Poll: Top 10 most overrated games I?ve ever played *WALL OF TEXT AHOY!*

[northeast rower]

-snip-

Fair enough, my mind was wandering as I read and I jumped to some conclusions that I probably shouldn't have. That said, I still don't agree with any of these.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Seriously mate this isn't a book store, keep things on forums simple if you want anyone to read it.

But I can't comment on this because of the same reason most user reviews can't be commented on, a lot of very loaded opinions in there and someone behind it spoiling for a fight, this is no way to start a discussion of any sort.

 

[Tryzon]

I'm sorry, I have a very high tolerance for wordy posts but that thing is just bloody ridiculous.

The fact that it's the same old "overrated games" thread doesn't help.

EDIT: Okay, read a couple that applied to games I care about. Yeah, some of your criticisms are perfectly legitimate and you've done a decent job of not being a dick about it. However, I think you should bear in mind that when people say a game is "great" or "brilliant", they're not necessarily saying it's perfect.

Glad you see I can be at least adequately reasonable. I'm aware that people are always using hyperbole all the time every minute of every day, but I also know for a fact that things like Half-Life have some insanely die-hard fans out there. Good for them, since I'm at least as obsessive over TimeSplitters and junk, but this list is just my way of venting some of these frustrations in a way that might be interesting or even entertaining to some folk.

Tryzon uses Wall of Text
...it's super effective!
Wild Forum user faints, Tryzon received 500xp.

You know, I think you'd be better served posting something of this length (and frankly of this topic) to a personal blog, where you can format it better and break it up so it's not such an imposing wall of text. That or it's a better topic for the review forum, but yeah 10k words is waaay to much for the average forum goer to want to read. Let alone if it's just a rambling list of games you don't like.

If you wanted to foster an actual discussion about it then you'd have been better off with short, succinct summations of why you disliked them. Thus leaving room for people to come in, quickly read through your OP, and then discuss the points in further detail.

Again though, use a blog or the review forum next time. This is rather out of place where it currently stands.

I actually DO maintain a blog, which is what these pieces are intended for. I stick them on the Escapist for the hell of it, but perhaps I should mention that at the top. Obviously I know that an essay like this is well beyond what a casual reader will want, but everyone else is in for a treat, I hope. Thanks for the constructive criticism, all the same

 

[pppppppppppppppppp]

You know I don't say this often, but TL;DR.

Of the titles mentioned though, I loved HL2, KOTOR and Bioshock, so yeah.

 

[Treblaine]

System Shock and BioShock were made by the same people. They are perfectly entitled to tell a variation on a similar story/theme.

Just a slight correction here. System Shock 2 and Bioshock were similar and made by a lot of the same people. System Shock 1 was totally different than both of them and was made by people like Warren Spector and Doug Church.

I assumed that the OP was being dumb and really meant System Shock 2.

Because System Shock (1994) is SOOOOO different in premise from BioShock that any allegations of being essentially the same are totally irrelevant. There is no way you can play System Shock and say "well I have no reason to play Bioshock now". Ken Levine was on the team who made System Shock (1994) but he did not have much overall creative control.

As for this blog post...that's all it is. I don't even really see the discussion here. Stuff like this should be on blogspot.

Yep. The original post is supposed to kick off discussion with a brief premise... NOT be used as free blog-space. By all means link to a blog if you think anyone will go there.

*This is BEYOND a wall of text. This is a chapter of a book*

Yeah, pay for a blog.

 

[Willsor]

I agree about Bioshock, gta4 and Tomb raider, Disagree about black and mgs4, indifferent about the rest.
Gta was so unoptimised on the ps3 and 360, I can't believe all the mags were giving it solid 10's when it ran like a pile of wank. maybe thats just the pc gamer in me talking.

MGS4's story is pretty crazy, but trust me (I hadn't played the previous games when I played it) a few run through and you will be more than involved in the story). Admittedly not everyone will want to do that, and I fully understand, but once you know the plot and what the hell's going on, it'll suck you right in

 

[Tryzon]

and finally, jeez, you're not running the 100m sprint, the KotOR movement speed is perfectly understandable! It just sounds like you're more of the Bethesda school of exploration and wonder -based RPGs than the BioWare story and character driven RPGs. And that's fine, to each his own. But KotOR damn well is my own.

You guess correctly that I prefer Bethesda's style of RPG, though their latest movements have me questioning that relationship, but I still say you run at the speed of marmite in KotOR. Given that I enjoy talking to everyone I can and finding every little quest, having to slooooooowly make my way through town and then spend another minute waiting at the gate to the next section while my buddies caught up with me was pretty much the closest I've come to a vision of Hell.

