It would be nearly impossible to determine just how many video games exist for players to choose from. To navigate the ocean of games, players rely heavily on ratings, both from reviewers and from other players. This system usually works pretty well, but once in a while it just plain fails.
Games earn lower ratings than they deserve for a few reasons. Sometimes a title falls victim to poor timing. What came out the same week Overwatch was released? We may never know. Other titles fail to divert attention from older, more established games in the same genre. And let’s not forget how little time reviewers have to spend with each title before assigning a score—sometimes a game’s greatest strengths are deeper beneath the surface.
Here are some underrated video games that got a raw deal.
Viking: Battle for Asgard
Viking: Battle for Asgard was developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2008. Sega made the game available for Windows in 2012. Viking scored on the low end of mixed or average reviews, with some reviewers admitting the game was fun and either panning it as a “rental” or admitting they couldn’t put their finger on why they didn’t like it more. Others went as far as to admit they didn’t like the idea of Vikings themselves and penalized the game for insufficient reasons to fight and kill.
Like most underrated games, Viking is not perfect in any sense of the word, but it is very good. The combat doesn’t get boring and the action is consistent throughout. The violence is substantial without being absurd, and most players and reviewers agreed that its strengths were hard to beat. There is no good reason for adventure fans to skip the game.
Dual Heroes
Dual Heroes was produced by a studio called…uh…Produce Co., Ltd., and published on the Nintendo 64 by Hudson Soft and Electro Brain between December 1997 and October 1998, depending on which continent you reside. The game is a pretty standard 3D fighter with single-player and multiplayer modes.
The failures of Dual Heroes were more obvious than those of Viking. Its story was weird, the control system was less than ideal, and the enemy AI maybe shouldn’t actually be associated with the word “intelligence.”
Despite all this, multiplayer was entirely playable. There’s something fun about squaring off with a friend using the game’s vaguely Power Ranger-ish cast. Computer AI is all too happy to run a fighter off a ledge for a ring out, it’s much more satisfying when you get a friend to do it.
Hyrule Warriors
We all know about Hyrule Warriors. In 2014, Omega Force and Team Ninja joined up with Nintendo and Koei Tecmo to marry the world of Zelda with the Dynasty Warriors engine and mechanics. The result was a standalone Zelda game holding average reviews—not counting Polygon’s take which was abnormally harsh.
Hyrule Warriors was an excellent game. The overwhelming likelihood is that Dynasty Warriors fans wanted a Dynasty game and Legend of Zelda fans wanted a Zelda game. Players who were able to recognize the game as its own experience were rewarded with an unusually polished game with unusually polished intellectual property. The element that hurt it the most, was us.
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is Sumo Digital and Sega’s answer to Mario Kart, and the fact that so few players have experienced it is a shame. This is one of the most underrated video games, period. While the game received positive reviews, it had potential to be a Mario Kart killer. It has better tracks, more interesting characters, and more racing modes including full flight.
The game also picked up Danica Patrick at some point which, admittedly, is confusing.
Victor Vran
Victor Vran is Haemimont Games’ action RPG released for PC in 2015 and consoles earlier this year. The game takes a more deliberate approach—read: handcrafted levels over procedural generation—to the Diablo model. The player is still afforded huge opportunities to customize the experience with a wide variety of items, weapons, and powers.
Victor Vran received positive reviews, but makes the underrated games list because it failed to capture a large portion of the players that were focused on Diablo and other action RPGs.
Overall, a few underrated games on occasion don’t mean the whole system of reviews should be thrown out. It simply means we should keep an eye out for those rare games the reviewers get wrong. It’s fun to compare your own take on a game to its scores around the web.
What’s your favorite game with a criminally low rating?
