Most Overrated games?

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Most overrated game franchise for me is God of War. There are way too many such games, third-person hack'n'slash games with a sprite-like main character. It's also pretty linear and so many features on the game refer to Kratos as if he is some interesting charismatic character when really he's just the type of knucklehead warrior we've seen in video games for decades.

Oh and what I mean by "sprite-like" is the whole feel and movement of those kinda games. There's no feel of weight or physics, not sure about later games but earlier GoW games had that thing where the character runs almost supernaturally separately to the ground, ie. generic animations and would often run on the spot or not adjust when hitting a physical boundary. And that's another thing, I don't like the tendency nowadays for games to be getting increasingly on-rails. I like open-world games where you can explore, not games where you are forced to run up a road because you can't climb over a 1 metre high wall at the side.

To me GoW does nothing new, it just dresses up the kinda games I was playing on 8 and 16 bit systems decades ago with a lick of paint and a polish here and there. Give me something like Tomb Raider any day, though I think the new TR game is looking a little linear too :(
 
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I never rated mafia two, so it can't be overrated for me if I never liked it :D
 
Call of Duty, ever since they turned it modern they ruined it. Now it's just a generic FPS. I rate transformers: War for Cybertron over CoD now.
 
Everything that Rockstar has ever made with special attention to Red Dead Redemption. Aside from the landscape and soundtrack, I didn't really find any connection to that game. Rockstar has never had a decent gun mechanic, and I don't even know where to begin with the number of Farmville 3D missions I had to do.

That being said, I don't feel like open world games can put forth the same storytelling as a linear game. There's something infinitely more involving about having the plot continuously rolling with a linear game as opposed to the "here's fifteen minutes of story now go do some fetch quests until you have enough XP/money/whatever to get the next fifteen minutes" that seems to permeate open world games.

Chalk me up as one of the few who doesn't understand why people are adamant that games have to be open world to be good.
 
See I love Rockstar's games for the very reason that they are open world. For me it's way way more realistic and imersive to not be guided "on rails" through various cinematic objectives. I often don't agree with IGN but this article sums up the difference perfectly. That said, I do have time for the likes of uncharted too but pretty as such games are, they seem like a retrograde step in the evolution of games to me.
 
gordogg24p
Chalk me up as one of the few who doesn't understand why people are adamant that games have to be open world to be good.
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I almost agree; I don't understand why some people think that linear games MUST be bad. Rage, for example, had big areas but it wasn't open world, a lot of people hated it for that but I think it worked quite well because, as you say, there was always something to do to progress the story but there were optional side quests too so it was kind of the best of both worlds. Well, no, it was the 'quite good' of both worlds but not quite the best.

As much as I do enjoy Fallout 3/NV, Just Cause 2, Arma II and so on, there are some really great, very linear games out there; Portal, Metro 2033 and Deux Ex: Human Revolution are a handful that I remember off the top of my head. Like Rage, Deus Ex: HR has hub areas which are quite open (more open than Rage's) but they were just that, hubs that lead to linear mission sections, so I'd class it as a linear rather than open world game. It kind of proves that linear =!= corridor, like the Call of Duty campaigns of this world.

Oh and as for linearity being a backwards step in videogame design, I disagree, because not all stories can work in open world settings. I could elaborate but I don't think I need to and it would just be boring to read anyway.
 
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gordogg24p
Chalk me up as one of the few who doesn't understand why people are adamant that games have to be open world to be good.
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I don't think they have to be open world but Rockstar's games are very very good. Red Dead Redemption was fantastic and I liked it far more than the GTA series. Do their games deserve the automatic 10 reviews each time? Absolutely not but they are very good. Rockstar and Bethesda show off how good the open world can be. The guys at Naughty Dogg and Valve show off how good linear games can be. I feel bad for those who limit themselves to one style because your severely losing out.
 
It's all down to personal taste, of course there are those who might just count out one or the other but in fairness there are probably some who just really don't like linear games, or really don't like open world. Just as some people only play sports games.