But as you put it, to each his own

BioShock ('07)

Yes, that S is meant to be capitalised. Yes, you have been getting it wrong all these years. Yes, it's a little something called CamelCase. You're welcome.

Moving on from title formats, what we've got here is 2007's game of the year for 97% of the planet's population. Folk at the time went on and on about the cool powers, the non-linearity, the "surprising" twist and the fact that various themes rarely touched on in games make prominent appearances. What all these people were apparently unaware of is that very nearly everything BioShock does well was pioneered in much the same manner by System Shock, which I've never even played but can still easily tell you from secondary data deserves all the praise its prettier, more mainstream successor got and continues to get.

Now, I'm fully supportive of taking ideas from the past and making them either better or compatible with some advance in technology or ideology, but BioShock is almost literally a remake with a steampunk makeover. Seriously, you could make a drinking game out of comparing the two! The vague premise of wandering about a place in first-person collecting MacGuffins and getting gadgets can be excused, but when you consider that much of the plot (including the famous twist, which isn't all that brilliant if you ask me) were done to varying extents well over a decade earlier. Of course, a cynic might point out that BioShock was a much higher-profile release and had a larger potential market, meaning that it had a far greater chance of being noticed for its above-average plot and thus earning accolades from the mainstream critics, but that'd just be a mad theory, I 'spose.

But what gets me is that even if we ignore how BioShock hoovered up most of the awards that System Shock truly earned, there are countless grievances that prevent it from being worth more than a single playthrough. For one thing, the original release didn't let you turn off the accursed Vita-Chambers, whose purpose is to bring you back to life with almost no consequence but not restore the health of enemies you've previously attacked. To put it simply, they allowed you to beat the game through relentless attrition, destroying any semblance of skill that might be required. They mercifully heard the outcry about this and added the option to deactivate the buggers, but even then they managed to mess it up by giving the setting the confusing name of "Disable Vita-Chambers On/OFF". Smooth.

And what of the fact that specialisation is all but non-existent? You get so many slots for every category of upgrade that you become insanely overpowered, which isn't helped by the tidal wave (ha) of medkits and ammo. And while the variety of powers you can wield is generally an extremely good thing, some are practically worthless (insect swarm) and a few tip the scales too much in your favour (natural camouflage). You're also encouraged to string complicated combos of different plasmids together, like setting a trap as an ambush, enraging one guy, freezing another and then zapping them all when they step in the water, and while tactics like these can make bringing down a Big Daddy more feasible at times, it's usually far quicker and simpler to zap everyone and then shoot them, perhaps setting somebody on fire for good measure.

BioShock is definitely entertaining while it lasts, and the style and themes are undeniably far above the intellectual level of the great majority of big-name releases, but I say there are just too many constant niggles for it to be the masterpiece so many see it as. I also love how both endings manage to be immensely underwhelming after so much build-up.

What an utterly spurious complaint. Was Ben Hur a bad film because it was a remake? Was the same for The Man Who Knew Too Much?

System Shock and BioShock were made by the same people. They are perfectly entitled to tell a variation on a similar story/theme.

"the original release didn't let you turn off the accursed Vita-Chambers"

What a bitchy complaint, the Vita-chambers patch was very soon and there is a SIMPLE solution. If you do die and spawn from a vita-chamber... then load from a save game. YES you CAN complete the game through relentless attrition, but that would be really really dumb. You can play through Hitman just running in with a gun and shooting everyone but again, that would be dumb. How about you stop being dumb.

And now the bitching that you are given TOO MANY OPTIONS! Oh the awfulness of too much flexibility, that you can experiment a bit with all the options presented to you and aren't forced to travel down an extremely narrow path.

Again, if you just want to be an idiot and simply spam electro-bolt over and over then that is your problem. Spamming electro bolt is only easier for you because you can't comprehend more complex combinations of attacks.

Consider how swarm is a homing attack, how fire can cause enemies to retreat to water, how electro can stun multiple enemies in water, how telekinesis can throw explosives and weights.

You niggles are spurious and entirely based on your personal inability to use the options given to you.

First off, as I said in the piece, I DID enjoy BioShock, but only to the extent that I could while also taking note of all the questionable design decisions. Thanks for actually taking the time to systemetically respond to my individual points, but I still feel the need to clear some things up here.

