The Most Popular Games You Haven’t Heard About

We have a tendency in gaming to focus only on a few of the biggest releases in a year. This is only natural, as few of us have the time or money to engage in gaming on the level we would like.

The unfortunate reality of this system is that it can lead us to missing games that we might love. Combine this with games that have small advertising budgets or a more niche appeal, and we can end up in the dark as to some of gaming's best titles.

With that in mind, we want to go over some of the best and biggest games which many of us have missed.

God Hand

Released on PS2 back in 2006, God Hand is one of the games which we wish got more time in the spotlight. A 3D beat 'em up developed by Clover Studios and director Shinji Mikami, God Hand evolved the genre in a manner that other games should have followed – but didn’t.

The key elements here were a rapidly changing difficulty setting based on the player's performance, and one of the best cameras we've ever seen in a third-person game. While the combat itself is worthy of similar praise, we keep coming back to the camera topic in this game the most. So many games even today completely fail with 3D cameras, yet God Hand had it nailed.

A big part of this game's lack of success was the inability of some reviewers to understand the actually quite simple mechanics. IGNs review is a prime example of this, with many regarding this effort as one of the worst reviews of all time. Mock videos have even been developed to undercut IGN’s claims that the game "encourages button mashing".

At least, as shown at Metacritic, the game would go on to get the respect it deserved.

Mirror’s Edge

Mirror’s Edge is a game that didn't exactly underperform, as it sold around 2.5 million copies across PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. What is underrepresented is the effect which the game had on first-person gaming as a whole.

While parkour-style movement in games existed before Mirrors Edge, it had rarely been done well. Mirror’s Edge created a system that stood heads and shoulders above the competition, creating fluid movement systems that are still emulated to this day.

A big part of this is due to a change in the industry towards more movement-focused first-person games. Wall-running, pole-swinging, and sliding mechanics are now commonplace, and no small part of this is because of Mirror’s Edge.

While the sequel we reviewed at noobfeed.com did improve the formula, there is little doubt that the game’s influence is far more than the sum of its parts.

Harvest Moon

The original Harvest Moon came out on the Super Nintendo in August 1996. While the series has had to change its name recently to Story of Seasons as seen at nintendo.com, the impact of these farming games is still a massive feature in modern gaming.

Specifically, we’re talking about how Harvest Moon encouraged daily workloads, checking, and scheduling. In some ways, we could see this as an early predecessor of the sort of daily login bonus systems employed by the likes of Destiny (our review here: noobfeed.com), Farmville (we did not review), and many other online games today.

For what it’s worth, we still prefer the way Friends of Mineral Town did it.

What Comes Next?

Judging by this generation of games, we have to wonder which trends might emerge from the lesser-known current hidden gems. Speaking from a position of unmistakable bias, we’re hoping for a return early FPS form with the like of Ion Fury. So, what games do you think stood out among the pack this gen, and what would you like to see more of going forward?