The Overrated

[zero]

So Benji has the very positive underrated thread, I figured I'll do the negative side of the coin. What are your most overrated games? Only rule, if you're gonna mention the Halo series, at least mention something else too. Any time Halo comes up in conversation on EWB, almost everyone says it's overrated, don't beat the dead horse. So here's mine:

Halo - now I'm going to mention something else. (Y)

Shenmue - One of the few games that can be on an underrated and overrated list. Underrated because not a lot of people played it and the reviews were overly harsh. Overrated because the message boards have given it a cult-status and it's not that great. There's a lot of monotonous bullshit, not nearly enough combat, and while I enjoy a cliffhanger ending, that one was quite anticlimatic.

Final Fantasy X - The worst FF game I have ever played. Linear RPGs make the Baby Jesus cry. The combat system was pretty cool, as was the character design, but other than that, yawn.

[naiwf]

I'll one up you, and toss in the entire lot of Mario related games since Super Mario Kart.

All things Pokemon get a thumbs down.

I'm also not a fan of the Doom, Splinter Cell or Metal Gear series of games.

Shenmue works for me as well, as it was the only Dreamcast game I ever bought that I thought about selling back within a week of purchase.

[zero]

I gotta disagree on the Mario thing. Mario Golf, Mario RPG, and Mario 64 were all top-notch games. But the majority of Mario related games, yeah I'll give you.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Halo 2 - about an 8th as fun to play as the first.

Pro Evolution Soccer series. Just because its the best footy game, doesn't mean its that good. Its not bad, but its not great, and doesnt deserve all the orgasms it gets.

[Kaney]

The entire Gran Turismo series.

Sure, it may be down to the fact that I despise racing games almsot without exception, but to me it never seemed that special. The only important thing about it was the graphics, which I'll admit were always jaw-dropping. The gameplay was crap, however

[MalaCloudy Black]

Halo, oooohhh, an overhyped FPS, great. The only fun I had playing Halo was in multiplayer.

[John Stones' Paint Trophy]

I agree with the Halo stuff and also Pro Evolution.

The last two have been terrible and the ref in Pro Evo 5 makes it unplayable.

[thuganomic]

Grand Theft Auto series. I never saw the fascination and obsession.

[Benji]

I was going to do this, but saying overrated just turns into a hate fest, people put up interesting points when defending something, but on EWB when they attack it it's just "It sucks".

[Fanku Kaibutsu]

Final Fantasy 7. Yes, it's good. But it's not the greatest RPG ever. Not by a long shot. It's nary half the game that Xenogears is.

Halo. This, and Dead or Alive 3, were the main reasons I bought an X-Box. And I was sorely dissapointed. It's just another FPS. No different than Quake, or Unreal, or any other sci-fi-corridor FPS.

Animal Crossing. It may not be as popular as FF7 or Halo, but it seems to have a cult following. Now, I have nothing against quirky, theoretically boring japanese games, I'm a big fan of the Harvest Moon series, but I thought Animal Crossing was terrible.

[Vilge Duin]

Final Fantasy 7 - Woefully overrated beyond belief. Travel to any message board and see the word best get thrown around about everything is sickening.

I bought the Playstation when it came out and loved every bit of it, just like I had with the previous three that I had played. However over the years I slowly grew to despise the thing because of all the ridiculous hype placed on it by fans. Yes I know it was countless people's first RPG and I have found those people deify it more than anyone else. However people who have played RPGs before it, like myself, usually will prefer something else. Hell the big twist in it is something that already happened in Phantasy Star 2. It's story is simple with convoluted twists to make it seem more intelligent and it's battle system was nothing new. Good game but made out to be the end all be all RPG (and game even) when better things have come before and after it.

Pokemon - Pfft. The first couple were fine, a novel idea of collecting monsters to fight against other people with. However ten years after and they still are pretty much the same from what I've seen. Nothing at all different to the core game. Better graphics, slowly over time and more monsters. Just like every other cash cow on earth.

Goldeneye - Screw Halo, at least it's not obsessed over as the best shooter ever to this day. Goldeneye was good, but had awkward controls and unless you have friends to play with it is dull. But like all "firsts" the nostalgia makes it better than it really is.

[Toe]

I truly think Halo was an amazing game. Smooth framerate and controls, and it's just fun to play. Really fun. You can play through the campaign several times, with friends or without, and have fun each time. The multiplayer brought back memories of Goldeneye for me.

