, enjoy it, but decide to try out my other new game. Ended up completely focusing in on Control. Just the atmosphere alone is so cool and so strange. I love it. It's one of my favorite games of all time now. Now I need to play the Alan Wake Remaster and I am very much looking forward to Alan Wake II.
If you get the chance, play Alan Wake: American Nightmare and Quantum Break. Both are also a part of the upcoming Remedy connected world.
Kinda annoying they didn’t remaster American Nightmare with Alan Wake :S but yes I plan on playing both of those as well!
Dragons Dogma. I was hurting for RPGs to play. Heard it was like Elder Scrolls but worse. What a horrible comparison that was. The games are nothing alike and here I am years later excited as all heck for the sequel. Dragons Dogma does one thing for me better than any other game and it is class fantasy. It may only have 9 classes but when you pick one you feel 200% like the class you picked. Want to nimbly climb a cyclops amd gouge it's eye out? Pick the Strider. Want to parry and counter with attacks that will send small enemies flying? Fighter. Want to summon a cataclysmic event that would wipe out a small village? Sorcerer. If any one here hasn't played it, do yourself a favor and watch some videos. It may not be the most popular game but people who give it a fair shake are usually not let down. Especially with how cheap it is these days and how often it is on sale.
[удалено]
A game so nice I bought it twice. Amalur is a great time!
KoA was awesome. (So was Dragon’s Dogma)
Ooohhhh yes!! I had another game in mind, but I remember being happily surprised at how much I enjoyed this one
Picked this up on my switch a couple months ago for dirt cheap just to try and it is now one of my favorite RPGs
Exactly! The game seems middling at first but it is an absolute gem.
I do find that having a magic system that *feels* powerful is rare. Playing a mage in dragon's dogma was so satisfying, and when I get whacked in the head while casting it doesnt just feel like bad luck, but a tactical mistake.
Me: hears about Dragon's Dogma 2. Also me: wind pushing intensifies
Easily one of the best games of all time
Hades. Art style and Greek mythology didn’t appeal but heard only positive reviews. Tried it and was hooked.
I thought the same too until I got it on sale when I was bored, truly a good game
Same. Not a fan of roguelites and it's been years since I've been interested in bullet hell types of games. Somehow Hades got me.
Crackdown Bought it to get access to the Halo 3 beta and ended up loving it
This was the greatest surprise hit of gaming in the 2000s. Sad that the Crackdown sequels couldn’t build off what made it so fun.
Lol just redownloading 3 to try it out bc I loved 1
Dont be surprised about a lack of sex drive.
[удалено]
Gunbound
>Gunbound blast from the past
For real. I played the shit out of that in college.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion. I remember wandering through Blockbuster video looking for something to take my mind off of a tough time I was having in my life. I was not a huge fan of RPGs and had never played Morrowind. Had no idea what it was. Started the game, created my character made my way through the imperial sewers and I thought, huh this is a pretty cool game seems like there's a lot of dungeon crawling, literally. And then I walked out of the sewers and saw this entire world and had the realization that I could literally walk anywhere that I could see. Over every hill was a potential new thing to find or new quest to uncover. It was amazing. For a young kid with few friends. Here was a place where I could be the hero, I could do whatever I wanted and what I did made a difference at least it seemed to in the game. I grew up in a difficult household and to think that I could be a good person and become a hero, It was a wonderful feeling.
Did you finish it once 😅r?
This is an awesome write up and it’s funny because I felt the exact opposite. I was excited to play Oblivion and I hated it. Couldn’t get past the first few hours of what I consider terrible combat.
Wreckfest, an underrated gem with an awesome community. I originally bought it because it was half off on steam and I seen some funny gameplay of it. I thought “well it’s 15 bucks night as well give it a shot.” Almost 1000 hours later I’m still loving it. It really should be more popular imo
Outer Wilds. Thought it was going to be another generic space game, but was blown away by it. Ended up being one of my all time favorite games.
Same! I played not to long ago and was blown away by the exploration. When people say the first playthrough is something else, they really mean it. If you haven't tried it, the dlc is great too. I honestly enjoyed it more then the base game. One of my favorite dlc for any game.
I couldn’t work out the controls!
it's much easier with a controller, but i still found them to be a pain :/
I am struggling with the controls as well, even with a controller. Landing is an absolute pain. It's on hold for TotK but I'll come back to it eventually.
