Games that HAVE lived up to their hype.

[raankh]

Diablo II

That game in my opinion lived up to the considerable hype and then some. That cemented Blizzard as a top-tier developer in my mind, despite the (at the time) nearly unheard of delays. What's more, it's a sequel even.

 

[Mojozing]

Of course, 'living up to the hype' can be simply translated to 'extraordinary'

I don't think that's so. A game could appear out of nowhere without any prior advertising (i.e. no hype) and still be considered extraordinary. What I meant by hype is the way that over the months prior to the release of a game, developers release screenshots, previews, trailers etc building excitement and expectations for it.

 

[Chrono180]

I think metroid prime lived up to it's hype.

 

[Lance Icarus]

I think Mario Galaxy lived up to it's hype and far exceeded it, quite an accomplishment for a Mario game. I also REALLY hope Smash Brothers Brawl is great. I've hyped it up more than I've hyped anything.

An example of a game that didn't live up to hype is Halo 3. There was VERY little innovation here. You might as well call it Halo 2.5. I keep hearing that the inclusion of the Forge creates a somewhat holy experience in multiplayer gaming, but one, I don't play on XBox Live since most of the people on there are overly-competitive idiots. Two, custom maps have been around since the beginning of PC gaming. It's NOT a new thing.

 

[Angstrom]

I think that the elder scrolls 4 oblivion lived up it its hype it was able to live up to the 300 plus hours of gameplay with a deep story and fun gameplay

You were obviously playing a different game than I was.

--== WARNING : OBLIVION RANT COMING ==--

While the it could indeed last for 300+ hours, none of it was connected. You could simultaneously be the Master (or Mistress) of the Fighters, Mages, Thieves and Assassins guilds and no-one would actually care. It's like being simultaneously President of the US and Iran, except that instead of actually pretending to run the countries you go home and play with your Wii during which time no-one even bothers to text message you that Dick Cheney is living up to his first name again.

Once you do finally get back to actually playing the story no-one seems to notice that you were ever gone. You can leave most battle scenes and come back 2 years later and the same guards will be fighting the same demons making you wonder if they don't have some sort of deal behind your back to try and extend this war as long as possible. The story itself can be finished in about 30 minutes if you feel so inclined, which makes me hope Sean Bean didn't get paid on a per-line basis, and hopefully neither did the other 5 actors who fill in all the other dialogue by trying and failing to disguise their voice all the time.

The game mechanics can't seem to decide whether it's an RPG or a FPS - theoretically, a lvl 1 character can open any lock and defeat any monster no matter how difficult as long as the person on the other end of the controller has hair-trigger reflexes. Conversely, for those of us who get beaten in reaction tests by sloths, you could be level 100 and still get killed by mud crabs. It defeats the purpose of being an RPG since you're supposed to be playing a character who is NOT you. Of course, the game world and lacklustre AI provides endless opportunity to not even bother with skill, since you can always resort to "Standing on the other side of a rock and bonking the monster over the head with a long stick" and "Using your status as the only person in the world who can jump to stand on top of a tall thing and shoot lvl 1 fireballs until the monster finally keels over with boredom".

The leveling mechanics were possibly the worst of all. If you go out and creatively use all of your skills all the time, you get a whopping great +6 to your stats per level... as opposed to the +30 you could be earning if you sat down and repetitively did the same actions over and over for 3 hours at a time. It's a system that discourages variety and promotes "hold down the action button with a paperweight and go off and do something else" (see Yahtzee's review of "Paper Mario").

Yes, it has fantastic graphics (inability to use its own 3rd-person view aside) and the game world engine is wonderful, but the game itself is pretty shite. Yes, a lot of these issues were fixed with community mods - but they weren't a part of the game as released, and it annoys me that people had to sit around for collectively hundreds of hours to repair the broken gameplay that people were falling over themselves to declare "Teh Bestest Gamez EVAH".

--== END : OBLIVION RANT ==--

 

[end_boss]

Also depends on your definition of "hype." I stumbled across a game a couple years after its release, so I have no idea what kind of pre-release hype it may or may not have received, but a few years after the fact, I had spent said years listening to (ie: reading) people go on and on about how awesome this one game was. Eventually, I found it included in a pack with about four other games, and selling for about $25 Canadian. I figured that I'd either enjoy it, or at least have the other games to fall back on for my money's worth.

Several years after THAT moment, the game that was hyped up for me holds up as a real gem that lived up to its expectations, if not slightly surpassed, and the other discs that came with the collection have never even seen the inside of my CD-ROM drive.

And, based on these series of events, my vote for the game that lived up to its word-of-mouth hype is American McGee's Alice.


