The most overrated games - and WHY

[Leisher]

My short list (that I'm sure I'll add to when I have more time):

Starcraft - Fantastic game, but way over hyped due to the Koreans falling in love with it. Without them, I'm not convinced that Starcraft II would've been as big a deal. The proof is in the pudding if you look at where Blizzard made the sequel announcement.

Everquest - Ultima Online was superior to it in every way with the exception of graphics. This is the home PC gaming equivalent of the old coin op games. Those games were designed to just eat quarters, there was no goal to achieve except a higher score. They were the original treadmills. That's what Everquest was too.

Myst - More graphics (Seriously, people are so easily dazzled) driving a mediocre game. Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken, Day of the Tentacle, those Pirate/Monkey games, etc. were all far better adventure/puzzle games.

Quake - It just never matched the hype. I remember more from Duke Nukem, DOOM, DOOM II, Rise of the Triad, and Castle Wolfenstein than I do from either of the first two Quake games, including expansions. Everything looked exactly the same on every level in either game or expansion. The nail gun was cool though.

Halo - The epic storyline is great, but release it on PC first and it's just another FPS.

[GORDON]

Quake - It just never matched the hype. I remember more from Duke Nukem, DOOM, DOOM II, Rise of the Triad, and Castle Wolfenstein than I do from either of the first two Quake games, including expansions. Everything looked exactly the same on every level in either game or expansion. The nail gun was cool though.

Obviously I played a lot of Duke 3D on the LAN at the office, but when I was home I played a shitload of Quake over TCP/IP. My dial-up ISP had their own dedicated Quake server, so those of us with their service always had at least one fairly good connection to a game.

For as much Duke as we multied... I bet I played three times as much Quake over the net.

Another thing... I bet if you played both Quake and Duke3D today, you will find that Quake has aged MUCH better. Want me to qualify that?

[Leisher]

Another thing... I bet if you played both Quake and Duke3D today, you will find that Quake has aged MUCH better. Want me to qualify that?

Quake had graphics, the nail gun, the slow motion, better physics, and was less linear than Duke (not by much though). What Quake didn't have was personality and personality goes a long way. Duke was that "charmin' motherfuckin' pig."

Quake is far, far closer to today's shooters than Duke, which is why I wouldn't debate your point with you. However, it was very forgettable and that's why I had it on my list.

I remember Quake being a HUGE deal when it was released. There were stories about LAN admins at corporations setting up servers to run Quake multi sessions before the game was even released. It was the big name in games at the time mainly because it was id's follow up to Castle Wolfenstein, DOOM, and DOOM II and really, what else was there?

My problem with Quake is that it was just a technology demo. I hate to say this, but id doesn't really make great games. They do make great game engines though.

Quake definitely helped push multiplayer gaming and had a thriving mod community, but was all that because of Quake or despite it? Both multiplayer and mods existed prior to Quake, but people really embraced Quake because it made both more accessible. I give Quake a lot of credit for that.

Unfortunately, 2 years after Quake's release another game came out that destroyed Quake in every conceivable way. The aforementioned mod community and pretty much every gamer in the world who multied all dropped Quake immediately in favor of this new game. This new game, of course, was called Half-Life.

The original Quake even seems to be forgotten in it's own line. Quake 3 was a direct take off of the multiplayer component and was critically blasted despite creating a small, but dedicated user base. Half-Life was already going strong at that point and Q3 just couldn't steal the thunder from the already superior multi play of Counter Strike and Team Fortress Classis. Quake 4 completely ignores Quake 1 even existed, instead growing out of Quake 2's storyline and even getting packaged with that game and expansions.

I just think Quake is overrated when you take all factors into consideration. Yes, it did provide another step in the climb towards the popularity of mods and multiplayer, but the game itself with it's bland levels and zero story, never lived up to the hype.

[Malcolm]

From back in the day ...

X-Com : Never did fucking figure out what the hell everyone saw in it.

Fable : Too linear, too easy, nothing near the open-ended paradise they promised.

Myst : What the fuck? Seriously. I mean, I know Mac users had to have at least one game to play, but that don't mean it was good.

Shadowbane : "It WILL be fucking PARADISE, GODDAMNIT, or you will be beaten until you think so!"

Daikatana : 'Nuff said.

