Games you consider overrated

[Yopaz]

Final Fantasy VII.
Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time.

The two most overrated games of all time. Sure I didn't like Bioshock, but I can see that it had its merits, it's just not my kind of game.

 

[Lt. Rocky]

I'll never understand what makes Mass Effect or Final Fantasy the rambunctious successes that they are. The games that have always come from those series have always felt half-finished and filled with grossly dull or unlikeable characters. Mass Effect's combat felt slow and worn out, and with it's slow and monotone dialogue, coupled with the robotic cinematic animations, I couldn't enjoy anything the game threw at me. The recent installments of Final Fantasy are just too camp and cluttered with clicheic anime scenarios to take seriously..

Maybe I just don't enjoy RPGs like I used to, but those two particular series have just been so abysmal.. D'oh well.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

Yikes. These threads need to go away.

But while I'm here, I'll say the Saints Row games. I prefer the sort of noir-ish/Goodfellas style that Grand Theft Auto provides. There's apparently no word for "pacing" in the Saints Row universe, as opposed to pacing pretty much being the only thing GTA4 understands. I recently bought the game used, and damn. I'm playing through the game now, and thank God that I was in the mood for a slow paced game, or else I think I would have set it down a while back.

Sure, I have fun doing the ridiculous shit that Saints Row tries to set out to do, but in the end, when you pretty much start out as a fucking superhero, once you've played a bit of it, you've pretty played the game. It doesn't really go anywhere but down.

And really, when a game relies on humor for the most of the story, it needs to keep that shit locked down. I chuckled maybe once or twice throughout the few hours I played it. What am I suppose to do when I don't find any of the shit they say funny? I literally do not give a shit about the characters otherwise.

 

[I-Protest-I]

Deus Ex HR, I couldn't see the appeal. The bad controls, the boring cut scenes, monotone speech.

I really wanted to like it, it had alot of thing I generally like in games which is a shame.

 

[Treblaine]

Overrated comparisons I find become churlish and contrarian as it can very easily becomes about gauging all positive criticism you can have for a game and then trying to find the worst in it.

I can say however that there have been some very popular and successful games that I personally did not care for though it could just be me. Well, almost just me, I played Final Fantasy X and I seem to be right in line with Spoony One on what I couldn't stand about that game. I really do wonder what their fans find as the actual appeal of these games... is it the fashion? Do the same people who buy Final Fantasy also love daytime TV soap-operas?

 

[Noxman]

We're doing this again?

But seriously, Star Wars: Battlefront 2.
The game played like arse, like a bad Battlefield 2, it's only selling point was the fact
that it had Star Wars stuff in it which only served to highlight the horrible gameplay
that did the source material absolutely no justice.

 

[Imbechile]

all retro games the escapist community makes them out to be amazing and better than todays games and perfect in every way and they are shit as a younger gamer used to higher standard games (my first console was a PS2) retro games are terrible and many times worse than games of today

Yea, I think its called like The Golden Age Syndrome or something.

Care to explain how I think the older Fallouts are better that Fallout 3 despite playing Fallout 3 FIRST?
Care to explain how I think System shock 2 is better than Bioshock despite playing Bioshock FIRST?
Care to explain how I think Daggerfall is better than Skyrim despite playing Skyrim FIRST?
Care to explain how I think Planescape Torment has better writing then all the Bioware drivel despite playing the Bioware drivel FIRST?

You can keep yourself in denial with the whole "rose tinted nostalgic glasses" thing as much you like, but there is no denying that games are getting shorter and shallower.

PS: Try not to use the "well that's just your opinion" argument, nor the "many people don't agree with you".

 

[AngloDoom]

EDIT: Oh, and minecraft. Its cool you can build stuff but i just dont like playing aimless games... What do you do once you have finished your safe fortress of doom?

That's how to tell if you're the type of person who can play Minecraft: if you feel like you've 'finished' something, it's not for you. =D

OT:

Half-Life 2. Sorry, I just found it boring. I ended up turning it off half-way through playing Episode 2. Maybe I have to play the original Half-Life to really get into the game, but I just didn't care about what was happening - the only time I really enjoyed myself was when I had to rely solely on the Gravity Gun.

