Critically acclaimed overrated games.

For the most part, games reviews get it right. The media seems to be able to pick up on decent games, and even games that may not sell well, if they’re good games, get good press.

However, sometimes a game gets critically praised that just isn’t that good.

I’m bringing this up because I recently purchased Super Paper Mario when it was released in Australia.

Put simply, it’s boring.

And that’s it, really. Level design is lacking, controls are clumsy, and story isn’t entertaining. The game is a mediocre platformer and a boring RPG.

Now, I downloaded Paper Mario (the n64 one) for the Virtual Console, and found it to be very entertaining. I don’t get why they decided to go all quasi-platforming in the Wii sequel.

So, what game have you purchased on the weight of universal praise, and found to be really kinda sucky?

I could never get into the earlier FF’s. I don’t think they’re bad games, just really not my style, and I never get far when I start playing. I only tried because I felt like I "should", since common consensus of FFSers (who’s taste I trust) seems to be that they are the better games in the FF series.

I like FF7, though, which most people would probably pick first to be a critically acclaimed (albeit by fanboys) overrated game.

Star Ocean 3 got pretty good reviews and everyone seems to like it (except the same group of FFSers I mentioned before). I tried to stick up for it over and over again because I loved SO2 so much and had become a bit of a tri-ace fan girl, but arhg. I admit that its pretty bad 🙁

The most overrated FF game in my opinion is VIII, but I’m far too critical in general of games and even VIII is a reasonable game by general standards. But I certainly do not agree with the ringing praise it got from reviewers. For me, it was probably the biggest disappointment of the all the games I’ve played relative to what people were saying before I bought it (well before I joined the shrine, incidentally). Another was Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex. It was basically Crash 3 except for the PS2 and with slightly better graphics. What a let-down.

I by and large agree that reviewers tend to get it right, but because I have higher standards than most game magazines/websites generally do, and tend to pick at flaws that others can just overlook, I either rent the game first or buy from a series or developer that I know what I’m getting when I buy their games.

Halo.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Kingdom Hearts II. In fact, I do prefer it over the original. This preference, however, is based on gameplay and original content. The Disney content in the original seemed to be "bent" around Sora’s being there, a little bit better. In II, it was like, "Okay, we’re just going to play out the plots of the movies." I don’t have any suggestions of how they could have fixed it, but it made it feel a little bit rote.

That makes me a little sad 🙁

I’ve hardly ever paid actual money for a game that I disliked, but there are a couple instances. I paid attention to the reviews for Xenosaga and Star Ocean 3, bought both, and never finished either one. I’d like to sell them one of these days, but since it would involve actually thinking about them, it’s not very likely to happen.

Also Pokemon D/P. I didn’t really find it fun at all and forced myself to play through it just so I could transfer pokemon from Leaf Green. I eventually finished and lost interest before I even started transferring pokes.

D/P had too much stuff in it.

EDIT:
FF12 sucked too.

Actually yeah, i’ll have to add Pokemon Diamond to this list.

I bought it because of the sheer weight of hype at FFS, and i think i’ve played it once.

The battle system is very shallow when compared to similar RPGs, and being only able to use four abilities per pokemon doesn’t allow for a very diverse play style.

GTA, by far the most overated set of games I have seen, seriously San andreas got 99/100!

chewey stole my post.

You didn’t like D/P, Duo? I’m sorry 🙁 Brim and I sold it to you so hard, too.

i meant halo ;B first thing i was did was ctrl + f for halo when i entered the thread. didn’t see chewey’s other post!

halo is good fun and all, but it’s merely a good game, not, like, TOTALLY AWESOME.

@ D/P

I think I may be the only person who really does not think very highly of it. Well, Lee seems to not like it very much either so we’ll say it is just the two of us.

Most people seem to like it and that is a-okay with me.

AAAND

I am not too fond of the Metroid Prime series. I could never really get into 1 or 2 and I’m not sure I’ll like 3 too much either. We’ll see though.

Half Life and Halo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE THEM BOTH!!!!!!!