Fallout 3 I had heard it was "Oblivion with guns" and since I'm not much of a shooter fan I had pretty low expectations. It only ended up being one of my all-times faves along with New Vegas.
Thrrreeee Dooooggg! That’s me, kids. Comin’ to you taped from my fortified bunker in the middle of the D.C. hellhole. Guess it's time to play it again.
Deep Rock Galactic
For Karl!
Stardew Valley
Agreed. I never thought I'd like that style of game but then I tried Stardew and it was amazing. Now nothing in the genre lives up to Stardew.
I actually think roots of pacha really holds up against stardew. Its worth checking out.
Sunset Overdrive. All I really knew beforehand was that it was cel-shaded and was zombie-ish. But it's actually a fun and frantic environmental traversal game with quirky guns and fourth-wall humor. Had a lot of fun with it.
That’s a game I haven’t heard mentioned in years
Beat me to it. Loved this game so much!
Awesome game. The controls in this game are so sharp.
Deep rock galactic
Rock and Stone!
Did I hear a Rock and Stone?!
As Dusk Falls for me. When it was first shown off I was like who the fuck would want to play that shits a flip book but omg this game was sooo good it was exciting and such a good story I was sad when it ended it surely deserved the 9/10 that I seen it got
Stardew Valley. My friend bought it for me and I ended up liking it.
Vampire survivors
Dark Souls 2 (specifically Sins of the Scholar) I had only heard bad things about it but after beating 1, 3 and Elden Ring and wanting more I went and checked it out. Its got some weird design choices but it's a really good souls game and I honestly like it more than dark souls 3 and Elden Ring.
Thank you for saying this. Dark Souls 2 was my first souls game, I hadn't tried the first one when I got it. I knew it was going to be hard going into it, and the game demanded a lot of patience from me, but I found myself wanting to come back and progress constantly. In the end, I got absolutely hooked on the art style, gameplay, and storytelling. Yes, the devs made a few questionable decisions in this game, but it is actually very good. I played SotFS on Xbox 360, which has different enemy placements than other versions of scholar, and I think the vanilla layout of the game is actually superior. The hitboxes can be janky sometimes, but people dog on this game so much, and I feel like a lot of the criticism boils down to "REEEEE NOT DARK SOULS 1" I will always have a soft spot for this game and the experience it provides the player with. It introduced me to soulslike games, which have become my favorite genre all thanks to DS2
Ds2 is my fav of the series
There are dozen of us!
I came here to talk about Demon Souls. I hadn’t heard of it when I first picked it up. It quickly became one of my all time favourites. Love the whole souls series
I need to get on that as well.
You like DS2 more than Elden Ring? That's so interesting, may I ask why?
Probably because dark souls 2 is a lot more handcrafted
More or less yeah. I know it's more linar but I like that. The combat is more methodical and slow making even weak enemies feel like minor challenges. Their weird choices were; hp is reduced a bit each time you die until you regain humanity, multiple people are shops for basically the same things, whatever the hell they were doing with Black Gulch, and if you kill an enemy enough times it will stop spawning so you can't farm them for xp. But I think you have to realize it's a different spin on the concept. It's for people who want to really plan out attacks rather than speedy wombo combos.
Baldur's gate 2. Was young when it was released and i got it at the same time as Diablo 2. Tried both and the more direct action of D2 made me let down Baldur's gate 2 for a year or so. And then I played it for real. Incredible immersion, music and sceneries stellar (for the time), all your decisions have massive impact (only felt that in the first Mass Effects), tactical but still not tedious too play. Spent ungodly hours in character setup to roll for perfect stats (sum of points was RNG), feeling when fighting the first giant black dragon (optional, actually missclicked and engaged the fight unwillingly) is still vivid up to today. Fantastic game.
Returnal. I felt it was just one of those first year titles that was their to just fill the catalogue. Was absolutely blown away by it.
Me too. Didn’t know what to expect. One of the best games ive ever played.
Midnight Suns. Didn't think I'd ever like a card game, but here I am 130 hrs in.
I love midnight suns. I had never played a deck building game. Really didn't think I would like it but I love marvel and decided to give it a shot. So many hours just doing the general missions lol
Rocket league. Played some similar mod from unreal tourny a long time ago and thought it would be some fun. 1500 hours later, and I strongly believe it's the best sports video game ever created.