Someone else has already pointed out that System Shock and BioShock were NOT, in fact, made by the exact same people, though I grant you a fair number of them. I'm supportive of remakes/re-releases/re-imaginings that bring things to a new audience, but what annoys me is that System Shock went by with barely a flicker on the commercial radar while BioShock swooned in with its big marketing budget and helped itself to whatever awards it fancied. THAT'S what I hate. Also, I freaking love the Eighties Scarface but don't care about the original, since Mafia gangsters and all that doesn't interest me. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Yeah, the vita-chambers thing is a bit of a shaky point, but it was more a demonstration of the kind of bad design decisions I saw the game as being filled with. My fault if that isn't totally clear, but that was my intention.

I didn't complain that there were "too many options". Indeed, I said the variety of powers at your disposal was "generally an extremely good thing". Being able to push a guy into a pool and then zap him to death is deeply, deeply awesome, but I still say they went a bit mad with some of the abilities. My far bigger problem, though, is how overpowered you can very easily become as the game nears its end; the game gets easier rather than harder, especially because of that chameleon power, which makes stealth ten times easier. The whole game just feels like a watered-down RPG, is my issue. Some more focus would suit me grand.

And I still do argue that simply zapping a guy and then thwacking him is often just as effective as coming up with a complex series of attacks but far less effort. Seems a bit pointless to me.

But yes. I hope that's made my intentions clearer. Thanks for your time.

 

[Sixcess]

I was going to respond to the Tomb Raider comments, but fuck it... this is just another lame Yahtzee wannabe who isn't funny, insightful or even accurate, so why bother.

Really, most attention whoring thread I've seen here.

 

[DracoSuave]

Having a list of games you feel is over-rated is worthy of a blog post, and it might even be an entertaining blog post. I'm not going to criticize you for expressing your opinion.

However, good blog posts do not make good forum topics. A better topic would be 'What games do you feel are overrated?' An even better one would be 'What makes a game over-rated, in your opinion?' The best idea would be to find the last over-rated games thread, and add in your opinion to a previous discussion.

As well, your poll (much like most escapist poll topics) is absolutely senseless. Your essay is a list of over-rated games, however it does not present a central opinion to agree or disagree with. It presents multiple opinions on multiple topics, and it is extremely likely most people will agree with parts and disagree with other parts of the whole. You cannot craft a agree/disagree opinion out of such a work.

Now for the nitty gritty.

Your opening needs a lot of work. Please do not title your introduction as 'prologue.' This is not a narrative piece. Epilogue is also bad form for this sort of work.

As well, your opening paragraph is disjointed, and while it starts fine, you waste the last three sentances of the first paragraph, and the entire second paragraph with a disclaimer to say 'I have opinions that may differ from yours.

If you want your work to be taken seriously, don't preface your work by reminding everyone that it's just your opinion; it's a waste of the reader's time. They should already be aware it's an opinion piece. On top of this, your tone is confrontational in how you present your disclaimer. The combination of the two causes you to commit a grave sin: You are insulting your readers' intellect.

This insulting the reader trend continues on for the entire piece. TL;DR really does apply here. It really IS too long, because you've chosen to spend more time insulting your potential audience, than actually making their time worthwhile. If you edit out the condescending tone, depersonalize it, and removed the need to constantly remind the reader that an opinion piece contains opinions... you'll end up with an article that is a third as long but three times more enjoyable and worth discussing on its merits.

 

[Tryzon]

Yep. The original post is supposed to kick off discussion with a brief premise... NOT be used as free blog-space. By all means link to a blog if you think anyone will go there.
Yeah, pay for a blog.

Actually, I was under the impression we weren't allowed to just post links leading to other sites. I'm sure I've seen people cautioned about that. Maybe it wasn't explained very well, and it was a while ago.

 

[Tryzon]

I was going to respond to the Tomb Raider comments, but fuck it... this is just another lame Yahtzee wannabe who isn't funny, insightful or even accurate, so why bother.

Really, most attention whoring thread I've seen here.

More accurately, I think you could call me a blogger who thought he'd share his stuff on the only forum he visits with any regularity. A Yahtzee wannabe I am not, though I'm well aware these forums have seen more than their share. Indeed, as I mentioned to someone else, this piece is very unusual as I almost always look at games I DO like and DO want others to enjoy. Of course, when I posted my Penumbra review on here last month, nobody commented. I'm getting mixed messages.

 

[The White Hunter]

Well for me it'd be black ops, oblivion, GTA4, dragon age, mass effect 2, shadow of the collosus. I wont bore with details.