Final Fantasy VII was overrated too, but it`s worth it! It`s a truly good game! And the prequel Crisis Core impressed me too! They`ve just made it too great, to do not overrate it!

GTA, The Sims… And Final Fantasy XII…. It`s good but not good enough…

Halo.

I 2nd that. I waited until the price went down, then I bought myself a copy to see what all the hype was about. It’s a good FPS, but not the best one ever made, like everyone and their momma was claiming at the time.

Another game that really let me down was Dragon Ball Z ~ Budokai 3. I was all hyped up about the new feature where you can fly around Earth. I was dissapointed right away. Plus, I’ve never liked the fighting system of the Budokai’s. I bought the game only for that one feature.

I was so excited when I first got Pok�mon Pearl, but I was so disappointed when I "finished" it. I seriously thoughtt that it was going to be just a little bit different from the rest of the Pok�mon games, but it wasn’t. They updated the graphics a smidge, but that’s about it.

Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I never played it the first time around, and I only got to play it for the first time two years ago…about 5 hours into the game, and I never touched it again. Severely overrated, and very disappointing after all the praise I’ve heard.

Halo.

Prince Of Persia: The first game is ok but a bit repetitive, but then Prince Of Persia 2 and 3 just turn out to be boring.

Also Xenosaga for having too much story and shitty gameplay and, Dragon Quest 8.

Half Life and Halo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I HATE THEM BOTH!!!!!!!

HALF LIFE??? wtf half life is incredible, great level design, a completely different way of presenting cinematics, a brilliant ai, and a great multiplayer, whats not to like?

Halo seems overrated. I don’t actually own the game but when I get to play it at my friends house and at family member’s houses the only part i seem to enjoy is the multiplayer and thats basically all.

I couldn’t really think of a game so I said that because mr. chewey reminded me of it.

Also, Super Paper Mario didn’t seem that bad. I Haven’t boughten the N64 game on the virtual console or the original so I can’t compare it to that like you did, but it did enjoy it even though it was quite easy and didn’t take long to finish.

Star Ocean 3 got pretty good reviews and everyone seems to like it (except the same group of FFSers I mentioned before). I tried to stick up for it over and over again because I loved SO2 so much and had become a bit of a tri-ace fan girl, but arhg. I admit that its pretty bad 🙁

SO 3 was just lovely. And the part in which you find out you’re living in a computer simulation gave the gamer (me!) a huge kick in the arse. However, I will forgive you for that slur because of your undying love for Mr.Hewlett. 🙂

Also, Gears of War is overrated. And it’s shit also.

COMMANDER KEEN

…

GTA, by far the most overrated set of games I have seen, seriously San andreas got 99/100!

Out of your Got dang mind, GTA games have great enticing stories, they are simple stories, but given the plot, they are comparably good to any other gangster shooter. San Andreas got good reviews for gameplay, more weapons, customize ability, the ability to change your appearance, you had to eat, if you didn’t got to your house for a while, people will say you stink, and you get to interact with the NPCs, not to mention the mini-games. It was an all around stellar game,

For me, gotta be half-life, not because it was omfg horrible, but I couldn’t even manage to leave the building, so it fails, jokes of course, but Idk how to get out I get to a door and some smiling creep won’t let me out, I tried throwing grenades but no go.

Also thank you Denny at least someone else can get past the voice acting and see it’s great interior.

I’ve actually never bought a game solely based on praise alone.
I have bought games that have been praised though, For Example:

The first time I ever heard about FF7 was when my friend and I first saw the commercial. We were in awe with our jaws hitting the floor. I was already an FF fan before that (although I never owned a SNES and never got to play those FF titles), so when it came out for the PS1, I had to buy it.
The same goes for the MG series. I was a fan of the NES games, and when it came out for PS1, I had to have it.

Halo 1 and 2(havent played 3 yet)-the only good thing in halo is the multiplayer which is inferior to the multiplayer in half-life and its mods.

FF8-The draw system just made the game really easy,and the story gets boring and i have to force myself to continue at points.

WoW-Diablo 2 enhanced-seriously,this game got boring after lvl 15.And the players and lag are assholes

I’ll have to agree with May on the Kingdom Hearts post.

