I promised this earlier in the week, I'm delivering on that promise now. It took a little longer to put this list together because I had some trouble narrowing down the choices and coming up with a good list. That and I got sidetracked the last few days. I finished building my friend's new computer, I finally started Twilight Princess, and I'm randomly trying Lair, since I had a 25% off coupon for Gamestop. But its about time I start this.

Top 5 Most Underrated Games

Honorable Mentions: Sly Cooper, Burnout 2, Heavenly Sword, and these last ones are more underappreciated but I felt like mentioning them, Psychonauts, Shadow of the Colossus, Okami.

#5 - Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2).

This is an interesting selection, mostly because it was well received and received good scores. The reason its here is because it has an awesome battle system that is underrated in comparison to other Final Fantasy games. Technically the first sequel to any Final Fantasy game, X-2 picks up awhile after the events of Final Fantasy X, but your party consists of only Yuna, Rikku & newcomer Paine. Jobs returned but in the form of Dresspheres, so again, compared to other Final Fantasies, this one doesn't rank very highly. But that's a shame considering that X-2 sports probably the best version of the Active Time Battle system, used in FF 7-9, but also the SNES FFs.

Final Fantasy X-2 was a fine first sequel to Square's vaunted Final Fantasy franchise. The graphics were just as good as Final Fantasy X's, featured the same voice actors, and also sported good music, although it was more of the J-Pop variety than your standard FF music. Still, FF X-2 was a good game that was better than people thought. It has a very good battle system that helps carry the game.

#4 - Grandia III (PS2).

Grandia III earns the nod because it has the best battle system I've ever played in an RPG. It also has a good story to play through, plus some good characters along the way. At the time Grandia III came out, there was another RPG fighting for time, Tales of Legendia. They both received both scores, although Tales was receiving better scores for its slightly better story. Still, I'm not sure how you could ignore such a good battle system that Grandia III has. Take a look:

It can get chaotic, but the battles are never dull. And even better, the battles are fun. I hate to admit that the story does eventually fall into the "save the world" type of story, but how many RPGs have a party at the start of the game consisting of the hero and his mother? Grandia III did and it was really cool. For the battle system alone, Grandia III is worth checking out, and deserved higher scores on its release.

#3 - Stuntman Ignition (PS3, X360).

Now here's one that may have deserved the scores it received, but it is still a lot of fun. Maybe not everyone wants to play a game with so much trial and error, but how cool is it to play as a stuntman, pulling off insane movie stunts? I certainly thought so, and I loved Stuntman Ignition. The stunts were not all that difficult, the learning curve and loading times were much improved from the original Stuntman for PS2. Also you were rewarded with great movie trailers once you finished the stunts for the movie. Just seeing those trailers were enough to make me wish a company could make a Stuntman game based on real movies, or based on real properties, as opposed to the parody ones here.

Obviously its the stunts themselves that make Ignition shin, but the nice graphics really help as well, particularly during the first movie, Aftershock. Some of the later stunts you pull off are crazy, like driving a truck towing a cruise missile, or a hovercraft, or a firetruck through the streets of San Francisco. Like I said, its a fun game that shouldn't gotten a little more attention.

#2 - Ratchet: Deadlocked (PS2).

Now how can I put this game on an underrated games list when it received an 8.6 from GameSpot and its GameRankings is 83%? Well ask most fans of Ratchet & Clank which game is their least favorite and the answer is almost always Deadlocked. There is sound reasoning for that too. Deadlocked is more of a shooter than its adventure-shooter-platformer predecessors. But considering how much fun it is to use Ratchet's weapons, having more of a pure shooter title was a fine idea. Now I may not have Deadlocked ranked very high on my R&C list (which probably goes like this, not counting Size Matters or Quest for Booty: UYA, GC, ToD, DL, original), but Deadlocked was alot of fun and probably had the best gunplay in the entire series.

Deadlocked is the only R&C title that allowed you to customize the weapons. In other titles, you can purchase mods for your weapons, but in Deadlocked, you mod the weapon. There's freezing, acid, shock, and other capabilities, as well as tweaking the firing speed, area of effect (AoE) range, ammo supply, etc. That's a really nice feature, and it was alot of fun tinkering with it. Plus it was the only R&C title where Ratchet got dual pistols (great with shock mod!).

#1 - The Mark of Kri (PS2).

I have a pretty big soft spot for The Mark of Kri. It came out shortly after I started working for EBGames in 2002, but that's not all. Its cartoon graphics really appealed to me, particularly because it looked so violent. Not that I'm a fan of violent games, it was just the cartoon graphics with its violence was a cool combination. Plus it sported a unique control scheme: the Right Analog stick sweeped enemies in the area, mapping them to a face button, allowing Rau, the main character, to attack multiple foes in a combo. Plus the stealth kills looked incredible.

Plus the game was fun too, and it had a pretty good story too. Maybe the game could've used a bit more polish, or a little better pacing (Rau has a hawk friend you can use to scout ahead, although its used alot), or less of an emphasis on stealth, or more levels (only 6 levels). Regardless, The Mark of Kri is a very underrated game that did spawn a sequel, Rise of the Kasai, that was not as good as the original. Still, I have very fond memories of The Mark of Kri. It looked great, had a very unique combat system, had very cool looking stealth kills, and was just an underrated title. I wish the sequel was better, or at least another title similar to this one could be made, but I'm not keeping my hopes up. Check it out if you can, used copies are pretty cheap now, and The Mark of Kri is a good game.

Ahh, a full week off with Labor Day weekend to finish it off, throw in my birthday tomorrow plus a great cookout party from this past Saturday, and I have a nice vacation on my hands. Just like I did last year, I took a full week off work around my birthday to relax and have a nice end to summer. This year I had my cookout party at the beginning of my time off. The party was last Saturday, and it was fun. A game of water basketball 33 was played, lots of food was made, Rock Band was played, I even had back to back expert guitar full combos (When You Were Young for the first time ever, then Maps, for second time ever).

After cleaning up I stayed up for a little while longer to watch the start of the Gold Medal basketball game, but was too tired so I went to bed before halftime, leading to yesterday where I spent half the day just laying around watching TV. I did accomplish something, I finished Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty last night. I'm itching for more R&C action, so this was a nice stopover, but the ending just left me wanting more because of where its leading to next, the return of an R&C villain! For now I won't spoil it, but I will hint that the villain comes from probably the best R&C game. In other gaming news, well there hasn't been much gaming news on my front. I did receive my replacement Rock Band guitar, and I have made some more headway on the Expert songs, I'm down to 2 songs with 3* (still Flirtin and Indestructible) and 2 songs I need to beat (still Green Grass, but also BYOB). I also managed another gold star song, More Than a Feeling. Otherwise, its still quiet on the gaming front for now. The demo for The Force Unleashed was pretty good. So was the demo for Tiger Woods 09. I thought the Club Tuning feature pretty cool. This week I'm finally gonna start playing Twilight Princess. I don't really have other options, as the next game I really want to get is a few weeks away (Lego Batman).

I added a new photo to my profile because I've had a cell phone pic I took of an expert guitar run on Timmy & the Lords of the Underworld, where I got 5* despite only 82% notes hit, and I just had to get it posted. That was too incredible.

I have some things to do today, and my birthday is tomorrow. I want to squeeze in some golf tomorrow, but I also want to do a Top 5 post for my birthday, seeing as I haven't had one in a few months now.