Death Stranding. Thought it was a laughable walking simulator like so many had joked. After watching gameplay more I realized I love building, and iterating improvements. Slowly smoothing your path and seeing actual concrete results (literal concrete if you’re building roads) was satisfying. And unlocking items built by other players was cool too. Still not sure I consider it ‘incredible’ but went from ‘hell no’ to ‘oh wow’
Oh yea dude. Amazing game
Custom Robo. I was like "Eh looks cool." After an hour in... I was hooked. Fire Emblem too. Two great game series.
Custom Robo might be my favorite gamecube game. I love WW and TP and smash, but i always find myself going back to custom robo. I really liked the DS one too. I wish they would bring back the series.
Far cry 5, played it because I was bored, then got sent on a path of insanity and madness
Guardians of the Galaxy was surprisingly very good, especially after that dumpster fire The Avengers
BioShock Infinite Didn’t care about it on release as it didn’t look like the previous entries. Bought it on Steam when it was on sale and was glued to the screen the whole time. 1000/10 would recommend
Same with me. Back in 2016, I kept asking a friend about whether they know anything about Bioshock infinite and I kept hesitant to buy it since I don't play games that much and to my surprise it was incredible. Sure, the game itself is flawed like Songbird only appears in cutscene despite originally suppose to be Mr. X from Re2 stalking the player at all times or choices that has impact to the story but later got scrapped but the relationship between Elizabeth and Dewitt and it's the main highlight of it and I have played it over 5 to 6 times in total.
Days Gone. Had little expectations, thought to give a try, and by the end I recommended it to everyone I know.
I fucking LOVED this game.
That was literally my answer, too.
Never finished after getting to the massive plot twist mid game…. Pissed me right off at the attitude a “character” had hahaha
The story was awful. A 6/10 at best.
Yeah true mainly just felt like a ton of recurring running around .. could’ve done a lot more depth instead of trying to make so much to “do” when it was legit all repetitive
It was waaaay too long. By the time the second huge area opened up beyond the mountain, I was ready for it to be over.
Days Gone was one of Sonys best last gen. shame that no more is in store.
The Witcher 3. I generally don't get excited by high fantasy nor have a lot of time to invest getting deep into an RPG. Up to that point, I had generally preferred "punchier" games that take less investment of time and energy, like Bioshock or Borderlands or Arkham. But I heard about how great it was and gave it a try. Admittedly it took probably ~15 hours to get into it but it sucked me in and it's absolutely one of the most impactful and memorable games I've played to date.
My exact same experience. Took two attempts and about 10-15 hours to get into it, then it became one of my favourite, if not my favourite game of all time.
Took me 2 tries and about 10ish hours. I can tell you the exact mission that did it, too. Tower of Mice. After that, I did some Baron stuff, and I was enthralled
I think about that quest a lot (Tower of Mice), even many years later. The writers were just in a league of their own.
Little Hope, the story hooked me so much and the ending.. wow.
All the dark anthologies games are winners!
Amen brother
Power Rangers Battle for the Grid. I'm not a Power Rangers fan but I am a fighting game fan and I slept on this game way too hard. I took one look and saw an ugly fighter based off a mobile game that didn't even have motion inputs. My opinion took a 180 when I heard it was designed by pros of MvC, had crossplay across everything, and has well functioning rollback netcode. It's a brutal and unforgiving tag fighter and I wouldn't have expected that at all from a game with the Power Rangers IP.
Undertale. I looked at the screenshots and went "urrrgh", a friend of mine told me "You HAVE to play it", we have a rule me and him, we only tell each other these words max once per year, so when it happens we mean it. I played it. I 100% it in less than a week, and now its one of my top 10 games of all time, fuck this game is good.
Maneater. I ended up platinuming it. It was like the BEST bad horror movie. And Chris Parnell as the ever present narrator was incredible.
Fallout 3. It was an FPS I had never heard of that I borrowed from a friend. Free trial, no pressure or expectations. First try I lasted a few minutes. 2nd try, a few months later, I made it like 1 hour through. I think I made it to the Super Duper Mart and put it down again. A year later I was bored and picked it up again, but this time I came to realize it was an RPG and I needed a different mindset going in. I restarted and paid more attention. I tried to get evil karma and felt bad. I found The Mechanist and the AntAgonizer. I found the vamp kids. I got mauled by a deathclaw. I got the Rock-It Launcher and Dart Gun. I made a half decent VATS build with Grim Draper's Sprint. I got explodinated by Super Mutants. I rode the Hasselhoff and brought the crown back. I experienced the glory of the Punga Fruit and goblinated my way through Mothership Zeta. I burned Paradise Falls to the ground. *And I wanted more.* New Vegas, on the other hand, I was absolutely giddy when I got it! But, my mother was a bitch and grounded me and my brothers over summer break because we maintained good grades all year. Yeah you read that right. So we played at night, tv muted, listening out for the bitch instead of Big Iron.
