What are the top 10 most overrated games of decade?

[sXeth]

- Destiny. Yes the shooting is amazing. But otherwise the only good thing about destiny is the people who play it.

Destiny has had its higher points (House of Wolves and Age of Triumph, and to some extent Forsaken) where it briefly lived up to glimmers of its potential. But Activision or Bungie alone they can't seem to keep their fingers off the reset button and manage to kill whatever progress they make within months.


For my own part, I'd have to actually align with B-cell, and take GTA 5. The driving isn't awful, but retains enough of the awkward "realism" driving from 4 to weigh it down. In keeping with this, the sandbox mayhem that really made the series work (Aside from its hokey movie ripoff storylines) was basically non-existent or shovelled off to be dumped in the money-mill pit of GTA Online. Beyond looking pretty (at the time, its wearing abit nowadays compared to the proper current gen games, and the animations were always complete garbage) not much to really give to it.


Ac Origins is a pretty good pick too. Yes, it stands out because AC needed a shift. But in terms of actual execution of teh new ARPG would-be gameplay, its only a couple steps above Eurojank. The combat isn't tight or balanced at all. The progression is bland as bland can be. Bayek would probably rate in top 3 or 4 protagonists as a likable dude and all, but the main story's kind of drowned in the splurge of uninspired sandboxing.


I thought New Colossus was prettymuch universally kind of "meh"'d at too, so I dunno about overrated. No one seemed too far off the page of "Why is this so short and obviously sequel baity. Why did all the stealth design vanish. etc). Whats with the random metroidvania traversal powers that don't actually get used in the design ever" etc.

 

[Avnger]

Disco Elysium.

Ironic considering next year you'll be bragging about it existing on Switch as soon as the port drops.

 

[Yoshi178]

Disco Elysium.

Ironic considering next year you'll be bragging about it existing on Switch as soon as the port drops.

yeah you TOTALLY see me yelling everywhere on this forum about how awesome Overwatch is already don't you?

 

[votemarvel]

SNIP

I've not played all the games on your list but I'll comment on those I have.

Assassin's Creed Origins: I made the mistake of playing Odyssey first and going back Origins feels far clunkier to play. It isn't terrible however and to be honest I prefer this take on the franchise to the older titles. In Origins and Odyssey I actually enjoy using an assassin play style, something I just found annoying in previous games.

Resident Evil 2 Remake: I really wanted to like this game but while it improved everything that was already good in the original, it left everything I didn't like about it intact as well. The constant back and forth was tedious back then but understandable due to the limitations of the time, these days it is really unacceptable.

Mass Effect 2: I like this game I really do but for me it is a huge step down from the original. Rather than improving elements that needed polishing from the first game Bioware just threw the baby out with the bathwater and created a subpar Gears of War clone for the combat. I could go on for a while about what I don't like but suffice to say one of the things I didn't like was how heavily the combat balance was pushed in favour of the gun based classes.

Tomb Raider Reboot series: My problem with these games is that Lara's personality just doesn't seem to gel with the combat. I said back when the first released, and it holds true for the next two games, that this would be far better if they'd just used old Lara in the storyline, where her personality and character would be a far better fit to the upgraded combat.

GTA5: Looks great but plays like the controls are actively fighting me. I also hate the car physics in the game, I know they are meant to be more realistic but if I want realism in my driving I'll get in my car and go for a drive.

The Witcher 3: I played the first Witcher and found it to be a decent but unremarkable experience. The Witcher 2 I couldn't get far in as it just controlled horribly. With the third game I like it while I am playing but when I stop I can find no compelling reason to go back to it. Part of the reason is that I just find Geralt completely uninteresting as a character and the voice acting doesn't help as no matter the situation he just sounds completely uninterested in it.

