Static Cling

The list isn't "games that suck" or "games that were unpopular." It's a list of overrated games. That means that the games on the list were, in their opinion, not as good as initial thoughts and hype made them out to be.

Their beef with Halo wasn't just no-mouse-and-keyboard... it was the repetitive maps and poor multiplayer play. And even though the game was not the game-to-end-all-games, lots of pubs rated it in the high 9's... but what happens when Halo 2 (hopefully) expands upon what the game developers did? It'll get a similar or same rating to Halo, even though its a lesser game than its sequel.

After Half-Life and Deus Ex, which were the first games that I played with the mouse-and-keyboard scheme, there was no going back to FPSes with only gamepad support for me. XBox/Bungie including USB mouse and keyboard support isn't necessary for them to create a good game... but supporting more peripherals and more control options in a game is undeniably a step forward compared to having less control options.

Decker

How can any game get incredible hype and publicity and not be considered overrated? I mean Tetris? It's really repeditive and it's just falling blocks. Pac-Man? Very simple, no variety. Mario 64? Bad camera. The Sims? Don't even get me started.. Nothing is going to be absolutely perfect for everyone, but a great game should be praised for what it is, not nit-picked for what it's not or what could have been better.

It's like if it were a list of movies, you could include Titanic or Cutthroat Island, Spiderman or Hulk, Dances With Wolves or Waterworld, The Matrix or Matrix Reloaded, but including the first is very different from including the second. This list needs to either be about good, sucessful games that left them underwhelmed or terrible games. To mix them just makes the whole thing worthless.

MrR0boto

I'm really expecting to see Starfox for the SNES on the list.

Talk about overhyped...you couldn't avoid hearing about the 'FX' chip that year. I still have a Starfox t-shirt from the Starfox Challenge they set up in every store.

And overrated...People were hailing this as a revolutionary game, but the gameplay environment was really limited and the graphics were below average.

I'm still upset that I bought into the hype and purchased this game.

einTier

I've been reading the list, and I think it should be 'overhyped' not 'overrated'. To me, overrated is when a game consistently gets 'perfect 10' reviews, but doesn't hold up well over time, or has some glaring flaws that should cause it to be rated less than perfect, or when a better game is looked over because of all the talk on the overrated game. I think Halo and Alice are perfect examples of this: very, very good games that could still be improved.

I played Alice, and I loved it, but I also realize that I was far more impressed with the graphics and atmosphere than I was with the gameplay. The weapons SUCKED, and the final levels were devoid of any imagination. Not to say there weren't some very cool things in the game, and I didn't have fun playing it, but I also realize that the game isn't as perfect as many reviewers would lead you to believe.

Same with Halo. Don't get me wrong, I love Halo. I play it more than any first person shooter I currently own. However, most people who love this game can't acknowledge the very glaring faults it does have, mainly level design. There are some levels that you just have to get through by sheer force of will. And then, you have to get through them again on the way out. Now, there are the levels that are fantastic, like the final run in the Warthog, but many levels have poor pacing, poor direction, won't let you progress until all enemies are dead, or have long sections of bland scenery. It also sucks that in one-person mode you are forced to drive the warthog, and if you do manage to get a marine in the gunner's position, he can't seem to hit crap. It sucks in two-player mode that whoever gets to drive the scorpion leaves the others with nothing to do. It sucks that most of the good weapons (sniper rifle) and vehicles (scorpion) are only available once or twice during the entire game. It sucks that there's no continuity between levels -- if I leave with the sniper rifle, I should have it again at the start of the next level, but I don't. Great game, but incredibly flawed.

Decker

The problem is they can't decide what this list is supposed to be. Halo is widely considered the best Xbox game, it is ranked the highest in Metacritic. Is its cumulative score of 96% too high? Pehaps. Is it so inflated that it becomes one of the 10 most overrated games of all time? I stongly doubt it.

On the other hand, who overrated Tomb Raider AOD (besides Maxim )? It's cumulative score is 52%, which is dreadful. How does that qualify as one of the most overrated games of all time? (BTW I never bought into the notion asserted in the article that the game was rushed. It was worked on forever and delayed repetedly. It was just a bad game. period.)

fumanstan

I felt their comments on FF7 were rather silly too. It was overrated because... "its good, but there are other FF games that are better." So? What does that have to do with anything?

PixyJunket

Because the FF games that were better (all of them before 7) were not as praised and celebrated as 7 was.

Draven

Man, reading the Mortal Kombat review pissed me off.

I played both SFII and MK extensively and I enjoyed both. They both have strong points.

Yeah, the animation was a little stilted, but I wouldn't be surprised if SF II had the same number of animation frames for the various moves.

It was not unbalanced at ALL. Anyone could kick anyone's ass. I learned how to play that game in Las Vegas when it first came out, against people that played fighting games competitively.

Even though I believe they revised this out in later version, at one point I could throw Scorpion's spear, uppercut, then teleport to the other side of the screen and hit them before they got to the ground. That took raw skill. Kano has some crazy combos with his spinning roll. Sonya had some wicked throws that came out of nowhere. Raiden could fly across the screen from a standing position. The block button added a whole new dimension as well. The list goes on and on.

I know people will disagree with me, but as I said I played SFII and MK at the same time and I never felt that SF was a whole lot superior.

And MK II was my favorite arcade game of all time. However, the less said about the next few entries, the better.