Interesting that Valve's name is coming up, as the few of their games I have played (OK Half Life and Half Life 2) I found ticked a few of the "open" boxes too, with some very large areas and many different ways of approaching foes and puzzles. Compare to the likes of Uncharted and GoW which in many ways are like an interactive movie peppered with some relatively simple mini games. There's a reason such games look lush, it's because they actually don't let you roam very far off the beaten track at all and therefore have a LOT less stuff to render.

I *do* still like such games when they are carried off really well, but in some ways they are almost like a different medium to me, and remind me a lot of old games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, where you will always only vaguely guide the protagonist, and never fully get inside their skin.

Still, i'm also one of the few freaks who likes Dragon's Lair too :)
 
CMvan46
I feel bad for those who limit themselves to one style because your severely losing out.
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I assume this was a general statement and not directed at me, but I wanted to clarify that I don't disregard all open world games immediately. I'm a huge Assassin's Creed and inFamous fan and still own Red Dead Redemption, despite my complaints.
 
Dead space 1 was too linear. Although I love the story. The second flowed better. Probably because through the entire story there is not 1 loading screen. Makes it feel more open.
 
Ellis
Dead space 1 was too linear. Although I love the story. The second flowed better. Probably because through the entire story there is not 1 loading screen. Makes it feel more open.
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I haven't played the second yet but it's hard to imagine how they could've done DS1 any differently seeing as how all the scripted story/scare bits require you to follow a certain path.

Another overrated game in my opinion is Team Fortress 2, it's not a bad game but is it really THAT great? I don't think so. It's just like any other Source-based shooter except all cartoony and it's got a larger choice of hats than either Day of Defeat or Counter Strike.
 
Personally for me. Several games, but the one's stand out that had rave revues, Skyrim, Mass effect 3 and Diablo 3.
I've tried them all, i didn't like the story, combat, and missions of Skyrim. The graphics weren't also that great.
Mass effect 3 i found the combat repetitive, Found the story boring.
And Diablo 3 i put down after the first missions because of just having to click the right mouse button the whole time, while for some reason was experiencing lag.

But the main reasons are, because they just aren't my types of games. That's why i think that they are overrated. Mates told me to play it, because they thought it was fantastic, i thought it was "meh".

I also didn't enjoy the likes of half life 2, but i don't think it's overrated. As a game is fairly good.
 
Thing is with games that you don't like the style of, you're never going to actually think they're fantastic and will just think they are average or over-rated.

Its better to think in your own strengths which games were actually overrated that you like. For example, when GT1 first came out one of my cousins (10 years older than me!) thought it was a bit overrated as he could see that there were places that Polyphony could have improved to make it a better game. I, being so young and naive, thought it was the best racing game ever. We both were really into racing games and my cousin was able to see that while it was the best racing game on the market at that moment in time, it would be quite overrated to call it the best game ever for racing, as there were bugs, issues with loading and bizarre handling quirks.

So, its better to base games that are in your strengths that are overrated, rather than your weaknesses.
 
gordogg24p
I assume this was a general statement and not directed at me, but I wanted to clarify that I don't disregard all open world games immediately. I'm a huge Assassin's Creed and inFamous fan and still own Red Dead Redemption, despite my complaints.
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It was a general statement.

neema_t
Another overrated game in my opinion is Team Fortress 2, it's not a bad game but is it really THAT great? I don't think so. It's just like any other Source-based shooter except all cartoony and it's got a larger choice of hats than either Day of Defeat or Counter Strike.
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Oh I don't think I'll have to disagree with you there. A game with so many different and distinct classes that still feels so balanced is amazing. The collection and bartering part of the game adds a whole new layer if one chooses to go that route and it's just a blast to play. I think it deserves the hype it gets.
 
I never saw the mega appeal of counterstrike. And can SOMEBODY explain minecraft? What do you even do? Apart from build stuff....
 
^^ 6 and a half million sales and countless million more that can't afford the 25 bucks, can't prove wrong, but it is a tad hyped, especially on YouTube.