I've been told that if I go back and play the Witcher 2 that it explains a lot about Geralt and I'll warm to him far more in the third. I just can't bring myself to play a game I don't like in order to maybe like a game that I'm not enjoying that much.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Tomb Raider Reboot series: My problem with these games is that Lara's personality just doesn't seem to gel with the combat. I said back when the first released, and it holds true for the next two games, that this would be far better if they'd just used old Lara in the storyline, where her personality and character would be a far better fit to the upgraded combat.

Argh, yes, only played the first of the new ones, but played it through a few times, I liked it. But the way she keeps complaining about things...now sure, it makes sense to complain about being trapped on an island full of murderers, but if I'm playing the game I'm not going to complain about that.

EDIT: Anyway, if this thread is about "popular games this decade that I didn't like", I'd include Bayonetta, which is just barely this decade, but the PC port was much later so I guess it counts.

The controls were not great, and I wasn't sure what combos I had or did what, though that just could have been me.

Some of the gimmicks were very annoying. You can walk on walls when the moon is full. That's cool...in theory. In practice, you'd walk along a narrow passageway until the passageway is blocked and then the moon would come out from behind a cloud and then you'd walk along a narrow wall is the same direction until the passageway isn't blocked anymore, at which point the moon would go behind a cloud and you continued normally. It's three narrow passageways, except one of the has wall graphics on the floor. Meh. Compare with playing an Alien in the 2010 AvP game, where you can run along most walls and ceilings. Disorientating, but so much better.

And, yeah, the sex. There was totally the wrong amount of sex. Not just that there was too much sex, but also too little. Every single thing Bayonetta does has to be sexual (not sexy, sexual). If you gave players the chance to do a normal thing a normal way, or in an extra sexual way, people will likely choose the sexual way at least sometimes, but she never, ever turns it off and it gets annoying. You are forced to be sexual all the time.

But then, bizarrely, you can't get your sexy on with other characters. Driving in a car with that guy in the beginning, can I flirt with him? No. Can I flirt with the bartender guy? No. Can I flirt with Jean? No. Ok, a little bit of flirting with Luka, but only when he's going on at you about you murdering his dad and when a little kid is watching...um? Well, you get to torture the female angels in a gratuitously sexual way, but, yeah, not what I meant.

...

Also, Skyrim. Now, I liked the first Tomb Raider reboot, and one of the thing I liked doing is traveling from place to place, hunting animals with a bow and the odd fire thingy, collecting bits of pieces and crafting them. Which you can do in Skryim, but you are encouraged not to do, because you'll level up the "wrong" way and the enemies will be too powerful for you. That really, really annoys me.

But, ok, put the fun parts of the game aside and just grind through instead, and the plot is really boring IMHO. I cannot think why, it's got lots of good elements, Stormcloaks and Imperials and both have good and bad points and there's dragon stuff and magic stuff and for some reason I really don't care.

The more I play, the less interested I am. I've started lots of times, escaped Helgen, gone to Whiterun, done a few bandit quests and lost interest and later started again from the beginning. Don't know why.

(Though I like the Whiterun area grassy plains better than the mountains and snow, but don't think that's it)

 

[stroopwafel]

The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted..I found all of these games equally boring even if I understand why they are praised and critically well received. There is no depth or challenge in any those games they are like a bland meal having to appeal to all tastes. Though, their popular movie style aspirations and straightforward characterization come to life due to big budget and high production values. These games have nothing but surface quality which allows them to be played by anybody without having really to engage with it. Which is most likely the intent given their marketing and target audience.

 

[BrawlMan]

The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Uncharted..I found all of these games equally boring even if I understand why they are praised and critically well received. There is no depth or challenge in any those games they are like a bland meal having to appeal to all tastes. Though, their popular movie style aspirations and straightforward characterization come to life due to big budget and high production values. These games have nothing but surface quality which allows them to be played by anybody without having really to engage with it. Which is most likely the intent given their marketing and target audience.

