Round 1: U is for Underrated masterpieces!

[This Old Neon]

Round 1: U is for Underrated masterpieces!

You can vote for 0-9 games in this poll. Pick as many or as few as you like, but vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The #1 ranked game at the end of the week will move on to Round 2.

1991 - Metroid II: The Return of Samus - GB
1998 - Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit - PC
1999 - Unreal Tournament - PC
2005 - Advance Wars: Dual Strike - DS
2005 - Fire Pro Wrestling Returns - PS2
2005 - TimeSplitters: Future Perfect - PS2
2007 - Half-Life 2: Episode Two - PC
2008 - Braid - Multiplatform
2010 - Shank - Multiplatform
2014 - Shadowrun: Dragonfall - Director's Cut - PC

You are encouraged to discuss your choices and your reasons for selecting the games you did.

[Kong Wen]

I really liked Metroid II, and I was quite surprised by it. I thought it would be awful but it's really quite solid.

Braid is a great puzzle game with an interesting aesthetic and some fun mechanics, but I'm not sure I'd call it BGE material...

I greatly enjoyed the SNES version of Shadowrun, and it sounds like this latest PC entry in the franchise kind of has its roots in that earlier game, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Maybe I'll devote some time to playing Shadowrun this week before making a final decision on this poll...

[Spore]

I'm going to chock UT being in these brackets up to more people nominating UT2k4, which is alright in my book. But Episode 2? That's the ultimate refinement of the franchise.

[Turai]

Pass, only played two games here, and neither long enough to properly judge them.

[Drauks]

I'm surprised that there's not a HL bandwagon, to be honest. I've always hated the series.

I greatly enjoyed the SNES version of Shadowrun, and it sounds like this latest PC entry in the franchise kind of has its roots in that earlier game, but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Maybe I'll devote some time to playing Shadowrun this week before making a final decision on this poll...

You should put Lisa down and play some! Grand game, and I need to finish out Hong Kong.

Oh, Unreal, so much clickable boom.

[Humphries90]

Advance Wars is such a great series, they seriously need to do something with it again.

[VictorViper]

UT and Metroid 2 were easy choices. Timesplitters FP remains unplayed and more importantly, could never exceed the quality, glory and pure insanity of TS2.

Fun memory that will never leave me: My friend and I played TS2 versus bots all the time. Took the 'Cube to his place after he rigged up a booming sound system and on the hottest day of the summer. Cranked volume, open door facing the street... and me with a flamethrower as the entire group of ladybots spawned in the room I happened to be in. The wild screams landed us a visit from the cops. You don't forget that.

[Jordan]

Advance Wars is such a great series, they seriously need to do something with it again.

The funny thing about this list for me is that this is one of the only Advance Wars games I did not play. I played 1, 2 and Days of Ruin, but not Dual Strike.

I don't think I voted on this one because I haven't played most of these.

[neuzd]

I really liked Metroid II, and I was quite surprised by it. I thought it would be awful but it's really quite solid.

Don't.
You
Dare.

[Kong Wen]

I really liked Metroid II, and I was quite surprised by it. I thought it would be awful but it's really quite solid.

Don't.
You
Dare.

Sorry to hear you didn't like it. It's not for everyone I guess. I thought it did a lot of things quite well, even with the more linear stage progression. It blows the original Metroid away in every respect, and it actually has a surprisingly strong atmosphere considering the limitations of monochrome (of course, I originally played it on the GCN's Game Boy Player with the Hori GB pad, so I had a bit more luxury in terms of look & feel).