Anyone notice a pattern here?

[Cheese]

http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3128401

I know this article is (extremely) old but look at it.

Half of the games they called "overrated" are from Rare.

I've sorta gotten the "1up.com hates Rare" vibe from that site.

Although that was probably just me.

Does anyone agree with this?

I don't. Mainly because I love Rare games

Can't believe they put DKC as number 2.

 

[ensatsu-ken]

I wouldn't have a problem respecting the "opinion" of whoever wrote that list, but the way its written seems as though its meant to purposely tick people off, since the writer states his opinions as if they are fact.

First of all, I was always under the impression that a lot of people disliked DK64, so I don't really see how that makes it overrated. Also, I LOVE DKC. It was more than just an average platformer with pretty graphics to me, and I have replayed and enjoyed it plenty of times to know that I'm not just being fooled by nostalgia.

If you ask me, even if its opinion or not, the fact that this list doesn't contain either Halo 2 or 3 already makes it lose any sort of credibility that it could have had to me. However, this does make me interesting in thinking up a list of the top 10 games that I personally find to be overrated. Of course, if it was me, God of War would rank within the top 5, which might tick off a lot of people (and no, I don't hate it, but I honestly find it to be far from being the best in its genre). However, that is going off-topic in this particular thread, so I'll save such a discussion for another day.

 

[chalmers]

I believe this list is a bit old. I recall seeing something somewhere that called Donkey Kong Country one of the most overrated games of all time a while back, and I think it was this list.

 

[Marvin Tikvah]

1up is owned by Ziff Davis Media right?

Those guys have been quite anti-Rare for a long time now. DKC and Banjo-Kazooie has shown up mutiple times on their list of overrated games, they've also shown up in the list of most unflattering knock-offs (along with Diddy Kong Racing) and Diddy was listed as one of the worst sidekicks in video games.

 

[SSJ Jake]

1up is owned by Ziff Davis Media right?

Were until Ziff Davis sold it to UGO.

But yes all of the Ziff Davis related media had a strong anti-Rare bias. Personally I blame them taking Miyamoto's opinion on Donkey Kong Country too seriously.

And I found Diddy Kong to be a far more likable sidekick than Tails, but that might just be me.

@SNES Chalmers- It might also be Gamespy's Most Overrated Game list you're referring to. That one was a bit more controversial than EGM's, inspiring a Penny Arcade comic as a response.

 

[Mynd Hed]

The thing about that list is that most of its entries aren't exactly highly-rated enough to be called "overrated." Shenmue and Ico were niche titles from the get-go. Banjo-Kazooie gets at least as much hate as love (I'm a hater personally). Donkey Kong 64 gets far MORE hate. Final Fantasy IX is mostly forgotten (a lot of people had moved on to the Dreamcast/PS2 generation by then and didn't play it). Hardly anyone remembers Battle Arena Toshinden, either. How are any of these "overrated"? You don't exactly see hordes of people venerating them.

Of the others, Perfect Dark was exactly as revolutionary and ambitious at the time as people remember: the fact that it hasn't aged well has nothing to do with that. Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct are remembered as what they were: a better-than-average platformer with pretty graphics, and a competent fighter with pretty graphics respectively. Where's the overrating again?

 

[SSJ Jake]

Final Fantasy IX is mostly forgotten (a lot of people had moved on to the Dreamcast/PS2 generation by then and didn't play it).

How much do you wanna bet that they wanted to say Final Fantasy VII but were afraid of backlash from fans?

And no I don't hate FFVII, but it is pretty overrated as far as the games in the series go.

 

[TKnHappyNess]

FFVII is way more overrated than a lot of those games.

 

[ensatsu-ken]

Its obvious that this list is just really biased. Personally, while I do actually LIKE the Halo franchise, at least one of the Halo games should have been on here (one of the sequels, at the very least) if this were actually a somewhat credible list. But, of course they won't be included, because this list doesn't care about what's actually really popular and gets more attention that it deserves. No, to whoever made this list, overrated must mean something that just gets a lot of praise from its fans, which pretty much covers the broad spectrum of every game out there that's actually good, but not exactly what gets more appreciation than it deserves.