For me, I think this new DayZ thing is a bit thrown up in the air, just because a few of the bigger YouTubers did a few videos on it (once ones like paulsoaresjr post a video of it, it all goes skyward). I mean it looks fun and all, but it's SO BUGGY, even for late Alpha, and the A.I. for the zombies (their movements and all) is very jerky, almost like the engine's been recoded and screwed up.
 
LittleBigPlanet. I really don't get the fascination with it, the gameplay is so basic and dull. It's not that I don't like platform games like this either, I love them. LBP though, just bored me. I got it for free in the PSN gift thing and got bored after a couple of hours.
 
SimonK
LittleBigPlanet. I really don't get the fascination with it, the gameplay is so basic and dull. It's not that I don't like platform games like this either, I love them. LBP though, just bored me. I got it for free in the PSN gift thing and got bored after a couple of hours.
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Making your own levels and sharing it are the 2 good things about the game.
 
obsessive rules
Call of Duty, ever since they turned it modern they ruined it. Now it's just a generic FPS. I rate transformers: War for Cybertron over CoD now.
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I agree. COD is very overrated and produced EVERY single year. The last COD I truly enjoyed was WAW. It had 4 player co-op campaign, death cards for the campaign, gore, 4 player co-op zombies, and much more. Just such an enjoyable innovative cod game.
 
tlowr4
^^ 6 and a half million sales and countless million more that can't afford the 25 bucks, can't prove wrong, but it is a tad hyped, especially on YouTube.

For me, I think this new DayZ thing is a bit thrown up in the air, just because a few of the bigger YouTubers did a few videos on it (once ones like paulsoaresjr post a video of it, it all goes skyward). I mean it looks fun and all, but it's SO BUGGY, even for late Alpha, and the A.I. for the zombies (their movements and all) is very jerky, almost like the engine's been recoded and screwed up.
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Day Z is not overrated at all. There has never been anything like it.

You say it's buggy then say it is in alpha... So?

Countless games have spun off of simple mods from existing engines, look how many games spawned from Half Life...

This is the next one.

However, I don't think Bohemia Interactive wants to lose "control" over the mod though; they made a huge profit with the release of Day Z. So far as to even have the creator of Day Z with them during interviews at E3....

To call THAT overrated.... an alpha mod that has almost half a million players when the original server infrastructure was designed to only hold a couple thousand at best?

The fact that there are so many unique players despite the bugs...

Hardly overrated.
 
SimonK
LittleBigPlanet. I really don't get the fascination with it, the gameplay is so basic and dull. It's not that I don't like platform games like this either, I love them. LBP though, just bored me. I got it for free in the PSN gift thing and got bored after a couple of hours.
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Yea. I find single player mind numbingly dull.
 
II-zOoLoGy-II
Day Z is not overrated at all. There has never been anything like it.

You say it's buggy then say it is in alpha... So?

Countless games have spun off of simple mods from existing engines, look how many games spawned from Half Life...

This is the next one.

However, I don't think Bohemia Interactive wants to lose "control" over the mod though; they made a huge profit with the release of Day Z. So far as to even have the creator of Day Z with them during interviews at E3....

To call THAT overrated.... an alpha mod that has almost half a million players when the original server infrastructure was designed to only hold a couple thousand at best?

The fact that there are so many unique players despite the bugs...

Hardly overrated.
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I don't know, I play Day Z too (not as much as some) and I can kind of see his point. There's no aim, just like Minecraft, so if you try and play alone or don't see the appeal of meeting up with people I can see why one would think it's overrated. Not seeing the appeal doesn't mean it's not there, but a person who doesn't see it would consider the game overrated; just like many of the posts here. However, criticising a mod for the failings of the base game is a little odd. Even so, I think Arma II is one of the most criminally underrated games of the last century, even though it is very rough in many areas.
 
There is something about Day Z that makes me not want to get it. I just keep thinking if i get it, it will let me down because i would not have anyone i actually know play it.
 

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