Awesome games you almost missed out on -- but got lucky.

Mass Effect: Only had the opportunity to play it because my friend had an extra copy, which he gave to me. And I love it.

Tales Of Symphonia: I remember Nintendo Power having an article on this game but I never thought much of it. Until, I decided to pick it up from a bargain bin at K-mart.

Team Fortress 2: One of my friends wouldn't shut up about it, and I got it when it was on sale on Steam a few months back. I severely regret not picking it up earlier.

Tales Of Symphonia: Snagged it from a video store, loved it to death.

[[Disgaea]] 1: I've wanted to play the original, but could never find it, until a friend let me borrow Disgaea DS.

Mass Effect - I thought it was just another generic overhyped Halo clone for the Xbox. Excuse my ignorance. I almost ignored it completely, but then learnt more about it on here, discovered pure awesome and downloaded on Steam. (Thanks, tvtropes.)

Persona - I was ignorant of it at first, but I wanted to give a new JRPG a try and decided to buy Persona 4 when I saw it in Forbidden Planet. (Thanks, impulsive streak.)

Final Fantasy - again, ignorance is a pretty prevailing theme. I played a FFX-2 demo once, and thought "wtf, lame" and moved on. Then someone introduced me to the newly-released FFXII and I discovered the whole series was brilliant. (Thanks, "ex-girlfriend")

Note: List is in reverse order.

edited 1st Dec '10 6:53:06 PM by Shichibukai

Hotel Dusk Room 215: After reading about it in Nintendo Power, I bought it on a whim when I couldn't find one of the Ace Attorney games. Absolutely fell in love with it (if you couldn't tell ), and just ordered the sequel for my birthday.

Tales of Phantasia: Also read about it in Nintendo Power, and found it at Target for cheap. Admittedly, it was the inferior GBA port, but I still found it captivating.

Skies of Arcadia: Literally had it forced upon me by a friend in high school freshmen year, and it was just as great as he said it was. Bought it online senior year, and I don't think I've ever experienced so much nostalgia. My favorite GC game by far.

edited 1st Dec '10 7:18:12 PM by Eschaton

Unreal Tournament 2004

Back in 2004, my mom pointed it out to me and said that I might like it. At first I didn't care - I played the original UT on PS 2, and judging the series based on THAT ALONE, I decided that I probably wouldn't be too excited about it. However, my mom kept saying that I should try it out, so I did.

Not only did it entertain me for 2 years, but because of that game, I am now aspiring to be a game designer. Unreal Ed is one fun program. The Maya PLE that came with it also got me into 3d modeling. I can't imagine what I'd be doing if I hadn't picked up that game.

I had never played an RTS before playing Command & Conquer Red Alert: Retaliation. The only reason why I picked it up was because there was a code for the PS 1 that allowed infinite nukes and cash, and that you could destroy entire bases - or build them - using those cheats. And back when I was a kid, I had a penchant for designing and then destroying things.

Turns out that I actually like the whole strategy aspect of the game and the large tank battles that usually occurred, or sometimes just turtling and building a large base, which prompted me to pick up the original Command & Conquer for the N64. And that's how I got hooked on RTS games and the C&C franchise!

FREESPACE

I had an aversion towards it and didn't even want to try the demo (because it was musclin' into my beloved X-Wing territory). Finally, one day, during a very boring day, once I have tried dozens of others demoes and ran out of thing to play, I finally installed and tried the demo...and realized the full extent of my stupidity. Needless to say I got FS 1 and immediately FS 2.

SWORD OF THE STARS

Again, was looking for something to play and heard on some forums about SOTS. Checked out a few screenshots and wasn't impressed, so I moved on to other games. Eventually, after hearing a lot more praise about it, I finally tried it out. I am now a passionate SOTS lover and a faithful Kerberos hound. This is also how I discovered Fort Zombie.

I landed into gaming heaven.

Peggle - I had no interest in that game or any other casual game until I bought The Orange Box, and it came with Peggle Extreme. I ignored Peggle Extreme, but my brother said I had to try it. He was insistent about it, so I finally did. It wasn't long before I bought Peggle Deluxe and Peggle Nights. Probably the only casual game I really like, too.

Deadly Premonition - I wouldn't have even heard of this game if not for an online friend who I'd been trying to introduce to things that are So Bad, It's Good. He eventually showed me a cutscene from this game and said "this game is probably an example of So Bad, It's Good." I agreed and looked up more videos on You Tube, then reviews, then finally decided to go buy it. I'm very glad I did. The game is actually So Bad, It's Good in the technical department, but genuinely enjoyable if you can find charm in its flaws.