I loved playing the game and it was extremely fun. The story grabbed me, and the disney theme allowed me to somewhat reconnect with my childhood.

However, the story-line only gets more story-lines tossed in, and tons of questions go unanswered. That usually adds to the extremely lame fanbase of it, and there are some real "KH4Lyfe" idoits out there. The fighting system, although visually appealing, was extremely easy to work with, and I flew through the game within a few hours.

It got alright reviews, but to a certain degree it wasn’t satisfying.

SUIKODEN II DOESN’T GET ENOUGH PRAISE

I think it does Ash. I remember Gamestop was gonna give 40 bucks for selling it back to them. A used PS game sold to Gamestop for that much? Man that’s awesome, but I’d never sell that game. Priceless.

SO 3 was just lovely. And the part in which you find out you’re living in a computer simulation gave the gamer (me!) a huge kick in the arse. However, I will forgive you for that slur because of your undying love for Mr.Hewlett.

Also, Gears of War is overrated. And it’s shit also.

I agree with all that. SO3 was a great game. Can’t wait for 4.

But i wouldn’t say Gears is shit though. It was still fun.

Shadow of the Collossus.

It was an empty game. Sure it was fun battling the many bosses but the "in-between" parts were boring with basically nothing else to do than follow the light to the next Collossus.

I felt like playing a tech Demo for Zelda that revolved around horse riding and bosses, with nothing other to do in between to keep the game from going overly repetitive. The was just nothing to do as far as replay value goes.

(oh right… A time attack mode, how sweet!)

This second game by this team was nothing compared to ICO.

GTA, by far the most overated set of games I have seen, seriously San andreas got 99/100!

100% agree

but it’s possible i’m just too busy with MMO’s to ever get into any other game ever. i’m still surprised i managed to sneak in God of War while being addicted to mmo’s. to bad i still have 100 other games i need to play. >.<

also it’s not possible to overrate HL/2. that game is just god. lol if you don’t like it i just assume you either never play, don’t like, or just plain suck at fps’s in general.

that’s like me never have ever played an adventure game and then calling grim fandango a piece of shit game. i simply have no right nor sense. so i think of you the same if that’s where your coming from.

hl> you 😉

Gears of War

Out of your Got dang mind, GTA games have great enticing stories, they are simple stories, but given the plot, they are comparably good to any other gangster shooter. San Andreas got good reviews for gameplay, more weapons, customize ability, the ability to change your appearance, you had to eat, if you didn’t got to your house for a while, people will say you stink, and you get to interact with the NPCs, not to mention the mini-games. It was an all around stellar game,

For me, gotta be half-life, not because it was omfg horrible, but I couldn’t even manage to leave the building, so it fails, jokes of course, but Idk how to get out I get to a door and some smiling creep won’t let me out, I tried throwing grenades but no go.

Also thank you Denny at least someone else can get past the voice acting and see it’s great interior.

Half Life? you can’t be serious! well aslong as you don’t mean half life 2, I still stand by what I said about san andreas, going around killing people is fun, and most of the missons are great but I think it doesn’t deserves the ammount of affection it’s received, maybe just over half of it.

Halos 1 and 2. I still don’t see whats so great about them to this day.
The multiplayer is horrible in terms of weapon wise. If you wanted to you could just hold one of the 1 hit kill weapons the whole game like the rocket launcher and just stand over the point where it spawns at then just keep killing everyone.
The same concept goes with the sniper rifle, you just camp in one spot where the ammo for it spawns at and snipe everyone. Its especially horrible if you have the camouflage and an over shield on. The game is broken in many aspects but is constantly said to be "the greatest FPS yet" or "The greatest FPS of all time".

I have a weird love/hate relationship with the GTA games.

Grand Theft Auto, the first, 2D top-down game, was awesome, awesome fun. I mean, the whole idea in that game was to steal better and better cars, run down as many pedestrians as possible, and go on awesome machine-gun kill frenzies. GTA2 was more of the same with better graphics, and I could go with that.