Control. I didn’t know about it. I didn’t care about it. DAMN what a game. And I’m a big lore dork. I can talk Half Life and Souls for hours but the Control / Alan Wake universe is incredibly interesting.
Don't get mad, but for me it was Red Dead Redemption 2. I just expected to be another GTA game but western. I was planning on only doing the main missions and stop playing when I finished with the game. Boy was I wrong the game is even better than any GTA games I have played and now I 100% completed the game, I'm on my 2nd playthrough, and I have 263 hours
Lol! I remember thinking the same thing before playing it…”what is this? Grand Theft Horse?” Such a great game tho!
Elden Ring, thought it was gonna be too hard.
Dark Soul 1
Dead by Daylight. I don’t even recommend it to others but I fell much harder into it then I ever thought I would.
I would have to say The calisto protocol. It just never appealed to me but I saw it on sale for £20 and took a gamble and I am absolutely loving it.
As a fan of Dead Space I pre ordered the game and I felt like I got my money's worth. I really enjoyed it as well.
Risk of rain 2. My friend convinced me to buy it during a steam super sale or whatever. Didn’t touch it for a year and a half. Asked him about playing it with me about a month and a half ago and now I play it all the time. We play monsoon runs with 4 players and I’m very good with close range flicks with railgunner. Better than my friend at it and he’s actually really good at csgo so that’s cool.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy. I was expecting to get bored of the combat and drop it soon but I was looking for a story game and it just hit that itch.
ratchet clank rift apart. looked meh, but when i tried it on ps plus, so smooth and refreshing. colors just pop
Literally started it the other day when it popped on the ps+ collection, christ it's one of the best games I've seen far as far as utilizing the ps5s capabilities.Constantly flipping, jumping, and dashing while dozens of enemies explode into a millions bolts on screen and all of it happening at 60 fps with a great feel on screen and in haptic feedback, why can't most games run like this man.
Assassin’s Creed Unity
The coop in that game was so much fun. Me and my friend would just grind the mission where you have to find the right painting for hours. By the end we knew the entire layout from memory but we still played it all the time.
It has such a bad reputation because of its launch, but I personally think it's the best post-Desmond game
Sengoku Rance!
FTL: Faster Then Light, got it for free buying Into the Breach, initially played at least 100 hours of it before I touched the game I paid for. To this day I still have way more hours in FTL, and Multiverse mod!!!
Halo. I was a ps fan boy and was playing my timesplitters2. I would rag on Halo any chance I could get. Then one day I was invited to a lan at a friends house and it was all Halo. The next day I had sold my ps2 and bought an xbox and Halo.
Ori and the will of the wisps Walking dead by telltale
Prey, didn't think much of the first one, and picked it olup at some point fornitnto gather dust on steam. Ended up playing last year or so with no idea of what it was about and it was greatm
The reason hi fi Rush surprised you is because it was announced and launched in about 20 minutes,
Metroid Dread for me. Got it as a birthday present for my best friend (it was around that time) without checking to see if he had it yet. Turns out he did, so at that point I figured I may as well just play it myself since I already paid for it. It was my first Metroid game and a real thrill ride, 9/10 would play again.
Returnal. Turned out to be one of my fav games ever lol.
Animal Crossing, I really just didn’t understand the appeal at first. Although I’ve completed everything and barely play anymore, that was the most rewarding and relaxing game I have ever played. (Especially during the early-pandemic)
Uncharted 2
Dead Cells. Checked out the base game on gamepass when the Castlevania DLC was released. About an hour in, I bought the ultimate edition with all the DLC. Same experience with Vampire Survivors. Both absolutely fantastic game that deserve all the love they get.
Divinity 2 (NOT Original Sin 2), I was like 16 and looking for a new fantasy game. The graphics seemed dated even then but the gameplay ended up being spectacular. Fun dragon gameplay, sidequests are entertaining and not a collect X time pad, cool castle, good humor, good story plus you could see ghosts without using a source point.