I can't speak for Spider-Man, Horizon, nor LofUs. But I can speak why Uncharted and God of War. Uncharted is straight up video game popcorn. It may not have the most depth, but the series has always been a benchmark tech and hardware advancement. Nathan Drake is modern Indiana Jones. U1 has aged the worse even in the Drake Collection when they removed the crappy motion controls. The thing I do miss from U1 that was not kept in later games was killing enemies with melee moves awarded you more ammo for the weapon you're equipped with. Then Uncharted 2 happened with its set pieces. After that, the series more or less found its footing. With that said Uncharted 3 drags on too long, and Uncharted 4's story I did not like. The main problem being Sam Drake (a bad fan fic character) Nadine(Karma Houdini before Lost Legacy). U4, still has the best gameplay even when compared next to 2. The only gameplay I did not like about 4 was that they removed the ability to toss back explosives like in 3. Also, try playing these games on the higher difficulties. Completely different experience I tells ya.

God of War IV is a great game and earned its recognition. It's not perfect, it has its own set of problems, but overall it's easily the best GoW game since II. The Leviathan Axe is such a fun weapon! Catching and throwing the axe! Especially when you get all of these sick combos that can launch enemies, or when you upgrade Atreus to do combos with you, and learning parries or runic attacks. The combat is almost as good as something you would see in DMC or Bayonetta. The problem with previous God of War games were they all played too similar to each other, and some of the worst pacing in any action game. God of War III suffered the most from this. The game would slow to a crawl with barely any progress in story, or character motivation. Kratos was simply a spoiled brat since II; no longer a Greek tragic hero. GoW IV fixes all of that. The only problem with IV is gear leveling and the lack of platforming. Otherwise, IV earns the praise.

LofUS... All I know is that the game is a different experience when playing on the hardest difficulty. Story wise, it's shit you've seen before: Children of Men, The Road, and every generic zombie apocalypse ever made. The praise for the story is overblown. Horizon I am still interested in when I get the chance.

 

[Nuuu]

Can't really make a full top 10 list of my own, I've settled into my own little niche and stopped buying games without looking into them a fair bit first.
But I can at least add one to this list from this decade i've played that i'd say is definitely overrated:

L.A. Noire (2011)
(Also had a recent remaster so that works too)

Maybe it was because I had the wrong expectations, but I was fairly disappointed with this game. I was expecting to come in feeling like a detective, analyzing clues and having to piece together a mystery to culminate to a conclusion.
What you get instead is a collection list and a bunch of multiple choice questions. LA Noire is a linear story with your typical collectible-filled RockStar open-world at its heart.
I'll give the game that its story is enjoyable and its setting is well put together and refreshing. The gameplay unfortunately is essentially just a collectibles list. Collect all the clues, get the multiple-choice questions right, Boom-- Perfect Mission. Outside the missions, collect all the street crimes, cars, landmarks, blah blah blah.
The game is a giant checklist.

One major issue that popped up in the game; occasionally you had 2-3 options of places to go to, but if you chose the wrong place to go to first, you'd get stuck into questioning a person without the evidence to get the question right. No indication of which location needs to be gone to first, you just have to make a 50/50 coinflip that decides whether you get a perfect score or not.

Maybe "Return of the Obra Dinn" spoiled me.

 

[Silvanus]

Well, I'd struggle to name many things as "overrated" exactly, because usually it'll just be a case of other people valuing certain stuff more highly than I do.

However I would definitely say the word applies to Resident Evil 4, which is frequently cited as the best in the series, or a seminal action game, which I think is nonsense. In this case, it's all stuff I myself value highly: love horror, love RE, love shoulder-shooters. But RE4 is a fairly basic, serviceable shooter, easily outclassed by stuff like Dead Space. It didn't greatly reinvent or iterate on horror or shooters, and it marked the start of the downward trend for the series with absurd cheesy atmosphere-destroying storytelling.

RE4 marked the transformation of Resident Evil from a Romero horror to a bargain-basement 80s b-movie horror.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

RE4 marked the transformation of Resident Evil from a Romero horror to a bargain-basement 80s b-movie horror.