RyoHazuki

Very true. This list is whack. But most of the Top whatever lists are anyways.

mr.snowmizer

It's official: Gamespy doesn't know what they're doing.

Either make a Top 25 Overrated or a Top 25 Overhyped. There's a difference, so don't mix the two.

Since this is supposed to be "Overrated", how does the new Tomb Raider and Blinx make the most recent 5-game unveiling? A game has to be rated high to qualify as overrated.

[Current Gamerankings scores: Blinx = 73.7%; Tomb Raider:TAOD = 55.6%]

KillaBeez

I havent played any of the Final Fantasy's that are before FF7 but I own FF7, FF8, FF9, FF10 and FFT and so far, FF7 is my favorite RPG and the best RPG I ever played IMO. Lot alot of people say this is bs that alot of people got into RPG's because of FF7 but I think thats false cause FF7 is what got me into RPG's and I heard people say that it also got them into RPG's.

I really don't see how Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness is on that list. I dont believe it was overhyped or overrated. I own this game too and you know what, I like it and am having fun playing it.

Donkey Kong Country, I was always playing this game at my friends house when it first came out and it is loads of fun and same with DK2 and DK3. I have not bought these games at the time. For this past month, I was having a huge craving to play the DK series again. I got DK3 last week and got DK1 today, now I need DK2. I'm playing DK1 now and having a blast like I did before when I first played this game.

Its very easily to tell that Gamespy dont which game to take as overrated/overhyped.

vhgong

Splinter Cell. .

Static Cling

Did you read the legend? Gamespy is dubbing games as "overhyped," "over praised," "done better before," and/or "total letdown." They're differentiating.

Decker

Babblefish, anyone?

Static Cling

Multiple persons disavow that a large quantity of people first became interested in role-playing games due to their playing of Final Fantasy 7. However, I would submit that their position is without merit. I, myself, became interested in role-playing games due to my experience with Final Fantasy 7. In addition, some of my fellow compatriots have also taken further steps into the world of role-playing because they were so enchanted with Final Fantasy 7.

KillaBeez

What he said !

Groucho

I had been playing role-playing games for nearly 20 years when FF7 came out. Tried the PC demo, realized that the game didn't have close to the depth of the RPGs I was used to, deleted from my hard drive and moved on.

mr.snowmizer

No, I guess not, because in bold print, they print this:

See, at that point, given that they understand what the defininiton is, I, like most people, immediately would scroll down to game #25.

Nobody would reasonably expect that Gamespy's legend would expand the category they had just set up to include the distinct category of overhyped [overhype: To promote or publicize to excess] and others.

The new Tomb Raider was overhyped, but not overrated. The same would hold for Blinx.

If Gamespy wanted a 'Top 25 Disappointments', they could have simply named it that and set up any criteria they wanted.

As it stands, this list is as weak as those of 'Top 50 Games Ever' which can't decide whether it's the top 50 you'd want to play today or the top 50 most historically significant, etc, so there's an awkward mix that pleases no reader who knows the subject matter.

spainlinx0

Not praised or celebrated by whom? I remember FF3 getting very high scores from all the gaming magazines I read. Just because RPG's weren't as big in the console world back then doesn't mean the game wasn't well received.

Static Cling

*shrug* The legend is less than two inches away from the definition. I scanned the page quickly the first time through, and it was hard to miss. But I just read the list for fun, so I don't understand all of the strong reactions to this list. Are people pissed off because of the inclusion of a certain game or games?

mr.snowmizer

I think I already answered your question before you asked it. Again...

"As it stands, this list is as weak as those of 'Top 50 Games Ever' which can't decide whether it's the top 50 you'd want to play today or the top 50 most historically significant, etc, so there's an awkward mix that pleases no reader who knows the subject matter."


If there was a consistency to what this feature was supposed to be about, there'd be fewer complaints.

If I started reading a feature, "The Top 25 Chicken Recipes", I don't want a legend explaining that since pigs are so damn tasty, 1/2 the recipes are actually pork.

If you can't see that, then I guess I'll just shrug, too.

Static Cling

So you'd prefer that the games were all ones that were literally overrated... praised highly upon their release, and then were later found out to be meh?

mr.snowmizer

Since that's the definition of 'overrated', yes, that's what I'd like to see in this feature.

I have no problem with Halo being there if they feel the rest of the world wents nuts praising it, thus I haven't mentioned it.

There's no way the new Tomb Raider makes this feature, if the list had any coherence, however.

Decker

One of their definitions of an overrated game is when previous versions were better. That's just stupid. Let's use my movie analogy again : Would you say that Jaws 4 was overrated because Jaws was a much better shark movie? Tomb Raider AOD was the Jaws 4 of video games. It wasn't overrated. It wasn't overhyped. It was kept away from the press until its release because it was in big trouble. All the publications knew it and hinted as much. When it came out is was roundly booed and didn't sell especially well. And the movie it was supposed to be a tie-in with died as well. By what criteria on God's green earth is that game overrated?

mr.snowmizer

I wish I had written this myself.

As an aside, in the past couple of days, I had quickly looked through some of last year's game magazines and saw that, at that time, there was a little bit of hype for Tomb Raider building.

Eidos successfully deflated that, though, with its delays and skimpy press coverage this year, so you are correct in saying it wasn't even overhyped in the end (which means I was wrong for saying the opposite a few posts back ).