When I first played GTA3 for the PS2, I was blown away. It was the first time I had experienced an ‘open world’ that large, and I was amazed that everything I could do in 2D sprites I could now do in 3D.

Except after a while, I realised I couldn’t. The fun factor of the game was being siphoned away and the ‘hardcore’ aspect of the game, which was a joke before, started being more serious. I hate the missions in GTA – I only ever play to steal a car and barn around trying to lose the cops.

I bought GTA:San Andreas the day it came out, and I just couldn’t get into it. There is so much in the game to play and do, but i’d just lost interest.

Personally, I think the missions and the ‘gangsta’ attitude took away from the game. Which is why I probably like Crackdown so much – it’s like GTA crossed with the (good) Spider-man games and is way more focussed on the ‘kill the crap out of everything’ fun.

Also, those who are knocking Halo multiplayer because they get their ass handed to them by missile or sniper whores – learn to play, please. Believe it or not, there are tactics to counter that sort of behaviour, and still win. Battle Rifle beats Missile Launcher every time. And in Halo 1, nothing is more satisfactory than taking out a sniper with the magnum.

EDIT: And although I thought this was obvious, please post games that you own/owned previously and bought because you were convinced it was going to be great. No fanboy "I played it at a friends place" arguments please.

EDIT: And although I thought this was obvious, please post games that you own/owned previously and bought because you were convinced it was going to be great. No fanboy "I played it at a friends place" arguments please.

well…if your gonna put it that way…

devil may cry
res evil 4
prince of persia

it could be that mmo’s woudln’t let me sit down and play them through. but there was nothing special in these games to make me wanna keep playing it. and both onimusha 3 and god of war were able to pull me away from my mmo addiction and have me complete it all the way through.

imo that says something. the above games however. they couldn’t pull me away.

HALF LIFE??? wtf half life is incredible, great level design, a completely different way of presenting cinematics, a brilliant ai, and a great multiplayer, whats not to like?

For me it`s just a shooter that`s good, but not that good to be rated that good as it is rated!

In other words, you simply didn’t like it, so you think it didn’t deserve its rating. That’s completely retarded; par for the course where you’re concerned.

Half Life was revolutionary when it came out. There were just no other FPS that could be compared to it in terms of playability, story and overall production value. If you compare it with today’s games of the same genre, then it’s obvious it won’t have aged all that well. You have to take it for what it was at the time of its release.

Have you played it recently? It’s aged better graphically than most other games of its time, and its gameplay is solid even by today’s standards.

Have you played it recently? It’s aged better graphically than most other games of its time, and its gameplay is solid even by today’s standards.

also if you get blue shift which i can’t imagine is going for much these days there’s the high definition pack, which makes it look even better.

Pok�mon D/P. This is effectively exactly the same as the other Pok�mon games, once you’ve played one Pok�mon game you pretty much have played them all.

Halo 1 & 2 (haven’t played 3 and never will). Not much depth, generic, and really quite boring.

Half-Life 1. Though still a good game, wasn’t really THAT good, plus I don’t like how it over-shadowed Grim Fandango back in 1998 (though that really isn’t a fault for the game).

also if you get blue shift which i can’t imagine is going for much these days there’s the high definition pack, which makes it look even better.

Or even better, if you get Half-Life 2, Half-Life: Source is included. Which is the entire game redone in the Source engine.

And then there is this (http://www.blackmesasource.com/).

i tried halflife: source. it’s more like the old halflife except the MENU is like hl2 and you can pick the chapters. the game itself i couldn’t tell the diffrence. O_o

but blackmesa. THATS’ what i thought hl:source was gonna be. and crap it’s gorgous! >.<

World of War Craft. If I have seen just one game where my obese step-father sits around in his boxers and drools over the elf women then I have seen it all. Halo and GTA no question about it. Sure GTA 3 looked fun, and was very playable, but it seems like locker room language is all the hype in the latest gaming crazes. Halo just looks boring to me, plus its no fun playing a game where the idea is to be online 24-7, its no fun when you are always getting killed by immature kids that have no life beyond an X-Box. KOTOR 2 was a big let down despite the hype from KOTOR fans and rpgers alike, it couldn’t keep the immaculence that the original had. But I suppose that’s the outcome of rushed projects: "Rushed game = tons of left out content and overall crappy gameplay and low replayability."