 

[Al-Bundy-da-G]

Shadow of the Fucking Colossus. Oh the story, the strategy required during combat, the style, the innovation, it's perfect.

Strategy amounted to flicking arrows at the damn thing till it got annoyed enough to pay attention to you then fighting the camera and controls to find the one exact way to get to the big glowing weak spot and poking it till the colossus threw you off and then starting over again.

On top of that a grey and brown world that people ***** about when it CoD or BF but here it "fits the artistic mood". What part of this game is innovative anyway? Cause it's not the combat, the story, or the world.

But I bring up any of these points with someone and they say "you just don't get it". I get that it was a mediocre game with a save the princess plot, a brown and grey world, horrible camera and combat controls, and a total of what maybe twenty characters most of which were giant rock monster with no personality or real identity.

Also FFXIII screw you GameInformer. You gave a 80 hour long interactive movie which you could beat by setting it on auto and taking a nap, a positive recommendation? I've never been burned so badly in my life.

 

[ColeusRattus]

My overrated list:

Bioshock (nice visuals and story, but the gameplay itself is so off that I can't stand to play it, even though I actally wanted to like it.)
Mass Effect (Again, I should theoretically like it, but I have tried to finish part 1 three times now, and always hit a spot where I went suddenly "meh" and couldn't bring myself to start it up...)
Fallout 3 (The setting sucks, the story sucks, the characters suck, animations suck, gunplay and most other gameplay mechanics suck... But again, when I started it up for the first time, I really wanted to like it.)
Call of Duty

 

[Zac Smith]

All of the Zelda games, can't say that you don't like them and think they are overhyped 90% of the time without someone getting offended.

Same goes for Final Fantasy, many props to CoD and Battlefield, just to name a few

Pretty much any game that people rate as 10/10 or as close as. I've never played a game that I would consider anywhere near the "perfect game"

 

[Trippy Turtle]

Zelda and Mario. The first ones were bearable when they were new. The newer ones are boring and I would get the exact same experience going with the originals. Zelda is a bit better in that regard but still not original.

 

[veloper]

Oblivion wins this contest easily.
Both overrated by professional reviewers at the time of release and overrated by gamers in user reviews.

The damning thing here is that ever since Skyrim is out, everyone is saying how bad Oblivion was and all suddenly able to point out all the bad features: level scaling, poor combat, worst voice-acting, wooden animation, etc.
This is a game that got perfect scores. I reckon roleplayers just get blinded by the fancy scenery. The graphics eventually get outdated, even for lowly RPG-standards, then replaced by something prettier and the blind love is over.

 

[Samus Aran but a man]

I agree with Jim Sterling, in that I don't like the term overrated. It's knocking a game because other people had higher opinions of it than you do.

 

[Astro]

There's a lot of overrated games, but the two most relevant right now would be every Mass Effect game and Skyrim. I wasn't exactly taken with Mass Effect and plainly disliked Mass Effect 2, the writing is aggressively juvenile and bland, most of the mechanics are just bad (especially the dialog wheel and renegade/paragon system), the combat is below average (and boring) cover based shooting, there's issues with connectivity, the UI is a mess in Mass Effect 2 and the combat environments are too linear making navigating them feel sticky. Overall the Mass Effect series just isn't that good.

On the other hand, I don't feel like Skyrim needs any explanation. I guess it could be summed as as shallow and less than cohesive.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Well I haven't
-seen [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.164012-Most-Overrated-Game?page=8]
-this thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.254288-Your-most-overrated-game-s-of-last-decade?page=1]
-before [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.292927-most-overrated-games?page=4]

I wouldn't mention it if the thread itself wasn't such obvious flame bait.

 

[Treblaine]

Red Dead... I hated that killing your horse was a crime (this is my biggest complaint).

Wouldn't have been such a problem but for the parallax aiming problems from the first Third-person perspective, you could clearly aim past the horses head but the actual path of the "bullet" (actually a hitscan line) is to the left or right and down. They could have fixed this, made the bullets clip through your horse head as who ever wants to shoot their horse in the head WHILE RIDING IT!