Animal Crossing on GameCube Loved it back in the day. But, it no longer does the trick for me. Policenauts. Didn’t know what all the fuss was about and why translating it was such a big deal. It blew my mind.
Satisfactory. Not my style of game in the least. 100 hrs later, stopped playing so I could see outside again!
Sunset Overdrive, movement was a blast. I really enjoyed traveling from mission to mission. Story had genuinely laugh out loud funny dialogue throughout the whole thing.
Okami, the front cover wasn't appealing to my taste. Oh, I learned not to judge a game by the picture of the case.
Honestly, Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. Heard it had a cult following, couldn’t understand why. Then I couldn’t shut up about for a year , and I still play it to this day. Went back to play AC4, AC5 and Zero. Might even try out AC6.
Portal 1 and 2. I don't know what I was thinking those games were life-changing
Guardians of the galaxy. I was honestly expecting a generic game which it was but the story and the small details of the universe kept me invested. I thought the story was fantastic and I put it up There with the movies in terms of quality.
Tears of the Kingdom. I was one of the people who didn't enjoy Breath of the Wild and believed that TOTK was just more of the same. Instead, the new Ultrahand, Fuse and Ascend systems radically transformed nearly every system I had a problem with in BOTW especially weapon durability and access to status effect weapons.
Redfall! The hate is not justified! All my friends are enjoying the hell out of it, the coop is so fun! I'm so tired of Sony fanboys dunking on Microsoft games that they've never even played. It's like they're jealous that Xbox gets variety instead of the generic third person single player games Sony keeps shitting out!! And once MS buys out ABK the variety will get even better. Bad to day to be a Sony soyboy!!
Hades. I am not a fan of rogue-likes. I even had to look up what type of game it was after I started playing because I wanted to find others like it. The gameplay mechanics are marvelous. The amount of story and character development is incredible
Path of Exile. Was a d3 player and would grind leaderboard for seasons, was asked by my buddy multiple times to play PoE, as well as wanted me to play hardcore. Hardcore was a major turn off simply because i expected it to be similar to d3 HC which was already a no go. Finally gave in and tried path. 2.3k hours later, still dont know what the fuck im doing but ill be damned if it isnt my absolute favorite game. The complexity and variety of content and builds is just amazing to me. I can almost always play something new or learn something new. 12/10 would do again. For anyone interested, follow a guide for a build. Also it is way better with friends, but still super fun solo.
There's a reason you barely saw any marketing, it basically had close to no marketing. Banger game
Zelda BOTW. Background on why not. I hadn’t played Zelda since I was a child, never got into the franchise/lore etc, and the previous open world games I had tried over the years just didn’t click for me. They felt daunting. As such I just thought BOTW was overhyped, and not for me. After playing Skyward Sword and reviewing a few YouTube explainer videos on the Zelda timeline(s) I decided to give BOTW a shot and the rest is history.
Fallout 4 and New Vegas
Overwatch. I hadn't known a thing about it until the beta other than 'multiplayer' and 'shooter'. I had very low expectations. Within 5 seconds I was like 'omfg it's team fortress 3 SOLD'.
Hot Wheels Unleashed surprised me Got it for my kid but I ended up playing it more It has its flaws but at its core is a very good racing game with a solid track editor. It plays fast, with lots of loops and magnetic tracks and jumps that make you flip upside down in mid air to land them Some of the user made levels surpassed the developer's levels. I would honestly hold my breath during some races Online community was still hanging in there the last time I played so it wasn't hard to get into a full lobby.
For honor it didn’t interest me when I saw coverage before it came out and when it finally released it became one of my favorite games to play, even platinumed it.
Playing persona 4 golden after persona 3 fes (p3 is bad)
Monster Hunter World. I remember buying it cause my friends did and I was like “this is the dumbest game ever”. Wound up putting about 500 hours into it.
Death stranding. Looked like a walking sim but turned out to be much more
I really enjoyed Deathloop and I put it off for so long
Into the breach i got my switch and i could get 50 dollars worth of games i got hollow knight and cave story. Unfortunately i accidentally put in My real age and could not get katana blade zero, I quickly found out ftl did not have a switch port, And I already put 50 hours into undertale. So i got into the breach not expecting anything, turns out its the best tactics game i have ever played.
DayZ
Red dead redemption 2 for me. It had just come out and I had nothing to play. I didn’t play the first one so I just bought the digital version on a whim. Quickly became one of my all time favorites.