Killzone…I was hearing all this stuff about how this would be the "halo-killer" for the PS2.

I should have asked someone who had actually played it cause the fools on the intranets had no idea what they were talking about. Physics were terrible, graphics not so good…weapons clunky, and even the AI were filled to the brim with stupidity.

Love that game to death though. It frustrates all of my halo-playing friends to no end. Their rebuddles range from, "Aw, I wasn’t really trying," to "That’s why Microsoft never picked up this piece of crap…" That’s the only reason I keep it around…plus, IT WAS $20!! I COULDN’T LET IT GO!!!

::implusive cheap item purchaser:: =^^=

Metroid Prime. The first and second. Both got rave reviews, both were average in my opinion. I’m not even going to waste time on the third one.

As for the people who didn’t like Pokemon D/P… I’ll have a full post later on why it is the greatest thing to happen to Pokemon since Gold and Silver.

i thought metroid prime was pretty hard to fault. not a great fps, but an excellent sort of platformer more than anything.

didnt play 2 or anything, though ;(

I DIDN’T LIKE METROID PRIME BECAUSE I AM NOT A FAN OF THOSE TYPE OF GAMES

YOU KNOW FPS GAMES

ANYTHING LIKE THAT I HATE NO MATTER HOW GOOD OF A GAME IT MAY BE

I WILL NOT FIND ENJOYMENT OUT OF IT

NOT EVEN IF IT HAD POKEMON OR SUIKODEN IN IT

God of War

Halo, all of them

Counter Strike: Source. Dont get me wrong. CSS has awesome graphics, an almost perfect physics engine, a balanced gameplay. But when I walked into the store and gave my $35 I was expecting a bit of improvment on the gameplay. On the other hand, I bought a CS 1.6 with improved graphics. I feel like Ive bought the same game AGAIN!
There has not been an improvment, or an introduction of something new in CS since CS 1.6.

Well I got CSS first so meh.

recently: The Darkness
great ideas, shit execution
gunplay was very mediocre, story was CRAP and the multiplayer was broken as hell but it still got a like what, an 85% average?
ridiculous
also have to back up Raidenex on GTA

Halo.

GTA, by far the most overated set of games I have seen, seriously San andreas got 99/100!
True, those games suck hard IMO.

Half-Life would be another very overrated crap.

CoD, MoH, Battlefield, Counter-Strike… they aren’t so great really, the theme is VERY clich�, "story" sucks… well, at least these games are definently not for me!

You are obvious biased against FPS games, so your point means moot, and I think you’re wrong anyway.

Halo. I played it for about 10 minutes and thought meh… back to quake 😀
Also, GTA. Now the first one had me playing for quite a while, but I didn’t show any interest in the ps2 GTAs.

FF8 isn’t over-rated. Not the best game in the world, but half of the people who play it, hate it because they think it is inferior to FF7. FF7 is, however, very over-rated.

In other words, you simply didn’t like it, so you think it didn’t deserve its rating. That’s completely retarded; par for the course where you’re concerned.

He probably wasn’t able to get past that sound-detecting monster. Half-Life is the first FPS that brought the concept of puzzle-solving to the mainstream, the game isn’t all about shooting enemies until they die. In fact, you usually could get through the game only killing a few dozen enemies if you’re good enough. 😛

Counter Strike: Source. Dont get me wrong. CSS has awesome graphics, an almost perfect physics engine, a balanced gameplay. But when I walked into the store and gave my $35 I was expecting a bit of improvment on the gameplay. On the other hand, I bought a CS 1.6 with improved graphics. I feel like Ive bought the same game AGAIN!
There has not been an improvment, or an introduction of something new in CS since CS 1.6.

I guess you haven’t played Zombie Survival or Deathmatch. Those modes aren’t available in 1.6.

As for me, my vote is on HL2. The game really deserves all the praise it gets for its gameplay, but the level design it has is waaay too unbalanced and frustrating. I really hate the objective defending scenes.