Ars editors pick the most overrated games

That article reeks of either a) intentionally being bad to garner traffic or b) the author is part of that group that thinks they're educated enough to rate classics like pac-man and tell you why you're wrong for thinking they're great.

I love all of those games on that list, the sole exception being Skylanders, which I never picked up because I was terrified that my love of figure collecting and pokemon min/maxing would spiral out of control with that game. So I guess I should be ashamed that I enjoy games that shaped the way we play games today? Unreal.

Also - wtf with bioware hate! We got burned pretty bad on ME3, but speculatory sci-fi games are never out of place - original mass effect still gives me warm fuzzies to play it, it's so god damn good. I could understand DA2 hate, but DAO was a pretty decent throwback to old RPGs.

Two things:

- Dragon's Lair at the time was indeed extremely impressive visually and kinda magical, but there was no illusion for anyone over 5 that it was a terrible terrible video game. You could not predict the result of your choices (so it was 99% trial, error and memorization) and there was a total disconnect between the moment of the input and the moment of the action, so it was a quiz to allow you to see an animated movie by Bluth, but not a video game where you played a knight.

- About Halo, I never played it, but wasn't it pretty ground breaking and tight as far as game design go? I am thinking notably at things like health in chunks (you can recover some health if you avoid damage, which affects the pace of the skirmishes and has been reused in dozens of games since then), vehicular combat, etc...

Szlia_sl said:

Two things:

- Dragon's Lair at the time was indeed extremely impressive visually and kinda magical, but there was no illusion for anyone over 5 that it was a terrible terrible video game. You could not predict the result of your choices (so it was 99% trial, error and memorization) and there was a total disconnect between the moment of the input and the moment of the action, so it was a quiz to allow you to see an animated movie by Bluth, but not a video game where you played a knight.

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This. I was but a lad when it came out, tried it once like everyone else and never again.

Yeah I just don't get why kids were so interested in Dragons Lai-


Oh, I guess there was that.

It seems petty to say some of those are overrated I just think they are fordifferenttypes of people and unless you are one ofthosetypes of people then its just impossible to grok why they are so super popular, but thats not a very good reason to outright say they are terrible.

On a related note I'm not really getting whyHotline: Miamiis getting so much clout this year, that seems overrated to me, but then again I haven't played it yet so that's just my ass talking.

well the thing about dragonslair, is every body KNOWS the gameplay and monetization were complete shit. No one really remembers that game very fondly. so how is it overrated? It was a spectacle. Don't see to many games that followed suit until DECADES later with quick time events in everything.
The 1/play, and it being purely wrote memorization with terrible detection. bleh.
Even in the arcades, I bet having it sitting there drew more people into the arcade itself, who then played other games, then actually made money itself.


If it was made now, that is likely what it would be, more like a choose your own adventure. QTE after QTE, with branching paths.

Cantatus_sl said:

Article Link

Super Meat Boy is an odd choice, largely because his argument against it is that it's too difficult. While I don't disagree with that, it was the intent of the game, and it did well because it appealed to the segment of gamers that really enjoy a challenge. I never have been able to play the game for more than 10 minutes here and there because itcanbe a stressing experience, but I also recognize that the game is designed really well (particularly when just measured against other indie games), has fantastic music, and exudes a certain sense of nostalgia.

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Not to mention that Super Meat Boy and some other games released since the revival of Indie gaming were fantastic examples of how unorthodox game difficulty can be given mass appeal by designing around it.

By making respawns super quick, making levels short, making controls super tight and adding a visually pleasing and useful mass ghosting feature, Super Meat Boy made failing and retrying levels fun. Can you imagine how terrible a game Super Meat Boy had been if levels took 5 minutes to complete, if respawns took 10 seconds (w/cutscenes and shit), and if controls were Little Big Planet floaty?