Oh, and as for pre-release hype, followed by post-release hype, and the game STILL lived up to it, I'd like to throw my vote down for Shadow of the Colossus, and then proceed to cram it down God of War's throat until it chokes to death.

 

[K.os Theory]

COD4...I don't really remember seeing any hype for it, it just kinda turned up and blew me away ( unless I missed the hype machine?? )!

 

[Kairiaku]

In my book, I think The Orange Box lived up to it's "hype"
It did in my book anyway,
and I would like to think Assassin's Creed did to some degree,
I really like the game.

 

[Lance Icarus]

In my book, I think The Orange Box lived up to it's "hype"
It did in my book anyway,
and I would like to think Assassin's Creed did to some degree,
I really like the game.

I have to agree in all those respects. As a matter of fact, the Orange Box really surpassed all expectations by having games that didn't suck. We all know Half-Life 2 was going to be more of the same goodness, but who could have predicted that it would be overshadowed by the incredible balance of Team Fortress 2 or the most innovative game in a long, long time in Portal? Really a fantastic package that comes at a one game price.

Oh, and why all the hate for Assassin's Creed? Sure the missions may be repetitious, but it's far from a bad game that failed the hype. It came very close to fufilling it fully and that's no small feat considering the Prince of Persia rebirth hype it was getting.

Lastly, who the hell is this woman everyone keeps referencing in Assassin's Creed coverage?

 

[GrowlersAtSea]

Metroid Prime comes to mind for this one.

After half a decade passed since the release of Super Metroid, Metroid Prime was announced being developed by an American company, Retro Studios. It got a lot of hype I assume just because of how long the wait was, but also because it looked so smooth and it seemed like it might be able to bring the Metroid series into three dimensions, which in and of itself sounded very, very challenging. Personally, I was among the doubters, the game looked good, but it was getting a lot of hype and I didn't imagine that Metroid could be brought to 3D too well.

But when it was released, it proved me wrong. It was pretty game, with very smooth gameplay, but most importantly it brought the feel of Metroid to 3D. It wasn't just a shooter featuring Samus and the Space Pirates, it was a real Metroid game and it felt like it.

They've also managed to follow up with two very good sequels, it really has been a marvel to me.

 

[ShmenonPie]

Fahrenheit far far surpassed my expectations of it. A good example of a game that's been crowned champion of the hype machine is Uncharted: Darke's Fortune. That's as good as it was hyped to be. The best games (for PS3, not so much 360 or Wii) are yet to come this year!

 

[tiredinnuendo]

Funny you say that with a picture form the game as your avatar. XP

People point this out to me like I might be unaware or something. I never said Oblivion wasn't *pretty*. That picture rocks.

The game sucked though.

- J

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I don't think hype can be lived up to even by extraordinary games because hype is the business of overselling, and sets unrealistic expectations. As a consequence I ignore hype surrounding games I'm looking forward to. It just sets you up for disappointment.

 

[TheHound]

I guess it depends on how much of the hype you pay attention to. For example I heard Crysis was going to be the prettiest thing ever. I played it and found that theres a bloody good game there as well as being beautiful, for me it exceeded the hype. Then I go online and find out that everyone hates it cos it was over hyped.

 

[Pixelantes Anonymous]

To name a few:

Halo 2 - this game was ahead of its time in a lot of ways, people are STILL playing it
CoD2 - There really wasn't much hype surrounding it anyway, but it really kicked some serious ass
Crackdown - an awesome game
Guitar Hero III - I don't have this game due to a spousehammer, but from all appearances people who have it are REALLY into it
BioShock
Test Drive Unlimited - another sleeper hit, IMHO

and quite obviously: World of Warcraft

 

[jdog16]

I think metroid prime lived up to it's hype.

Total agreement. Metroid Prime was initially viewed with doubt, being made by a practically unknown company and all. The end product was probably my favorite geme for the Cube, hands down. The beautiful graphics, top notch detail and atmosphere, excellent controls, and huge boss battles made for a truely memorable game.

Considering the uncertainty that the first 3D Metroid game was faced with, it exceeded all expectations and then some

 

[SUMFUC]

Crackdown & Dead Rising - Both games made you want to keep going to find everything. The plot in DR kept me going back to get the true ending.

Halo 3 - Good story line finally completed. Not perfect by any means (ie. use of the Flood, short single player, weak pistol, bewildering dual pistol combinations) though the multiplayer alone was worth the $50. The hype was annoying as everyone that knew I had a 360 kept asking me over & over if I was getting H3.

Months later I'm still playing it on Live.