I've always thought of it as the standard FPS series the same way I consider Age of Empires to be the standard RTS series. They are the template by which all other games in the specific genre must be judged by.

I do get tired very quickly of RPG fans throwing insults at the COD franchise, the series wasn't made with hardcoe RPG fans in mind...get over it.

You're assuming I'm an RPG fan, and you assumed right, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy other genres as well. I enjoy FPSs, but I don't enjoy COD for these reasons. The campaign is moronic, and repetitive, and the multiplayer, while fun for about a week, grows old quickly. That's my personal opinion, and I'm content to just keep living my life and play other games.

What irks me about the COD franchise is that it's the most popular franchise, therefore it sort of represents gaming as a whole. If you talk to someone who doesn't play video games, the one they are most familiar with is probably going to be Call of Duty, because it has broken into the MAINSTREAM. They are going to assume all games are mindless point 'n shoot affairs lacking any real intelligence or artistic value, which isn't true. Plenty of games have artistic and intellectual merits, but unless you are an active GAMER (again, another word I hate) no one will know it.

Black Ops was boring by January..

Sorry the bottom sentence wasn't directed at you, it was just my answer to the thread. I like the campaign, I love the action and I do think its the perfect antidote(at least for me) for playing Fallout New Vegas for 200+ hours, but I do understand why you don't like it as much. Everyone has their own tastes, I personally think that Grand Theft Auto IV is the closest game to perfection I have ever played. Whenever I play COD with my brother after a bender on Fallout I know it's going to be like watching The A Team after watching Blade Runner, I just turn off my brain and have some mindless fun.
I think that the people who will automatically think that the COD franchise represents all of gaming are the same people who think that GTA is just about six and violence and therefore aren't really worth paying attention to until they actually learn all of the facts.

seriously?

this was of my only bad purchased games.

I liked Theme Hospital

Tribes 2

There was so much you could do in that game. But the community for that game was never very big. Most people I knew of who played the more popular shooters didn't like it. I didn't play Tribes 1 back in the day, but from what I understand most T1 fans didn't like it either.

Then Tribes: Vengeance comes out, and it is quite watered down from T2. Despite that, I still appreciated it for what it was. But it wasn't very popular either. I lost count of the number of times other players said "it's just Unreal Tournament with jetpacks". Those comments pissed me off. Tribes combat feels very different from other FPS games.

Two Worlds comes to mind. Seems like I'm the only person in the world that didn't mind the voice acting. It was fun exploring, I liked the cites and the different types of land, and even some of the monsters. I didn't much like the main quest, but some of the side quests were very good.

I don't know if this counts but I really like Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth (the first one). I don't know if many others think that was "amazing"

Also Oblivion, because sometimes it seems...

Oh yes. The favorite game in the series for me as I designed a ton of campaigns for it plus the combat music was a treat to listen to. However I do still enjoy heroes III and V though I don't like the direction VI has taken.

Anyway I'll say Oblivion though despite it's shallow story, level scaling, generic setting, and repetitive dungeons it was still a game I put several thousand hours into. F:NV, trumps three in every way possible for me though I wish there were a few more dungeons to explore. Two worlds II, I haven't bought it yet as I'm waiting for the newer version but this game improves a lot on what the original got wrong. Dragon Age II, I still think it's inferior to origins but I finally went back to it and have found myself enjoying all of the characters, even Anders. The beginning of Act II caught me off guard and reminded me of the situation with Imoen in Baldur's Gate II.

I usually spring to Two Worlds' defence, too: it's rather sad that it became very popular to criticise it; sure, the voice acting was often ludicrous, but it wasn't intolerably bad. The rest of the game I actually thought was very good, basically for the same reasons you've mentioned.

Might have to re-think my position on Dragon Age II and give it a shot then.

I think the voice acting just needs the right mind set. It's supposed to be vaguely reminiscent of middle ages English. And your character is supposed to be a "rogue".

There are a lot of downsides to Two Worlds, like corpses that never disappear (I feel like my character is single handedly destroying all animals in the kingdom), mute enemies, odd looking necromancers, poor magic system, etc.

But it did have an amazingly large and diverse world to explore. And some very nice side quests.