In all honesty, if I made a list of the top 25 overrated games to me, not one of the games that were listed here would even make it outside of the top 10, in that case, which really shows how easy it is to completely disagree with that list.

 

[savedbythebell]

this list is just bad, hardly anyone even talks about these games. i fail to see how they can be overrated. a proper list would include halo, god of war, call of duty 4, FFVII or grand theft auto, to name a few.

 

[Mynd Hed]

Yeah, generally speaking I'm not a big fan of "overrated" discussions because they inevitably get sidetracked by people who don't know the difference between "overrated" and "thing I don't like," but Lord, if ever there were anything completely overrated in the world of video gaming, it's got to be every GTA title since 3.

I get the hype for 3, since the open-world sandbox blah blah blah WAS a pretty new and different thing at the time, especially when it came to 3D gameplay (it had already been done many times in 2D with various Metroidvania type games).

But since then? Other games have done the open-world thing better, with actual sympathetic characters, more interesting play mechanics, more original settings, etc. Where does that leave GTA? A driving game where the driving controls suck? In which you can get out of the car, but the on-foot controls suck, too? And the protagonist is inevitably an unlikable stock thug? All the games have going for them any more are the period-specific licensed soundtracks.

 

[JD08]

That Donkey Country 64 jab was funny because it was so true . but FFIX should have never been on there Was a never highly rated in the first place it was a good game but i felt it was underrated for awhile until, I saw the sun-eater that is FFVII which should've been number 1.

 

[ensatsu-ken]

but Lord, if ever there were anything completely overrated in the world of video gaming, it's got to be every GTA title since 3.

I get the hype for 3, since the open-world sandbox blah blah blah WAS a pretty new and different thing at the time, especially when it came to 3D gameplay (it had already been done many times in 2D with various Metroidvania type games).

But since then? Other games have done the open-world thing better, with actual sympathetic characters, more interesting play mechanics, more original settings, etc. Where does that leave GTA? A driving game where the driving controls suck? In which you can get out of the car, but the on-foot controls suck, too? And the protagonist is inevitably an unlikable stock thug? All the games have going for them any more are the period-specific licensed soundtracks.

I agree with this 100% (well, at least as far as Vice City and San Andreas go, since I haven't actually bothered to play GTA4). The GTA games may have tons of thigns that you can do in them, but a lot of them just feel like random/trivial/pointless tasks that don't add to the game's experience in the 1st place, and even though GTA3 may have originated the sandbox gameplay formula, the solid fact of the matter is that many other games have emulated this feature either just as well or even better since then, so in all honestly GTA is really nothing special, now (IMO, anyways).

this list is just bad, hardly anyone even talks about these games. i fail to see how they can be overrated. a proper list would include halo, god of war, call of duty 4, FFVII or grand theft auto, to name a few.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who thinks that God of War and Call of Duty 4 are overrated; especially CoD4, since I was beginning to think that I was alone on my opinion of it (and no, I don't hate it, or find it to be a bad game at all, but I do find it to be far from being a great FPS game).

 

[Mynd Hed]

I haven't honestly played enough CoD4 to render a fair judgment, but from the couple hours I played, it seemed like just another boring brown-on-gray FPS to me.

'Course, I've never been a big fan of "realistic" FPSs. If I don't get to use plasma cannons to kill aliens, I'm generally not interested. Give me an Unreal Tourney or a Gears of War over something that goes for realism any day. So I may be biased.

 

[Eddy]

Ugh, Banjo-Kazooie was not as bad of a "collect-a-thon" as so many make it out to be. Rare's later games, namely Banjo-Tooie and especially DK64, focused pretty heavily on collecting things, but why does Banjo-Kazooie get flak for having the player collect notes and jiggies, but it's okay when Mario has you collect coins and stars?

 

[Mek]

Oddly enough, I was looking at this same list the other day. It just reads to me of 'bitter Nintendo fanboy turns on Rare because they jumped ship to Microsoft'. A lot of Nintendo fans these days seem to hate on Rare.

