Have you ever loved something, only to realize it’s a commercial flop or just obscure? What’s something that deserves more light than it got?
There’s this indie game called The Gap. It’s about a man who is trying to find the cure to Huntington’s disease to save his family. He discovers that déjà vu is one’s own memories from a parallel universe. He uses this knowledge to search other realities to find the cure. It’s a slow burn but it’s so good.
This is actually one of my favorite games and it has the third place spot after Silent Hill 2 and SOMA. This isn’t a horror game just to be clear. I haven’t seen anyone talk about this game which is a real shame. I highly recommend it!
The Raid and The Raid 2 are, without a doubt, the most nailbiting action movies I’ve ever watched. I consistently overhype this movie to friends as the best action movie ever made, which is replied to with an eyeroll or something - until the first fight scene, where they look at me with a “what the fuck is THIS?!” face. By the end of the movie they are completely convinced…
And then I tell them the second movie is just as good and their heads explode.
Very obscure 45-minute 1991 anime movie: Christmas in January. Rated extremely low (5.46 / 10) on MAL, it’s absolutely one of my favorite movies. It’s whimsical and melancholic and so so interesting. Reminds me a lot of the Ghibli movie Ocean Waves, which is also an underrated gem (and, while I’m at it, the Kimagure Orange Road masterpiece sequel movie from the same director as Ocean Waves).
I really love stories that are just miraculous/odd/interesting excerpts of people’s lives that are otherwise inconsequential. There was nothing grand or life-changing about the events in the story, but I will never forget the delicate social interplay in the shoe store, or the only scene that actually takes place in January at the very end: just a moment of reflection.
Better off Ted. I dont think it is underrated, but it definitely seems to be not well known and only got a couple of seasons. It’s the first time I got mad at Netflix canceling a show I loved.
Mr. Robot is one of my all-time favorites and my most recent favorite was Mr. Corman.
Hypernormalisation — documentary about political theatre
Dilberts Desktop Games was a cooky arrangement of several different mini games that were fun for kids whilst satirical enough for adults to enjoy.
It came out as a demo on PC Shopper, back when Adams’ politics was tame. The game absolutely bombed on reviews, but the music and the elevetor game live rent free in my head
I still have my original CD-ROM! Techno Raiders was great fun.
God, rainworld is not a flop per se, but i feel like it had so much more potential. It’s just a masterpiece of game design, soundtrack, art, leveldesign, lore etc
Norsemen was a great series but I understand why people didn’t get into it or even tried it. The humor is very special and maybe takes a little time to settle. It all feels like the cast didn’t know what’s going on and was making it up on the go, which is part of the fun.
Another one: Minesweeper. I feel like most people never understood how this game even works and just clicked randomly until something exploded. It’s actually purely logical! In the classic Windows version there is unfortunately always a high chance to encounter fields that can’t be solved by logic. This is what Mineswifter solves. If you want something more complex, there is the Hexcells series. Get the last one, Infinite as it has a puzzle generator integrated. It’s a mix of Minesweeper and nonograms.
Tetris beats minesweeper every day. People pack their vacation cars/suvs and refer to tetris-ing them. No one every says, “I minesweepered that.”
I find myself saying “its like fucking minesweeper” usually because something is as tedious as it is terrifying.
I also never heard anyone say „I marioed that“ or „I minecrafted that“. It’s also a completely different game. So not sure where you’re going with this comparison.
Better Off Ted I feel is reasonably well known and did manage to get an unexpected second season. I feel like a chunk of its potential audience had already left Television for streaming even back when it first aired.
I think The Good Place is one of the best things to ever happen to tv. I know it’s not some secret piece of tv that nobody knows about, but it hit the right notes in my soul that I don’t think people are singing its praises loud enough, even a decade on from its release.
I went into the show blind and it was definitely outside of the typical stuff that I watch, but I enjoyed it a lot!
CreamyJalapenoSauce figured it out? CreamyJalapenoSauce? This is a real low point. Yeah, this one hurts.
I just suddenly had this calm feeling, like the air inside my lungs was the same as the air outside my body. It was peaceful. You know the feeling when you think a jalapeño popper is gonna be too hot, but you bite into it anyway and it’s actually the perfect temperature?
Totally agreed. My favourite get-to-know-you question is this: “if you had the very specific super power that meant you could make everybody into the world love a piece of media in exactly the way you do, for exactly the reasons you do, what piece of media would you pick and why?”
My answer is The Good Place, with a bullet. It’s about trying to be better every day and treat people well, and it’s hilarious and good natured.
Henry Kuttner’s short-ish story ‘Year Day’ from 1953 predicted how advertising will be in the future that we’re yet to hit. The story was published in the collection appropriately named ‘Ahead of Time’.
In terms of current games, I have to say Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. Uses the Far Cry formula as a jumping off point for a very immersive experience that’s about the beauty of Pandora. It’s one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played and really deepens the Avatar franchise. It’s also the rare action game that is also cool to just hang out in and walk around, explore, forage for materials. It offers a kind of escape that games like Animal Crossing do in that regard (even though you’re not building anything; it’s just such a rich immersive world that you feel like you’re actually in Pandora).
Look I’m not saying that it isn’t well rated, but too many people dismiss “Avatar: The Last Airbender” as a cartoon or a childrens show when it is in fact a masterpiece.
Idk, everyone I speak to about it agrees that it’s incredible. Doesn’t seem underrated. I’ve been wanting to rewatch it.
Right you’re talking about the people who HAVE seen it. It isn’t rated lowly, it is dismissed by too many people. Like I said originally…
Ah ok, well you might be right
Korra is better in my opinion.
Existed for the third show, btw! Avatar - Seven Havens.
Korra was a bunch of nepo baby elites going around policing the world without the consent of anyone else, whilst discovering who they were.
Aang and his crew actually took time to go village to village to help out the local people, whilst training to take on an army.
These two shows are not the same.
The great thing about that, though, and the reason Korra is indeed a great show, is that the show itself explores whether they are a bunch of nepobabies, and whether they should even be doing what they’re doing. I loved that. It was a worthy successor.