 

[Fiskmasen]

You typed out 10,004 words explaining your own personal taste... I can't wrap my head around that. Do you know how extremely futile this whole undertaking was? I mean, what exactly do you expect us to answer? We can't say you're wrong, because it's your own personal taste.
It does however seem (from what I skimmed through; fuck, no, I'm not reading through the entirety of your crazed ramblings) like you copy-pasted Ben Croshaw's opinions on to the games where it applied, and that's just lazy writing. Therefore I'm introducing yet another option to your poll:
Get your own damn opinions, sheep

 

[Sixcess]

ore accurately, I think you could call me a blogger who thought he'd share his stuff on the only forum he visits with any regularity. A Yahtzee wannabe I am not, though I'm well aware these forums have seen more than their share. Indeed, as I mentioned to someone else, this piece is very unusual as I almost always look at games I DO like and DO want others to enjoy. Of course, when I posted my Penumbra review on here last month, nobody commented. I'm getting mixed messages.

I rarely browse the review forum so this is the first time I've read anything you've written, and as such it comes across very badly.

An attack on one popular game/series could spark interesting discussion. An attack on ten, in a single post, at great length, written with a mix of unfunny snark, condescension and arrogance... looks like desperate attention seeking, even if that wasn't your intention.

 

[Tryzon]

I can agree with most of these, even some of the points about BioShock, which I still liked a lot more than you. Although, I had a lot more fun with the options given than you clearly did which is one of my favorite aspects. That said, it was some degree of a retread and the ending absolutely sucked along with the final boss to reach it.

However, I cannot agree with anything you've said about Knights of the Old Republic whatsoever, and your Dragon Quest recommendation pains me significantly as I would never play the game again if that happened, and it's one of my favorites. The combat, character building and dialogue choices are generally the entire thing I like about it. Sure, I can agree that KOTOR is way too easy on the default setting, which is why I only play it on Hard (which solves most of the button-mashing problems and usually leads to death very quickly if you don't use abilities), however, outside of that I enjoy the tactics quite a bit and it's one of my favorite things.

One thing I have to wonder about a bit is if you played KOTOR on PC, with all the "click click click" mentions, and if that's the case, I can agree the interface was clumsy and should have been much better designed. In particular the lack of a proper hotbar was just awful and it really should have played like the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins and it wasn't even close. On Xbox though, I'm fine with the controls and vastly prefer it to any of the more recent setups BioWare has tried to use on console.

Also, while I dislike or wasn't that impressed by most of these games, some of it is for very different reasons. In particular, you seem to focus on the storyline a lot, which is something I simply can't do. If I were take a perfect story and add it onto a game in score form on a 10 point scale, it wouldn't add more than 1 point in a best case scenario. Story means that little to me in video games and I focus almost entirely on the interactivity aspect.

I also liked the first 3 games in the Metal Gear Solid series and MGS2 and MGS3 in particular are some of my favorite games, but the 4th one was a bit of a disappointment to me, mainly because it was a poorly structure rehash of too much stuff from previous games. The nostalgia references were cute at first, but it eventually became painfully clear that's what the entire game was built around and while I still enjoyed it, it wasn't something I'd rave about and I haven't felt the urge to replay it much since 2008.

Another reasonable person. Must say I'm pleasantly surprised. There were a lot more idiots last time I posted something big on here. Anyway, I am indeed referring to the PC version of KotOR and had never considered that the Xbox one might be slightly less hassle to play. It's funny how differently we play: I played normal at first, but when I came back for a second playthrough, I set it to easy so I could spend as little time with the game and get to the story quicker. I wouldn't usually do that, but I just found the combat so mind-numbing that I had to limit the damage. I'm intrigued that you can play the same game purely for the gameplay. Good for you.

And I've felt no desire to replay MGS4 since the first time, and certainly wouldn't watch all the cutscenes again if I did. Not on your life. I acknowledge that anyone who can write a story that labyrinthine and then tie all every single loose end clearly has some skill and perseverance, but I can't call the story good in the sense of being engaging. It almost felt like some peculiar MGS Christmas special, with every single character who was either definitely not dead or had unfinished business popping in for their ten minutes of closure and then running off again or getting killed. I just think it would benefit so much from simplification instead of going for the Spider-Man 3 approach of chucking everything in.

 

[Tryzon]

I can agree with most of these, even some of the points about BioShock, which I still liked a lot more than you. Although, I had a lot more fun with the options given than you clearly did which is one of my favorite aspects. That said, it was some degree of a retread and the ending absolutely sucked along with the final boss to reach it.

