UNDERDOG

What's the best game everyone says you should hate but is actually good?

Forget critical consensus! What are some of the people's picks?

Image credit: VG247

Article by Connor Makar Staff Writer

Published on April 2, 2024

The Best Games Ever podcast is a game show where three totally normal and socially acceptable panellists have to find the best game in a peculiar category such as "Best game with a breakfast buffet," or "Best game with loads of vandalism." They have to pitch their pick to our host, Jim, who uses his power to decide the winner. But there's a lot of office politics, backstabbing, and meta-gaming going on which makes this mild-mannered panel game fraught with real danger.

These days the overwhelming consensus about a game can act as this great opinion hammer, used by the masses to beat down the oddballs, wildcards, and those with loud voices and poor taste. With review scores aggregated together into one gleaming numerical figure, games can be effectively ranked with a superscore that'll be chiselled into its tombstone forever. A positive score may be a gleaming eulogy, whereas a negative one traps a game in an eternal cycle of being bashed on.

But there are misses! Games that weren't loved, or perhaps still aren't loved, but are really good! You probably have one or two personal faves that fall into this category. A lot of this stuff is personal taste after all, what may work for you may not work for thousands of other perfectly sane gamers out there. The result, a pantheon of underdogs. Games that may not have the gleam of all-time classics in the eyes of the many, but are gems in the hands of the few.

What, then, is the best game that is actually good despite loads of people hating on it? Does it sound a little bit like garfield? To find out, watch or listen to our esteemed panel argue about it for like an hour via your preferred media slop medium below!