Final Fantasy VII : I swear to Christ, you could run on a political platform of resurrecting that goddamned chick character that dies in there & have a decent chance of getting elected to office. Mediocre story, pointy, sharp polygonal graphics for the most part, glaring translation errors, & shit, those observations came within thirty seconds of my viewing the product for the first time.

That's all I can think of at the moment. More may be added.



Edited By Malcolm on 1179937349

[TPRJones]

Ms. Pac-Man: It's the same damn game again, why is everone so excited?

[Leisher]

X-Com : Never did fucking figure out what the hell everyone saw in it.

Ditto.

Fable : Too linear, too easy, nothing near the open-ended paradise they promised.

You aren't kidding. Fable sucked. It's not that it was totally horrible, but it didn't even remotely live up to the hype nor did it even do it's main gimmick (good or evil choices) well at all.

Daikatana : 'Nuff said.

I totally disagree. This isn't a shitty games list. It's a list of overrated games. Daikantana is NOT overrated. Daikatana just plain ol' sucked. It sold poorly. The reviews bashed the shit out of it. It is now the butt of many jokes. So I can't agree with it's inclusion on this list.

Ms. Pac-Man: It's the same damn game again, why is everone so excited?

You are soooo wrong. He became a she, and the mazes are different...and...and...she has a bow and makeup!!!

Yeah, Ms. Pac-Man sucked. And why couldn't they have changed the enemies or at least made them female too?

[Malcolm]

I totally disagree. This isn't a shitty games list. It's a list of overrated games. Daikantana is NOT overrated. Daikatana just plain ol' sucked. It sold poorly. The reviews bashed the shit out of it. It is now the butt of many jokes. So I can't agree with it's inclusion on this list.

I momentarily confused "overrated" for "overhyped."

[Leisher]

I momentarily confused "overrated" for "overhyped."

Just for that, "John Romero is going to kick your ass!!!"

Seriously, when your ad campaign is that cocky, you better be making the game of the century.

This piece of shit was released two years after Half-Life. TWO YEARS!!! You'd think someone working on Daikatana would've said "We may be in trouble."

We bash the peeps over at 3DRealms, but you know they were working on Duke Nukem Forever, saw Half-Life and thought, "Back to the drawing board!"

[TheCatt]

Ms. Pac-Man: It's the same damn game again, why is everone so excited?

Ms PacMan and Galaga are my two favorite stand up arcade games ever. Ms Pacman was more interesting than PacMan, if only because the fruit moved. Once Ms PacMan came out, I never played PacMan again... but I still play Ms Pacman to this day.

[GORDON]

Daikatana: Does not belong on this list. It was oveHYPED, nopt overRATED. It got exactly the shitty ratings it deserved. John Romero went a long way in pissing people off with his "I'm gonna make you my bitch" marketing before the game was released.

edit - ah, I'm very late with this observation.

Quake: I agree with everything Leisher said... I was mainly talking about multi. The solo game was bland. BUT.... there isn't much I saw in Half Life 2 that I didn't see in Quake over a decade ago, outside of basic game engine/gameplay. Half Life 2 gets to run on processors that are about 25 times faster than Quake had available, is all. Higer res graphics, more objects in-game.

Which may also be why Quake was so bland. They had to use so much processor... I used to play it smoothly on a P133.... that they had no more overhead left for eye candy, on a typical PC for the time.

Duke3D wasn't.... it was 2.5D, at best. Lots of bitmaps. Plenty of processor for eye candy.



Edited By GORDON on 1179946883

[thibodeaux]

Over-rated: Dragon's Lair.

[Leisher]

Ms PacMan and Galaga are my two favorite stand up arcade games ever.

Ah Galaga, how I owned your ass. Loved that game.

I also loved the "X-O Football" game. Anyone remember that? It was a table top and you used a ball to control Xs and Os around a football field. Phenomenal game. Probably the best football game ever made in terms of gameplay and interaction. No really! You'd actually work up a hell of a sweat slamming your hand into that ball to get it turning to make your guy run faster.

BUT.... there isn't much I saw in Half Life 2 that I didn't see in Quake over a decade ago, outside of basic game engine/gameplay.

Well, if we're comparing the two:
The graphics are obviously light years ahead. Ditto for sound. The physics engine is the best ever period. Did Quake even have physics? There's a storyline in Half-Life 2, and none for Quake. Location damage. The first real use of online distribution. Vehicles. The very innovative physics based weapons. Other characters and their facial system that was a new industry innovation. Playing fetch with an AI "Dog". In game story forwarding and done with the game engine rather than cut scenes using cartoons or an animation program.