Halo 2, on the other hand, is overrated to me. Not nearly as engrossing, I think because the designer's bought the hype, and tried to make it an epic. The first is an epic, but doesn't feel forced like Halo 2.

Goldeneye, I can't agree. When it was first released, the controls felt smooth, and it was just an amazing experience. I played the game over and over, by myself, because it was just awesome. If I play it now, it does feel awkward and the graphics are bad, but thats after games like Red Faction and Halo and Killzone changed what a console FPS should be like.

Edited October 23, 2005 by desiredtoe

[Vilge Duin]

I suppose I was just never engrossed by Goldeneye like others. I do admit it's a good game though, but it is highly overrated. The controls were awkward to me since I was so used to the Super NES controller.

Hell, I prefer Timesplitters the "grandchild" of Goldeneye over any other shooter. The foundations it laid were and are still good. The game is just espoused as the end all be all game to this day. Look at any shooter, and especially any James Bond game, and it will always be the first thing mentioned. Halo seems to be replacing it in the shooter area, but Bond games are ridiculously tied to Goldeneye.

It's really just my lack of interest in shooters I suppose when it comes down to it.

[Asuka's Gonna Kill You]

Halo and FF7. Halo just doesn't do anything for me, yet it's vastly overrated. As for FF7, while I like it a lot, personally I don't think it deserves as much praise as it gets, and I still don't rate it a head of FFX or FFVIII.

[Herr Matzat]

all of the final fantasy crap, it works, it´s flat storys, thats why so many people are able to get into it, it is good from a salesmans point of view, but it´s not qualety gaming.

I also have my everlastin hate for the Sims 1/2, the only fun you can have is having the people in game suffer as much as posible, thats not hard sinc the AI suports being dumb a lot, people that seriusly play this game to acomplish something are sad, i tried it a time or two and it just felt like my brain was shrinking...

[FunkAsPuck]

Final Fantasy X - The worst FF game I have ever played. Linear RPGs make the Baby Jesus cry. The combat system was pretty cool, as was the character design, but other than that, yawn.

[Robsturgh]

Starcraft - How this game was (see: is) considered the industry standard for RTS's I will never know. Homeworld 1/2, Red Alert 2 (hell Red Alert original), Dawn of War, Age of Mythology, etc etc in my mind all surpass it. My reason for thinking its vastly overrated? It lacks in many areas, the missions were either too basic or they tried to be way too extravagent in thier portrayel. The multiplayer mode was fun for the first say....3 months. When you get into things like "Uber Micro" then you lose the fun of a game, and it gets into a routine. Good for the short run, but so overrated its untrue.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - Now, don't get me wrong, I love all the rest of the series, including GTA London. But this seems to be failure of the series. Sure, there were a bunch of new things added, you could buy places, you could do side missions for your companies. Etc etc. But as for storyline purposes, I think it severly lacked the direction of the rest of the series. And theres only so much killing you can do before it does get seriously fucking boring.

[Bushmeister]

I consider the Command & Conquer series, Warcraft/Starcraft, Age Of Empires etc. RTS-games which are based on mass unit spamming, overwhelming rushing and micromanagering overrated. An endless list of micromanagering does not make for appealing combat, especially when you need ADHD to win battles. Games such as the Total War series (Shogun, Medieval, Rome), the new WH40K: Dawn Of War and such others that are more based on realistic combat with realistic-sized armies without the need to micromanage in battle and with the need for actual strategy and tactics do it much better for me.

I also dislike the Quake series with a passion. Too simple for single player, too simple for multiplayer. Unreal Tournament is much, much, MUCH more fun at LAN parties than any Quake could ever be.

[kliq]

I suppose I was just never engrossed by Goldeneye like others. I do admit it's a good game though, but it is highly overrated. The controls were awkward to me since I was so used to the Super NES controller.

Hell, I prefer Timesplitters the "grandchild" of Goldeneye over any other shooter. The foundations it laid were and are still good. The game is just espoused as the end all be all game to this day. Look at any shooter, and especially any James Bond game, and it will always be the first thing mentioned. Halo seems to be replacing it in the shooter area, but Bond games are ridiculously tied to Goldeneye.

It's really just my lack of interest in shooters I suppose when it comes down to it.

Timesplitters is like, shit. :blink:

I say Halo, my mates blind fanboyism of the games is shocking. Of course, I'm not like that when it comes to Zelda. FunkAsPuck sucks!

[Chris the Human]

Got to say Command & Conquer for mine. Never saw the appeal in it. Same goes for Age of Empires.