It's not Oblivion or Morrowind or Fallout quality. Maybe it's not quite "amazing" but Two Worlds is under-rated, in my opinion. I would get Two Worlds II but it looks like it's never going to be released for the PC.

Theme Hospital was amazing. I even bought Hospital Tycoon, but it was worse than terrible.

I liked Nox, and Fallout Tactics.

Seriously...I loved that game and I'd get it again if only I had a 360....Maybe the pc if I can find a copy of it.

I think all these games are underrated:
Ar Tonelico
Arx Fatalis
Breath of Fire III
Kartia
Kyrandia
Legend of Legaia
Resonance of Fate
The Saboteur

Great game, although it was a bit too tough for my tastes (I'm just bad at games in general). I actually cheated (downloaded a level 300 save) to get through for the story and then went back and beat it properly, but it was still rough even after learning going through all the areas/fights before.

Still hoping for a sequel, if only a spiritual one. Bring the combat back but have the game take place in a wider variety of environments, with more color too (Basel was pretty cool though).

Two of my favourites that I have played over and over again that didn't seem to be all that loved are Drakan:The Ancients' Gates and Soul Reaver.I'm sure there are fans of them out there but I love them and when I first played them,it seemed like nobody else liked them.Who knows though I don't pay attention to that sort of thing.I love what I love.

I liked Drakan: Order of the Flame for the PC, though I've never played the sequel.

I've never gotten to play to Order of the Flame.I hope to find it one day and play it.

I must admit I didn't recall some of those flaws, especially the non-disappearing bodies. I do remember that the necromancers were a little odd, but that was part of the game's charm! And they were suddenly less amusing when you found yourself beset by a whole bunch of them and their minions...

Things I particularly liked were the large, varied and intelligently put together world, whether exploring the wilderness or the contrast between the different cities. I especially enjoyed the Japanese-esque city in the south-west with its modern Harold Faltermeyer(?)-composed incidental music because of the way it just had such a different vibe to the more traditionally European-type mediaeval cities elsewhere. Other elements like the way weapons and armour could be combined to give better quality versions of each were also a nice touch.

I think really, the only thing that let it down for me was that the MQ was sometimes a bit iffy, and elements like cutscenes were rather badly done. But considering it's often viewed as a laughing stock, it has a lot of elements that put more respected games to shame. And at risk of joining the "not as good as it used to be" crowd, it's a shame that TW2 seemed to lose something of the magic of the original: it was more professionally done in many regards, but it lost its way somewhere.

Two of the best racing games I have ever played are Rollcage and Grid. I'm pretty sure they were liked when they came out, but it almost seems like people have forgotten about them. I played Grid recently and itwas so much better then anything from Gran Turismo or Forza. I also played Rollcage recently, which is 12 years old, and it's still amazing.

I always considered it a niche game.

I know plenty of people like it here on the forums. i saw it for 15 bucks, at gamestop, next time I'm there I'm getting it,

-Two worlds two - great magic system.

I have to agree with the people who said Alpha Protocol. Flawed but great game in my opinion. ^_^

I'd have to say the Creatures series, which was the only serious and broadly available attempt at artificial life. It had a hardcoe fanbase which lasted for over a decade but with no new products in sight it died a slow death.
Fortunately, Steve Grand, who's responsible for most of C1 and part of C2, is working independently on a game called Grandroids. It'll have much more realistic and sophisticated features as well as all of the experience he's gathered over the last 15 years.
Meanwhile, Fishing Cactus got permission to work on Creatures 4 which will probably focus less on the science and more on visuals and gameplay.
The original games are still availiable on GOG.com.

Mafia the first one, i will be the first to admit the controls were a bit clunky and graphically it might have been just under par but the storyline was incredibly well done, also they did an awesome job with the sound and music, really captured it perfectly from a thunderstorm to downtown traffic. Mafia 2 although short and felt like more could have been done as far as a free roam type of mode, NAILED that story perfectly such a great game if you love a good plot. and one thing i really really appreciate they did in Mafia 2 is leave a love interest out of it. They did the mafia right, young cocky made man that loves money drugs and hokers Molto bene!!

Since all the popular picks are taken, I'll take a more obscure one and say Boiling Point