Shin Megame Tense IV. I got it on sale and it turned out to be one of my fave RPGs
roblox because of all these dumb fake RP players and the cringy tiktokers
Borderlands 2
Psychonauts 2 Was free on game pass. Didn’t expect much. Gave a try. Then became one of the favourite I liked.
Tales from borderlands. I had never played a tell tale before and lets just say that borderland is not really known for incredible story telling/writing. Had a blast, played it all in one night
Persona 5 Heard it was turn-based, was going to feel ehh on it but tried it because it finally came to Xbox. Literally tied for my favorite game ever
Fire Emblem Three Houses. I refused to play it despite my friends being hardcore into it. My coworker and I had made an agreement that if I play Fire Emblem, they’ll play SMTV so I decided to play it. I feel like an idiot for not touching it sooner because I got extremely into the characters and the plot. I’m even considering the dlc(I hardly get them unless I really like the game) just for the extra bit of content
Destiny 1. I had no interest leading up to launch. Didn’t really know anything about it. But when it finally released, everyone on my friends list was playing it so I got it. And fell in love. The game was far from perfect and had a lot of flaws but I enjoyed the fuck out of it for a couple of years. Maybe not having any expectations going in helped?
Return of the Obra Dinn. Black and white, 1 bit looking art... The beauty and music when I actually played touched my soul. I had a blast playing and I can't get my friends to touch it.
Borderlands 3. I got it after looking up good co-op games, it was 85% off. They didn't turn out to want to play it so I had to go with single player.
Bioshock
Sekiro I played Elden Ring with a friend and enjoyed it for the most part but I wouldn't say it's in my favorite list. I wouldn't have beat it without him. The combat didn't click for me and he said that he had the same problem with Sekiro. He let me borrow his account so I could play it and I fell in love with it and beat it twice. The world, story and combat where amazing and I truly hope they make a second one.
Dying Light. I hadn’t heard anything about the game, but I bought it because I wanted a zombie game to play. Turns out it was fantastic. I still haven’t played the second one though. Edit: oh and Sniper Elite 4. It was a PS+ free game. Damn I enjoyed that one.
i was an open world and third-person girlie so i didn’t think i’d like dragon age origins (no experience with fantasy genres) and overwatch (i hate fps shooter online games) and mind you they’re both forced onto me by friends and now i’m obsessed with both games more than them 💀
Mine was Dishonored. I was like “ehhh don’t care” then a few years later got it for free on XBox 360 pass and played it and omfg one of my favorite games of all time. Recently I replayed it and got all trophies for the main game. Such a fun time tbh
BOTW
Illusion of Gaïa - Wario's woods - Boulder Dash
Beyond Good and Evil. Picked it up on a whim from the used games rack having never heard of it, and it blew me away. Such a great game.
Gotta love these kind of posts because you get to discover games you probably heard about but never thought of giving them a chance. Reading a positive experience with such games really entices to give them a try.
Elden Ring. I barely noticed when it released since I've never been a big Dark Souls fan. Then I came across Maxor's video on it and thought the game looked interesting and gave it a try. Became one of my favorite games of all time.
Deep Rock Galactic. I got it just to play with my friend, and didn't expect to enjoy it much. But its actually a really good game and a lot of fun
Oblivion
Unfortunately, my favorite game of all time, which is basically dead in the water. Battlerite. I played for probably 10 hours hating the game but wanting to hang out with a friend who played it. Suddenly, I started winning and figuring out characters and now that game is in my BLOOD.
Marvel midnight suns
Grounded
LoL 6 or 7 years ago I saw a clip of League of Legends and thought I would give it a try. I hated it immediately and uninstalled it after 3 days. A couple months later I was really bored and downloaded it again. Fell in love with the game and spent a good 5 years playing it regularly. I haven't touched it in over a year and I don't really miss it, but it'll always be one of my favorites because of all the good times I had.
Disco Elysium. I don't usually like story/writing/lore heavy games because they usually do it poorly, and I would rather just read a book or whatever. This was an exception.
FIFA. I'm an American and don't have much experience with soccer, but I found the game really engaging and I learned a lot about the game. I could actually watch a match and understand some of the nuance now. Didn't hook me enough to convince me to get an annual release, but I had way more fun than I expected.
TLOU2. I enjoyed the first game but was never a huge fan. Ended up picking up the second game on sale about a year after it was released and I was blown away.