Eddy: Because it's cool to hate on Rare after they left Nintendo, of course. (Seriously, nearly 75% of the bitter Ninty fans I talk to who've trashed PDZero, Kameo and Nuts and Bolts HAVE NEVER EVEN PLAYED THEM)

And seriously... FF9? Bullcrap. FF7 should have been on that list and if the writer had any balls, he'd have put it on there.

Come to think of it, my list of overrated games would be:

Final Fantasy 7
Soul Calibur (I like the series, but still)
Halo
Grand Theft Auto 3
Super Metroid
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (I do like the game, mind you. Overrated doesn't always equal 'things I hate')
Sonic the Hedgehog (same here)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island
Mass Effect (yes, shocking coming from me. I adore the game with all my heart, but some of the more overhyped aspects -such as morality and romance options- aren't as big as people make them out to be)

 

[ensatsu-ken]

Soul Calibur (I like the series, but still)

Probably true, but I've always found Tekken to be more overrated, personally. Still, both are good fighting game series, I would say.

Halo

For whatever reason I find the sequels to be more overrated than the 1st.

Grand Theft Auto 3

I'd add every GTA game that came after it to the list, as well.

Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island

Really? I've never really seen people give it nearly as much praise as other Mario games, especially not ones like Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World (the 1st one, of course), and Super Mario 64. In fact, I don't think that I've ever seen anyone even put it on a top 10 list. Its actually my favorite Mario game, honestly, but I guess it all depends on how one likes its different style of gameplay.

Mass Effect (yes, shocking coming from me. I adore the game with all my heart, but some of the more overhyped aspects -such as morality and romance options- aren't as big as people make them out to be)

I agree that its overrated. I also like Mass Effect, but this game just got way too much hype for my liking. Although, I did already have high expectations for it, since it was made by a lot of the same people who made the KOTOR games, which I personally still like better than Mass Effect.

 

[Daxdiv]

This list is more filled with games that are either underrated gems, Games developed by Rare, or a game I haven't even heard of, and that was number 1. That's really overrated if this is the first instance of which I heard about it.

Though I do agree with other say about Donkey Kong 64. Though I always thought that Donkey Kong 64 is a mixed bag, some people like it, some hate it, I'm more in the camp that likes it, but even I know that the game gets more flak than praise due to the collect-a-thon Rare puts you through. Banjo Kazooie, please, there was nothing about it that made it overrated in my book. Final Fantasy IX is on the list? LEAVE, NOW, that one rarely gets praise.

But yeah, this list is different from other "Overrated games" I would put some games that I like on the list of overrated and that would have a game from Halo series, a game from GTA Series, Ocarina of Time, but I would have to put thought into that.

 

[Mynd Hed]

Ugh, Banjo-Kazooie was not as bad of a "collect-a-thon" as so many make it out to be. Rare's later games, namely Banjo-Tooie and especially DK64, focused pretty heavily on collecting things, but why does Banjo-Kazooie get flak for having the player collect notes and jiggies, but it's okay when Mario has you collect coins and stars?

Because when a Mario game asks you to collect things, it's either totally optional or sets the threshold number of things you must collect to continue low enough that it doesn't affect the pacing of the game, allowing completionists to collect them all if they want and everyone else to collect the minimum number and move on. Also you generally go about collecting those things-- especially stars a la Mario Galaxy-- by completing fun and interesting tasks, not by simply wandering around the level at random.

At no point in a Mario title have I ever found myself not having fun any more because I'm retreading the same boring area for the 10th time searching for the final stupid Tedium Token that I need to get to the next stupid level. Which is what happened to me very quickly in Banjo-Kazooie, which is when I put it down. And why I never bothered with any of the sequels or DK64.

Now, if Rare-style collect-a-thon platformers are your thing, that's cool, but there's a very distinct and demonstrable difference between the way your typical Rare game implements their token-collecting mechanic and the way your typical Mario game does it.

 

[Flame Alchemist]

At no point in a Mario title have I ever found myself not having fun any more because I'm retreading the same boring area for the 10th time searching for the final stupid Tedium Token that I need to get to the next stupid level.

There's the Blue Coins in Mario Sunshine (and Mario 64?) which are completely optional, but well hidden and they serve a purpose - getting Shine Sprites which will unlock the final ending. And the Red Coins are required to beat the levels they're found in.