But you 100% correct about the gameplay. FPS gameplay is FPS gameplay. If you strip every FPS down to a core level, nothing has changed since Marathon except for specific player controls such as the ability to crouch, lay down, jump, lean, etc. The core fundamentals have not, and will not change.

Over-rated: Dragon's Lair.

It pains me to admit it as I used to enjoy beating this game, but you're right. It was nothing more than an interactive cartoon that you paid a specific amount of money to see the ending. That amount was based on how well you could remember the pattern for each screen.



Edited By Leisher on 1179951310

[WSGrundy]

total annihilation - It isn't that it was a terrible game just wasn't that fun and doesn't deserve the hype it gets. Everyone talks about the queuing/building options which were good ideas but for me in the end it was just a bunch of generic looking triangle and square shaped units fighting on a brown or gray map.

Mortal Kombat - I'm not much of a fight game fan but this just had nothing but the violence.

Halo - I will agree with everyone on this but I'm not really down with FPS either.

Super Smash Brothers - So far these games have just sucked.

battletoads - I didn't have a ton of experience with this back in the day but looking back it was just a Ninja Turtle ripoff that wasn't anything special. Rare gets a ton of hype.

I would remove the GTA games from my list because while they aren't close to being the best games ever I still think they are fun. I just wish you didn't have to move from gang to gang and could just stick with one.

I would also put Fable on my best games on the Xbox list and X-Com goes on the best games ever made list. Of course turn based strategy games are my favorite.



Edited By WSGrundy on 1179954263

[GORDON]

Sheesh, TA ws the most I've multied any game, outside of UO.

[GORDON]

BUT.... there isn't much I saw in Half Life 2 that I didn't see in Quake over a decade ago, outside of basic game engine/gameplay.

Well, if we're comparing the two:
The graphics are obviously light years ahead. Ditto for sound. The physics engine is the best ever period. Did Quake even have physics? There's a storyline in Half-Life 2, and none for Quake. Location damage. The first real use of online distribution. Vehicles. The very innovative physics based weapons. Other characters and their facial system that was a new industry innovation. Playing fetch with an AI "Dog". In game story forwarding and done with the game engine rather than cut scenes using cartoons or an animation program.

But you 100% correct about the gameplay. FPS gameplay is FPS gameplay. If you strip every FPS down to a core level, nothing has changed since Marathon except for specific player controls such as the ability to crouch, lay down, jump, lean, etc. The core fundamentals have not, and will not change.

Again, I'm not really disagreeing any particular point you make. Just saying moving around in the original Quake was pretty much identical to HL2, with a decade of eye-candy-improvements.

And QuakeGL still looked pretty good.

But comparing to the Duke3D engine... apples and oranges. Duke focused on the story, Quake focused on the engine. Both sides of the same coin, at the time.

And how many Duke sequels have you played sicne then, with each one having an engine that pretty much ran most of the FPS's of that generation?

I disagree that Quake is overrated.

[Vince]

Hmm... hard to call Halo for me. It WAS just another FPS, but it was impressive enough (maybe that was because of the really well done over-all story line) that people were going out and buying a new console in order to play it.

I don't recall having vehicles like that in other FPS at the time. I may just not have played them, though.

Guess I'll weigh in saying a FPS is a FPS is a FPS, but this one told a story and I actually felt like I was discovering the story as I played it. Pretty good trick to pull off in a linear game like that.

To me (one of) the most over rated games has been the Grand Theft Auto games. Don't get me wrong, it's a good game. But it wasn't a great game. It was a good game with a new gimmick. You get to be a bad guy and do illegal things.

I don't think it was deserving of all sequals and expansions.

[GORDON]

Hmm... hard to call Halo for me. It WAS just another FPS, but it was impressive enough (maybe that was because of the really well done over-all story line) that people were going out and buying a new console in order to play it.

I don't recall having vehicles like that in other FPS at the time. I may just not have played them, though.

In what year did Halo come out?

[Vince]

I'm thinking it was 2000 or 2001. I bought my Xbox shortly after I split up with "The Damned One", which was late 2000. Xbox had been out for a bit when that happened.