Super Meat Boy and Demons' Souls both featured difficulty as a selling point, but the designs are still different as day and night. Super Meat Boy celebrates failure, urging you to fail and try again repeatedly. You are presented with extremely difficult obstacles all the time, but defeating them is fun, with no penalty for failing. On the other hand, Demons' Souls punishes you severely for failing, thus instilling the player with a constant fear of death, enhancing the experience in a completely different manner. To balance this, Demons' Souls is mechanically much easier, allowing you to progress through careful play and tactical retreats rather than trial and error*. Two completely different approaches to bringing difficulty back to games.

* Note that I am mainly talking about the Demons' Souls level design. I feel the bosses in Demons' Souls were far too trial and error based, which really detracted from the game's strengths in my eyes. Some people disagree.

i wasn't a huge fan of halo's multiplayer but halo 2 introduced a steeper learning curve with more sophisticated levels. this is just a weird list. spyro's adventure? seriously?

i thought twilight princess' story was compelling and i enjoyed the wii's control scheme. wind waker should have been included instead because it's the worst game of the franchise.

Did any of you guys ever see that hologram game Time Traveler in the early 90s? That was the game that I had that shitty experience you guys are talking about with Dragon's Lair. At least Dragon's Lair has awesome Don Bluth animation.

your frame of reference changes as you age so a game like goldeneye is going to look and play like shit compared to modern games. i can play a game like super mario and enjoy it for its superficial entertainment value, but i tried to play deus ex recently and couldn't get past the outdated graphics.

Sprites age better than anything done in 3d, this is known.

Mist_sl said:

Goldeneye was dogshit. Consider that Quake 2 and Goldeneye came out less than 4 months apart. Anyone that had a decent custom gaming rig like I did just laughed at how bad that game was. A 3DFX Voodoo versus an N64 is pretty laughable, and Quake 2 had awesome mods within months of release.

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The difference is that most 12 year olds had N64's not computers. I think the demographics for those two games were probably wildly different and most people who remember Goldeneye very fondly were in the younger category when they played it.

P.S. Fuck Oddjob.

Mist_sl said:

Halo was the first console FPS game with split screen co-op that wasn't complete shit.

Goldeneye was dogshit. Consider that Quake 2 and Goldeneye came out less than 4 months apart. Anyone that had a decent custom gaming rig like I did just laughed at how bad that game was. A 3DFX Voodoo versus an N64 is pretty laughable, and Quake 2 had awesome mods within months of release.

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If you cut and pasted Quake 2 into the n64, it would have sucked complete balls.
In fact, they did. Quake 1 came out march 1998 on the N64. Q2 may 1999.

Console and PC gameplay are completely different. Cutting and pasting a PC fps into a console. doesnt fucking work. That was the point. THAT is why both Goldeneye and Halo are so great. They were designed for console gameplay from the ground up.
Compare Goldeneye movement to Turok, which makes you want to punch someone just trying to move and aim properly.

4 player split screen deathmatchs in goldeneye.

I liked Goldeneye more for the single player than the multiplayer. It was the first FPS game I played where you could pick off people long distance with a sniper rifle head shot. It did a lot of interesting things with mission objectives at a time when FPS games were still mostly keycard mazes too. The problem with it is so many games have come out since that have done everything it did better.

In my book Goldeneye also gets props for how accurate it was to the movie, level design, characters etc.... for an n64...

Also its much easyer to get 4 pals in a room with an n64 on a weekday night than getting the 4 pcs up and going for a quake bout....

Glad someone called out Halo, while enjoyable it is not jesus-sent...

TwilightPrincess was a good game, came on the heels of some enjoyable yet not OOT level zeldas and was imo over-hyped but not overrated in the afterward, i would give that to skyward sword ;-)

Hell's going to freeze over before a website releases "list" that gamers can universally agree on.

supertouch_sl said:

spyro's adventure? seriously?

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The PS1 game was a pretty generic, a not very inspired nor inspiring 3D platformer, and when a PS2 sequel was announced, I remember reviewers going all Spyro crazy and it really surprised me. As far as I know the result was just as bland as the first too...