It was also more than a decade ago.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Dark Souls definitely should be on that list. The first one at least is a masterclass is obtuse, obnoxious game mechanics, level design and pathetic story telling. I mean if this game had been made in the current year it'd be on the Top 10 worst lists across the board.

The entire Uncharted series is really poorly designed. The quick time events are just archaic.

Last of Us was boring with unlikable characters and stiff controls.

I've never played Breath of the Wild, but somehow I feel like it belongs on this list. Not that its not good, but its not nearly as good as people claim it is.

Starcraft II was super hyped, but was just an another RTS.

And the big one, I'll say it. MINECRAFT!

 

[BrawlMan]

RE4 marked the transformation of Resident Evil from a Romero horror to a bargain-basement 80s b-movie horror.

The games were already B movie horror even with the Romero influences. RE4 just went nuts with it. I partially blame people like Yahtzee, Moviebob, and Jim Sterling (only to a lesser extent). RE4 was already popular, but Yahtzee comes inand "validates" or makes their opinion "legit". The backhanded criticism to the previous REs are "Oh, they were always stupid" , "They took themselves too seriously", or "The stories were never good". Said by the biggest contrarians on the internet. While over glorifying RE4 or RE7 for the matter and putting them on these impossible to reach pedistals. This especially true for Bob (someone who likes RE films be, but trashes on the stories for games not RE4 or 7). I stopped taking him seriously years ago, but is one of the those moments where I'm like "Yeah, you're only doing this to sound smart".

Shoot, I find Evil Within 2 to be a better RE game than RE4-RE7 and the Revelations games. It's right at the number 2 spot, while RE2Remake takes the no. 1 for best RE game.

 

[CritialGaming]

"These games were popular and well reviewed, therefore they are overrated by default because I don't like them." - B-Cell logic.

Every game can be called overrated if you don't like it. Just because a lot of people like a thing doesn't make it over rated. The Witcher 3 isn't over rated. Tomb Raider reboots are not over rated. Zelda is not over rated.

These are all good games. They are popular and well received for a reason.

It's okay to not like what everyone else likes. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's over rated. Otherwise everything ever is over rated.

 

[Silvanus]

It was also more than a decade ago.

Damn, right you are. It wasn't even close... I feel old.

The games were already B movie horror even with the Romero influences. RE4 just went nuts with it.

Ah, not too sure about that. Code Veronica and maaaaaybe RE3 a bit, but there wasn't that much cheese, just the occasional moment. It gets exaggerated retrospectively to justify the slide in storytelling in RE4 onwards.

 

[BrawlMan]

It was also more than a decade ago.

Damn, right you are. It wasn't even close... I feel old.

The games were already B movie horror even with the Romero influences. RE4 just went nuts with it.

Ah, not too sure about that. Code Veronica and maaaaaybe RE3 a bit, but there wasn't that much cheese, just the occasional moment. It gets exaggerated retrospectively to justify the slide in storytelling in RE4 onwards.

Go back and look at vanilla RE1, it's nothing, but B-movie camp. 2 & 3 are more serious by comparison, but there still B-movies that play it mostly straight in terms of being serious. Similar to Escape from New York. Goofy premise, but plays it straight.

Code Veronica, I have no fucking clue what they wanted. Capcom were copying the Matrix (Wesker became Agent Smith) & Aelxia Ashford was weaker version of Eve (Parasite Eve).

