It's a pretty straightforward mob story with a fantasy twist. It's pretty firmly entrenched in its genre. That prevents it from being any kind of "fine art" unless it completely transcends the genre a la Pulp Fiction. That's what I meant by that. With that said, it does a pretty damned good job of keeping the story interesting despite its obvious "revenge on the mob" storyline.

I still find it somewhat sad that I'm impressed by a straightforward game's storyline merely because it doesn't insult my intelligence or pander to adolescents. On the other hand, over the past few years I've been treated to games like Portal and Psychonauts so I know that some developers are moving this industry in the right direction.

I agree with the few you listed, LO was the first retail game I bought for my 360.

One I can think of that really just went without a second look was Overlord Dark Legend. Great game, everyone recommended Pikmin NPC, I played it and went meh, but then played Overlord and busted a gut laughing with some of the humor. The action was... more... action-y, and a lot more satisfying for me.

Lit is far too often forgotten but a great Wii Ware game, the first puzzle-horror game ever O:

Splosion Man is awesome 2D platforming on 360, this gen each console has a great multiplayer 2D platformer but 360's isn't mentioned often :P

FFCC Echoes of Time is a great action RPG you can play with your friends on DS, which to me has now been passed up by Phantasy Star 0, both of which didn't get a ton of coverage to me.

Speaking of platformers Sonic Rush Adventure on the DS is one of the best Sonic games I've played in a long time, it meshes the good things about Sonic Adventure with the 3D boss battles with the 2D platforming and speed, and turned out to be exceptional but... slightly easy =X

PSP has the handheld exclusive battlefront games, both of which are really good, and a lot more balanced out than the Pandemic battlefront games, only issue keeping it from being a must have is the controls and that's more the limitations of the system than the makers of the game sadly.

PS3 has Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm which was my second game for the console and next to LBP my most played. Probably the best anime based game I ever played, and easily the best looking, you could make an episode of Naruto with that engine it looks so good O= If they updated it with online play and trophies that bad boy would be getting played every night.

For PS360/PC, Chronicles of Riddick: DA, probably the greatest singleplayer FPS, terrible online, and sadly we live in an era where online FPS is king and it just didn't have it. I love this game though and it needs to find a few more homes.

For PS360/Wii/PC Spider-Man Web of Shadows, until Batman AA, this was my top super hero game ever, the story didn't suck cause it wasn't based off the movies, the combat was fluid and featured over the top aerobatics just like good ol' spidey should. And Treyarch did a lot of work to make it the same game no matter the platform you played it on, so no one had an excuse to call it a quick/sloppy port.

Only other one I can think of is for the PSP, Resistance Retribution, great looking, probably the most fluid shooting controls on the PSP, and trumps the home console version in almost every way imo lol. Good story, pretty difficult without being annoying, plenty of extras, some of the best online play on PSP, and you could play it via PS3 dual shock.

That's my list, some of them did get a little hype but in the end didn't get talked about a lot, and typically poor sales, hopefully they get a few fanbases that won't forget these little gems :)

I didn't like Lost Odyssey much. I just mentioned that I have been playing it recently. I thought Blue Dragon was a far better game, though its dialogue was beyond irritating. Lost Odyssey was far too emo, woe-is-me, look-at-how-angsty-I-can-be typical JRPG bullshit. I couldn't handle it. The entire game went to hell after the obnoxiously long funeral scene.

See everybody, I still hate video games... no need to worry.

Ahh ok I took that wrong :P 

I like LO and BD, there are better JRPGs, much better in fact, but for this generation it's in the upper % of not crap pile imo.  But if more quality JRPGs came they'd both be forgetable, though will have it's fans like every obscure RPG *looks at avatar*

EDIT- Did you get to play any of the games on my list?  I'd like to see your opinion haha even if you rip into them hard.

Rune Factory Frontier - the reviews were good, but the sales did not back it up.

Also Red Faction Guerilla is great too....but no one talks about it

I think Folklore and Jeanne d'arc are two gems that were also overlooked and underappreciated.

There is nothing inherently wrong with a straightfoward story.  I can name complex stories in all entertainment mediums that are told down right horribly.  Tim Schafer, Hideo Kojima, Ken Levine, and Gabe Newell are moving the industry in the right direction.

gears 2, too much fanboyism bringing it down

The Darkness was pretty darn good. A little confused in plot, but some great moments. I'd love to see a sequel.

Another game is.. Universe At War: Earth assault. Possibly the best rts ever made. (I don't know about the console version, I only have and have played the pc version so that's the one i'm refering too.) although sega and microsoft broke the online part of it. (patch waiting for aproval for more than a year ?.. not so healthy for the online community.)

Another one..

Dark Messiah of might and magic. A truly awesome game. The best "fps" i've played that uses sword shield/bow/daggers/staff :p ... not to mention the rpg system. The multiplayer is a bit weak though.. but the singleplayer ! damn !