Guilty Pleasures?

[Mike Thompson]

Come on, you know you love them: those games which aren't great by any stretch of the imagination, but that give us a little bit of a thrill every time we play through them. For me, the worst offender is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, largely because I love the story so much that I'm willing to overlook the crappy artwork and buggy combat.

At the moment, though, I've discovered a new guilty pleasure in the form of Overlord, which is far from perfect but still manages to keep me entertained for a few hours at a time.

What about you? What do you keep on coming back to, even though you know there are better titles out there?

[Chuck Osborn]

I actually enjoyed playing Enter the Matrix. It wasn't a great game, but I didn't think it warranted the public reviling that it received from most reviewers.

[BFeld]

Seconded. Just being able to do bullet time made it worth the price.

[Mike Thompson]

I played it all the way through on my PS2... it was OK, but the shooting sequence at the end really annoyed me because I couldn't really see what I was supposed to be blowing out of the air. Also, it pissed me off that if you didn't play the game, you missed out on some crucial plot points for the movie trilogy. But you're right: it didn't deserve the public flogging, especially since it made a serious effort to change the way movie-based games were produced.

On the other hand, The Path of Neo sort of made up for it.

[Gregory Gay]

Arcanum was one of my favorite games ever. The setting alone made me overlook any flaws that the game had.

My main guilty pleasure is the Katamari series. I will buy any game where you roll up colorful crap. I've bought every game in that series on the day that it hit stores.

I also have a thing for Pokemon. I've spent way too much time with those games.

[Jason Dobson]

Arcanum was the buggiest game I've ever loved. The setting and dialog was enough to make me overlook all of the game's numerous other flaws.

[Pat 'iTZKooPA' Mulhern]

I too am a sucker for Pokemon (and the Simpsons bit with Bill Cosby). Other than that I am a sucker for old school games, especially Jaleco's City Connection...I mean come on, you paint the street while dodging cats and shooting cop cars with oil cans. ITS TOTALLY REALISTIC. Oh yea, your car can jump, AND you end the level by jumping into a balloon.

Must have IMO.

[Eugene Neubronner]

Nox was one of my most guilty pleasures ever. The game was TERRIBLY cheesy (and easy. and broken towards caster classes and... ya get the idea) but I loved it to bits and actually finished it all three times for the three characters. >_<<br />
I miss my Nox. I lost the box years ago. =\

Damnit Mike now I feel the urge to ebay the game again.... :P

Dwarf Fortress is another guilty pleasure. But that game's TOUGH!

[Adam Beck]

Anyone else play a little game called Obscure? That game was far from the best but was definitely entertaining with co-op. The game had the clunky controls and camera angles (like most horror titles at the time) and was far from anything unique. But man, did I have a good time with that game; I should crack open the 2nd game for my PS2 sometime. Also, Mad Maestro... a little game for the PS2, forgotten by most gamers. It is One of my favorites only because it was creative and one of the first rhythm based games I found enjoyable. It got shameful reviews and wasn't a major hit but it was something I'll never forget. Okay, not much of a guilty pleasure being I'm proud to announce I liked it... but I just wanted to get it out there.

Also Overlord was awesome... while I never thought it would be a great game, it was definitely good and served for a good afternoon playtime. Mixing RTS with a 3rd person action adventure genre was something I never thought I would enjoy.

[Matthew Green]

All these years later I still come back to Back to the Future II & III for the NES. It's a terrible game with terrible visuals and terrible gameplay, but I love the movies so much I'm compelled to try and make sense of it all. I also like Plok, Bubsy, and Aero the Acrobat for the Super NES and based on popular Internet opinion I may be the only person who does. I know they're Soinc knock-offs, but I still like the characters and the gameplay. You wouldn't believe the trouble I had finding a copy of Aero 2 back in the day. Nobody locally carried it and I happened to find it through dumb luck on vacation. Hmm, I should write that up sometime. It's an interesting story.

More contemporary, however, was when I wrote a review of Death Jr. for the DS earlier this year and, again, I may have been the only person who liked it. Even the Konami marketing rep e-mailed me after it was published and asked if I really liked it or was just giving the game a pass for some other reason.

[Eugene Neubronner]

You, sir, no longer have a right to an opinion.

=P j/k

Oh come on it wasn't THAT bad a game... was it? 0.o I went from Zelda 1 to 3 without 2 in between.

[Pat 'iTZKooPA' Mulhern]

Yea paying with your own money certainly starts to change your perspective on the "value" of a title. Once I moved out of my parents house and had to deal with bills I had to slow down on my game purchases because I was buying stuff without finishing other titles and sometimes without even opening them.

I finally made a rule for myself that I could only buy a new game when I beat something else. Then I modified it to that I could only buy FULL PRICED games once I beat something else. Currently, if I see a "bargain" then I allow myself to buy it...has saved a lot of money and caused me to complete more games; which in turn allows me to review them under my own standards.

[Omegasquash]

Strange as it may be that I'm typically critical of first-person viewed games, I absolutely adore King's Field (1 & 2) and Shadow Tower, all of which were for the PS1. Much as I wanted to though, I didn't enjoy Eternal Ring. I played it and finished it mind you, but I didn't enjoy it at all.

Thank heaven for rentals, eh?