However, I cannot agree with anything you've said about Knights of the Old Republic whatsoever, and your Dragon Quest recommendation pains me significantly as I would never play the game again if that happened, and it's one of my favorites. The combat, character building and dialogue choices are generally the entire thing I like about it. Sure, I can agree that KOTOR is way too easy on the default setting, which is why I only play it on Hard (which solves most of the button-mashing problems and usually leads to death very quickly if you don't use abilities), however, outside of that I enjoy the tactics quite a bit and it's one of my favorite things.

One thing I have to wonder about a bit is if you played KOTOR on PC, with all the "click click click" mentions, and if that's the case, I can agree the interface was clumsy and should have been much better designed. In particular the lack of a proper hotbar was just awful and it really should have played like the PC version of Dragon Age: Origins and it wasn't even close. On Xbox though, I'm fine with the controls and vastly prefer it to any of the more recent setups BioWare has tried to use on console.

Also, while I dislike or wasn't that impressed by most of these games, some of it is for very different reasons. In particular, you seem to focus on the storyline a lot, which is something I simply can't do. If I were take a perfect story and add it onto a game in score form on a 10 point scale, it wouldn't add more than 1 point in a best case scenario. Story means that little to me in video games and I focus almost entirely on the interactivity aspect.

I also liked the first 3 games in the Metal Gear Solid series and MGS2 and MGS3 in particular are some of my favorite games, but the 4th one was a bit of a disappointment to me, mainly because it was a poorly structure rehash of too much stuff from previous games. The nostalgia references were cute at first, but it eventually became painfully clear that's what the entire game was built around and while I still enjoyed it, it wasn't something I'd rave about and I haven't felt the urge to replay it much since 2008.

Another reasonable person. Must say I'm pleasantly surprised. There were a lot more idiots last time I posted something big on here. Anyway, I am indeed referring to the PC version of KotOR and had never considered that the Xbox one might be slightly less hassle to play. It's funny how differently we play: I played normal at first, but when I came back for a second playthrough, I set it to easy so I could spend as little time with the game and get to the story quicker. I wouldn't usually do that, but I just found the combat so mind-numbing that I had to limit the damage. I'm intrigued that you can play the same game purely for the gameplay. Good for you.

And I've felt no desire to replay MGS4 since the first time, and certainly wouldn't watch all the cutscenes again if I did. Not on your life. I acknowledge that anyone who can write a story that labyrinthine and then tie all every single loose end clearly has some skill and perseverance, but I can't call the story good in the sense of being engaging. It almost felt like some peculiar MGS Christmas special, with every single character who was either definitely not dead or had unfinished business popping in for their ten minutes of closure and then running off again or getting killed. I just think it would benefit so much from simplification instead of going for the Spider-Man 3 approach of chucking everything in.

 

[Tryzon]

ore accurately, I think you could call me a blogger who thought he'd share his stuff on the only forum he visits with any regularity. A Yahtzee wannabe I am not, though I'm well aware these forums have seen more than their share. Indeed, as I mentioned to someone else, this piece is very unusual as I almost always look at games I DO like and DO want others to enjoy. Of course, when I posted my Penumbra review on here last month, nobody commented. I'm getting mixed messages.

I rarely browse the review forum so this is the first time I've read anything you've written, and as such it comes across very badly.

An attack on one popular game/series could spark interesting discussion. An attack on ten, in a single post, at great length, written with a mix of unfunny snark, condescension and arrogance... looks like desperate attention seeking, even if that wasn't your intention.

Unfortunate. I would stick my blog link at the top of the post to indicate that's where it's from, but I could swear doing that wasn't allowed for whatever reason.

 

[Tryzon]

It does however seem (from what I skimmed through; fuck, no, I'm not reading through the entirety of your crazed ramblings) like you copy-pasted Ben Croshaw's opinions on to the games where it applied, and that's just lazy writing. Therefore I'm introducing yet another option to your poll:
Get your own damn opinions, sheep

I made brief reference on a few occasions in acknowledgement that Yahtzee is extremely popular and therefore likely to be recognised by people, but I don't see how you can say I stole his opinions when 1) I clearly state his name when I mention his viewpoint and 2) it's a 10,000 word piece! Yahtzee is infinitely more concise, for better or worse. I go for full-blown, long read blog style when I ramble.

And again, I'd like to point out that this is a very unusual piece for me, since I almost always look at games I enjoy and want to celebrate, which is very unlike Yahtzee's typical output. Call me mad or rambling if you will, but a knowing Yahtzee rip-off I am not, sir.