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Can't really make a full top 10 list of my own, I've settled into my own little niche and stopped buying games without looking into them a fair bit first.
But I can at least add one to this list from this decade i've played that i'd say is definitely overrated:

L.A. Noire (2011)
(Also had a recent remaster so that works too)

Maybe it was because I had the wrong expectations, but I was fairly disappointed with this game. I was expecting to come in feeling like a detective, analyzing clues and having to piece together a mystery to culminate to a conclusion.
What you get instead is a collection list and a bunch of multiple choice questions. LA Noire is a linear story with your typical collectible-filled RockStar open-world at its heart.
I'll give the game that its story is enjoyable and its setting is well put together and refreshing. The gameplay unfortunately is essentially just a collectibles list. Collect all the clues, get the multiple-choice questions right, Boom-- Perfect Mission. Outside the missions, collect all the street crimes, cars, landmarks, blah blah blah.
The game is a giant checklist.

One major issue that popped up in the game; occasionally you had 2-3 options of places to go to, but if you chose the wrong place to go to first, you'd get stuck into questioning a person without the evidence to get the question right. No indication of which location needs to be gone to first, you just have to make a 50/50 coinflip that decides whether you get a perfect score or not.

Maybe "Return of the Obra Dinn" spoiled me.

Have you tried Tangle Tower? While not nearly as in depth as something like Obra Dinn, it's certainly interesting and the characters are great.

 

[stroopwafel]

Code Veronica, I have no fucking clue what they wanted. Capcom were copying the Matrix (Wesker became Agent Smith) & Aelxia Ashford was weaker version of Eve (Parasite Eve).

That ridiculous scene with Wesker in the end wasn't in the original Dreamcast version only in the CVX re-release. At the time the game was really intriguing with it's semi 3D backgrounds and significant bump in character models. Still riding that Resident Evil high I bought a Dreamcast only for this game and it did felt like a next step for the series. Ofcourse, that was 20(!) years ago and it's archaic level design, obtuse puzzles, B-movie riff and awkward movement system have aged just a little bit. I still like the game but the dilemma with old games has always been that there have been so many improvements and innovations in the years since that they start to look like crap in comparison, even if they really aren't.

The most notable exception would be Resident Evil 4. Even 15 years on I have yet to play another action game that I enjoy more. RE4 is one of maybe 2 or 3 games which I consider design perfection. Sometimes I think it's just rose tinted glasses or nostalgia but then I play it again and nope, this is still the very best. They really catched lightning in a bottle with this game.

 

[Silvanus]

Go back and look at vanilla RE1, it's nothing, but B-movie camp. 2 & 3 are more serious by comparison, but there still B-movies that play it mostly straight in terms of being serious. Similar to Escape from New York. Goofy premise, but plays it straight.

I played 1 pretty recently, and disagree. The "camp" is limited to a few lines of dialogue. There's nothing even comparable in b-movie cheesy nonsense to stuff like Salazar & his enormous evil moving statue.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Ah, not too sure about that. Code Veronica and maaaaaybe RE3 a bit, but there wasn't that much cheese, just the occasional moment. It gets exaggerated retrospectively to justify the slide in storytelling in RE4 onwards.

The only real difference is that the classic games tried to be serious whereas RE4 just roled with it. But both were incredibly silly. The only time the classic games had a legitimate moment of drama and horror was Lisa Trevor in REmake, and that was almost completely secondary to the main plot of the game. There's always been a total disconnect between when you're playing and you're steeped in an ominous atmosphere, and when a cutscene plays and you're presented with the stupidest soap-opera nonsense.

 

[Nuuu]

Snip

Have you tried Tangle Tower? While not nearly as in depth as something like Obra Dinn, it's certainly interesting and the characters are great.

Looks good (and i'm a sucker for the animation), but the gameplay is too point-and-click adventure-y for my tastes. Definitely a better detective game than L.A. Noire, though. I'm personally into puzzle games these days.

Looking at Tangle Tower made me realize why I liked L.A. Noire less as the game progressed. The early cases in Noire have murders with motives and suspects you have to figure out, with all the clues eventually coming together to make sense. That was fun. Later cases lose almost all mystery and devolve into following a paper trail.
There's no mental work in finding a note in a corpse's jacket with an address, going to that address, maybe killing an enemy, and finding another note with another address.