Red Dead is a very imperfect game. It did so much good stuff but ultimately it has too many flaws. As bad as Mexico was I found it's a major letdown to go from there to a forested American region, it just can't have the same potential as revolutionary Mexico and then for the game to revert to doing tutorial missions again as a rancher, unable to change out of that rancher outfit, then being swapped out for

In the end the game punished me for succeeding, for giving John what he wanted.

See John may care about his family BUT I DON'T! And I have no reason to particularly want to give up being a badass bounty hunter to be with my illiterate wife who I can never actually have a marital relationship with. Sex scenes are cut out, all I am left with is the nagging. And no sense can I share in John's paternal satisfaction as I never saw Jack grow up, he's just some young punk.

As long as Red Dead Redemption took to make, I'd say it needed another year to work on the ending, or even more radically a year earlier the entire premise should have been scrapped and started again (a la Half Life 2's development). Family reunion is NOT a personal motivation when it is not your family, but the protagonist's family.

It should have been a motivation the player can share, like vengeance for or whoever you meet up with your final reward is to continue being a badass bounty-hunter just now you are training your son to follow in your footsteps. The Marstons are not ranchers, they're fighters.

Crazy Idea: John Marston tries to go straight as a rancher but has bad luck, is screwed over by the bank, the government and even his own character weakness and is left destitute. He resorts to criminality again a out of desperation and raises his son as an outlaw, but John pays for it in the end. I think it's far more poetic than the actual ending of "Ross is Pontius Pilate, John is cowboy jesus".

 

[svenjl]

Deus Ex HR, Dark Souls and Bioshock. I finished Deus Ex, but by fucking George it was a chore. I loved the gameplay of Dark Souls but the whole thing just became way too repetitive. And Bioshock was the same, only more of a rat maze. I didn't hate these games, just the process by which progress was made.


I just finished the main two story lines of Skyrim and was underwhelmed by one of them in particular. Five years after Oblivion and we still cant't ever have more than 15-20 combatants on screen?! I love the game as a whole, but next time Bethesda cut the redundant content and give us EPIC battles.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Halo 1 (the sequel were fine). I disagree that the British magazine EDGE giving it a 10/10 (they rarely hand out that rating) since while it was a good game but I felt the choice of weapons and vehicles were rather limited. The story was so and so but overall I wouldn't have given it a 10/10.

 

[Astro]

Shadow of the Fucking Colossus. Oh the story, the strategy required during combat, the style, the innovation, it's perfect.

Strategy amounted to flicking arrows at the damn thing till it got annoyed enough to pay attention to you then fighting the camera and controls to find the one exact way to get to the big glowing weak spot and poking it till the colossus threw you off and then starting over again.

On top of that a grey and brown world that people ***** about when it CoD or BF but here it "fits the artistic mood". What part of this game is innovative anyway? Cause it's not the combat, the story, or the world.

But I bring up any of these points with someone and they say "you just don't get it". I get that it was a mediocre game with a save the princess plot, a brown and grey world, horrible camera and combat controls, and a total of what maybe twenty characters most of which were giant rock monster with no personality or real identity.

The thing that made Shadow of the Colossus special is that it was a completely unique mix of multiple gameplay elements rarely seen together to do something visually and mechanically spectacular while still being functional and entertaining. I can't really say anything other than "no, you're not right" in response to your assertion of the strategy amounting to shooting the collosi with arrows, it just isn't the case. Additionally, the environments weren't all grey and brown, and there's nothing wrong with that color and shade in the first place. The grey and brown complaint arises from games that could have varied and interesting environments but instead opt for a boring "realistic" grey and brown fortress. However, Shadow of the Colossus has beautiful, interesting, atmospheric and varied environments; even if a lot of them do consist of dirt, mountainside and rock. The camera is bad and the controls are only slightly better, you're right about those two, but the princess is pretty much irrelevant to what's great about the game and your twenty characters point was just strange. Part of the appeal was a sense of mystery and loneliness as you gallop solemnly between each magnificent encounter, I can assure you that having a weapon vendor or whatever wouldn't have improved the game. There's a reason, after-all, why it's in a pseudo language and you very rarely interact with characters that have a face.