A few months ago, I found brand new copies of Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne and Digital Devil Saga at Gamestop. I wasted no time in snatching them up.

...The Orange Box comes with Peggle?

Team Fortress 2: I happened across a link one day/In the very very merry month of may no joke!/I was taken by surprise/when a spy had crossed my eyes/and that was when I knew I was in loooooooove~

This was back in 2009. A shame I didn't know it existed earlier.

edited 2nd Dec '10 11:32:28 AM by BlaineTheM0n0

I waited several months to but TWE Wy but I found a new copy in October.

The PC version of The Orange Box came with Peggle Extreme, which only had 10 levels, all themed after Half-Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. Apparently the console versions didn't.

Btw, add me as another person who almost missed out on Chrono Trigger. Not being an RPG fan, I assumed I wouldn't like it, but my brother showed it to me on the DS and said I should try it out. I was surprised at how much I liked it, and ended up buying a copy for myself. Being a big fan of Super Mario RPG, I see that Chrono Trigger has a similar fast pace, relatively easy difficulty, short battles, and lots of depth without being complicated. The reason I didn't list it at first was because while I do like it, it's not a favorite of mine.

The GBA Castlevania lineup. Snapped up the last copies of Circle Of The Moon and Double Pack (which includes Harmony Of Dissonance and Aria Of Sorrow) at my local GameStop, a couple years ago.

Sonic CD (PC ver.), purchased as part of a 3-for-1 deal (with Sonic 3 & Knuckles and Sonic R) in 2001. I still have the disc. Unfortunately I'm on Windows XP, so I'm gonna need a shitload of patches if I wanna get it working.

Rez (Japanese PS2 ver.), bought new on Play-Asia for a ludicrous $14 in 2006. Though, I ended up getting a 360 and Rez HD two years later.

edited 2nd Dec '10 4:56:17 PM by TsundeRay

Oh, and how could I forget: The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time .

Seriously. I bought it as a used game at a video rental store, my knowledge of the game limited to a strage but intriguing ad in the back of my Pokemon Red/Blue game guide (maybe I had rented it earlier, but I have no memory of it). And it was the first Legend of Zelda game I had ever played.

I didn't find out it was considered one of, if not THE greatest game of all time, until much, much later. I'm one of the few people who can say Ocarina of Time is as great as (most) people say it is with almost no bias!

edited 2nd Dec '10 10:43:41 PM by Eschaton

Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete. This game had a very small release and wasn't advertised much. I happened to spot an ad in a magazine and begged for it because we used to have the original game. I never saw it advertised anywhere else and I never saw it in stores. Had I not bought that one magazine I might have missed it.

Blood

Saints Row 2

I never had much interest in it, because I thought it's little more than a GTA rip-off and I dislike the whole "gangsta" style. But then I read that it seems to be better than I thought and it's quite different from GTAIV. This, combined with the low price of 20 Euro, convinced me to buy it, something I certainly don't regret.

Gang Garrison. A 2-d version of TF 2. I may of never found it if I didn't like bingeing thru the TF 2 blog. I also would of never found out it is more fun than TF2 ever was.

edited 3rd Dec '10 6:42:32 PM by DrStarky

Touhou...yeah it was inevitable somebody would post it here. I had halfway interest in it way back in the spring and did a little looking. Then found a download (do you know hard it is to import doujin games in Colorado?) with all games prior to Double Spoiler and started playing around first with Embodiment of Scarlet Devil then Perfect Cherry Blossom.

Before I knew it, 8 months later I've cleared every Windows shooter sans Fairy Wars (I need to get it) on Easy or better. Counting the PC-98 era stuff, I've cleared two of those. Extra Stage wise I've beaten Suwako, Flandre, Gengetsu, Alice, and Ran Yakumo working on Yukari Yakumo. Just Mokou, Koishi, Nue, and Marisa (Fairy Wars) remain for the series for me shoot em up wise.

Shantae, well...at least i USED to have it. XD; read the mini-walkthrough in Nintendo Power, got lucky, and found it.

Peggle Extreme is free now without it.

Now that I'm finally getting around to beating it, The Legendary Starfy.

It came out, and I wasn't too aware of it. Read the Game Informer review in which, as I recall, the game was practically bashed for being so Kirbylike. Since Kirby is awesome, I picked it up, and I can stay that Starfy's also awesome and I'd like the other four please.