Ultima IX: Ascension (1999)

I genuinely enjoyed the game. Fans of the series claim that it destroyed the franchise. Perhaps they're right, but the franchise was pretty fucked up to begin with.

The first Call of Duty game I played was Ghosts, and it may have coloured my perception of what the series is about. Bombastic popcorn munching action that goes in one ear and straight out of the other. I was like "eeeeh it's okay". After playing some older ones I was like "well I'm sure it was groundbreaking at the time". (Hm. Did I ever finish MW2? And I think I put Black Ops 2 on hold after the first mission. Loved Advanced Warfare tho!)

Might and Magic 6-8. Thought it's the best game ever during my childhood. Turns out it was pretty bad. Still like it (nostalgy)

I can't think of any that I wasn't fully aware of the criticism.

But I did play No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and Fallout 76 for hundreds of hours each right at launch and enjoyed every moment without significant issues, despite being fully aware of all the hate being thrown at them at the time.

I’m sure there are lots of examples for me, but I guess one that comes to mind is 007: The World Is Not Enough for PS1.

Reading/hearing about it as an adult, not only is it seen as a poor follow up to Goldeneye, but also the PS1 version is the worse of the two releases, with the general consensus being that the N64 version is better.

Back in the day, though, I didn’t know any better and I loved it. I expect most people have games like that.

Jaws on the NES. I absolutely loved that game, but I found out many years later that it was hated.

Soldier of Fortune: Payback

I already knew some of the writing was bad, and the cutscenes/animations were fever dream-esque. Despite that I really enjoyed the feel of the combat, and how destructible enemies’ bodies are in the game.

I’ll be honest. I was curious and looked up reviews of the game, and saw mostly negative-looking videos. But I chose not to watch them because I didn’t want to ruin my enjoyment of the game. I know the game is bad. But I still like it. I will say though that it’s mostly because of nostalgia.

There are some objectively bad things about SOF Payback though: regular human bosses that are bullet sponges for whatever reason and the pc port of the game being unplayable.

I never played the others. I play with my friend overseas every Monday. He chooses the games. He may have chosen it because it is cooperative, online and not PvP. IDK.

But we also play, Aliens, Grimm Dawn, all of the borderlands games, like literally ALL of them including Tiny Tina's Wonderland. Two is my favorite.