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Durran Korr wrote:Here they rate the 25 most overrated games of all time.

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/septemb ... overrated/

Some of these are just easy targets (who the fuck every considered Daikatana a good game?), but many of them are just moronic. I mean, Quake II? Halo? Donkey Kong Country? FINAL FANTASY VII? I'm sure they're convinced that they're being edgy, controversial, and slaughtering sacred cows, but the fact that they have the gall to call Quake II and Final Fantasy VII overrated just makes them dumbasses who don't know a fucking thing about videogaming.

Ghost Rider wrote:Some I agree with like Lara Croft and the Getaway but some they are just pulling out their ass.(Yes, because FF7 was advertised it's overhyped...and because we have rabid fanboys=overhyped ...fucking morons)

Hotfoot wrote:FF7 was criticized for:

Overpraised: Critics try to be objective, but sometimes high-profile games are lavished with undeserved praise. Yep, a few of GameSpy's own blunders are listed here as well.

Done Better Before: Exactly how many futuristic first-person shooters need to be made? Games to earn this stamp are rehashes of ideas that have been done better before.

phongn wrote:IMHO, Daikatana should have been higher on the list. Not only was that damn game praised to high heaven, but the utter fiasco of that game sent shockwaves through the industry - taking out - among other things - Looking Glass.

phongn wrote:IMHO, Daikatana should have been higher on the list. Not only was that damn game praised to high heaven, but the utter fiasco of that game sent shockwaves through the industry - taking out - among other things - Looking Glass.

anarchistbunny wrote:Did you also happen to ignore the legend, they say if it was done before only better, over praised by the critics, completely couldn't live up to the years of hype and just utter crap.

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:

phongn wrote:IMHO, Daikatana should have been higher on the list. Not only was that damn game praised to high heaven, but the utter fiasco of that game sent shockwaves through the industry - taking out - among other things - Looking Glass.

DAIKATANA KILLED LOOKING GLASS!!?! How?

John Romero needs to burn for this...

SirNitram wrote:I actually agree with most of their picks(Partly because I know something can be overrated without being bad). FF7 was(and by some, still is), badly overrated. While the story was a wonderful mix of traditional FF(Steampunk fantasy) and the new hope Square seemed to have(Futuristic settings), the actual gameplay and graphics took serious hits.

The party, while it looked much better than even FF6's, in combat, was still 3 people. 3. In previous games, we'd seen far more in combat. But we got 3 instead. Sigh.

While none of this makes FF7 a bad game, it was hyped beyond belief and is overrated. And, apparently, a sacred cow.

Durran Korr wrote:

SirNitram wrote:I actually agree with most of their picks(Partly because I know something can be overrated without being bad). FF7 was(and by some, still is), badly overrated. While the story was a wonderful mix of traditional FF(Steampunk fantasy) and the new hope Square seemed to have(Futuristic settings), the actual gameplay and graphics took serious hits.

You can complain about the gameplay (I'll disagree with you still, but go ahead), but the visuals? No way. Final Fantasy VII was the most visually gorgeous game ever released at its time by a pretty long shot. It's true that the character models outside of battle left something to be desired, but the battles looked absolutely beautiful, both qualitatively and quantitatively (hundreds of different models, all well-animated and unique), the pre-rendered backgrounds looked so good that I often had to just put down the controller and take in the beauty, and the FMV movies were revolutionary and speak for themselves.

The party, while it looked much better than even FF6's, in combat, was still 3 people. 3. In previous games, we'd seen far more in combat. But we got 3 instead. Sigh.

Absolutely irrelevant. Chrono Trigger, the Seiken Densetsu series, and Final Fantasy X all featured 3-character battles and had wonderful combat systems. How is it that having one more character on the field significantly the quality and enjoyability of a combat system?

While none of this makes FF7 a bad game, it was hyped beyond belief and is overrated. And, apparently, a sacred cow.

Damn right it's a sacred cow, and justifiably so. It brought RPGs to the mainstream in a big way and made story-driven gameplay king throughout many genres. It's the catalyst for the modern gaming market. It may not be the best example of its genre, but it's the most important one, by far.

Of course I will concede the FMV's. But the chibis were freakish. And horrible. Using the sprites from FF6 would have been a leap forward. The obsession with '3D! 3D RPG!' when it actually was inferior to FF6 in the gameplay, plot, and 'map graphics' section is an insult to a far superior game.

Chrono Trigger added the all-important Dual Tech/Triple Tech to the mix, excusing the limited options of a 3 person party for extra options. The Secret Of Mana Series I haven't played, except(Of course) for SoM, and it is not the same breed as FF.

Because it was overhyped, retard. Being hyped to the point where it's more seen than a vastly more deserving game(FF6) is the definition of overhyped. It's only important because it was overhyped.

Durran Korr wrote:

Of course I will concede the FMV's. But the chibis were freakish. And horrible. Using the sprites from FF6 would have been a leap forward. The obsession with '3D! 3D RPG!' when it actually was inferior to FF6 in the gameplay, plot, and 'map graphics' section is an insult to a far superior game.

You've got to be kidding. FFVI's map graphics were in no way superior to FFVII's. FFVII's chibis may have been underwhelming, but the battle models were not and the liveliness of FFVII's battle visuals compares extremely favorably with the dull, static visuals of FFVI's battles (except for a few special battles). FFVI's combat system was a step down from FFV's. The plot was top notch, and as good as or better than FFVII's, I will agree.

Chrono Trigger added the all-important Dual Tech/Triple Tech to the mix, excusing the limited options of a 3 person party for extra options. The Secret Of Mana Series I haven't played, except(Of course) for SoM, and it is not the same breed as FF.

What "extra" options? Name one disadvantage that is inherent to a 3 character battle system.

Because it was overhyped, retard. Being hyped to the point where it's more seen than a vastly more deserving game(FF6) is the definition of overhyped. It's only important because it was overhyped.

No, no way. Hype alone does not raise a game to that elusive level of significance attained by FFVII (see Daikatana). FFVII is important because it raised standards across the industry, ensnared an entirely new generation of RPG fans in the States, and completely blew away anything Square's competitors could throw at it for years to come (Grandia? Please.). FFVI did not; it was a wonderful game in its own right, but it achieved nowhere near the level of importance that FFVII did in Japan or in the U.S., it did not leave its competitors behind in the dust (see Star Ocean), and it did not break into the mainstream stateside the way FFVII did.

Gamespy has their latest adorable attempt at relevance up, a list of the 25 most overrated games of all time. You can go look at it if you want, I'm certainly not putting a link to it here - suffice it to say, where it is obvious it is obvious, and where they attempt to be brash and iconoclastic it's just insulting. We've done a comic on it, I'll take it frame by frame it.

Panel One: Trying to understand the feature itself is a chore, because they have four separate classifications for Overrated-ness, and some games fall into more than one category. Some games are overrated by Critics, some games are not as good as earlier ones in a series, and some are both - but whether or not earlier games in a series were simply "Overrated By Critics" might be difficult to ascertain. While I do enjoy a bit of bracing mental exercise, the content on Gamespy isn't exactly a fucking brain Nautilus.

Panel Two: Years ago, when I was playing a lot of Front Line Force, I really appreciated Gamespy Arcade's buddy lists and invigorating interstitial ads. However, I think the period of time where such an application was required or even desirable has past. Server Browsers, that's one thing - a nice, lightweight affair like All Seeing Eye is still within the realm of sanity. Most browsers internal to games are acceptable, and Gamespy licensed backends are perfectly serviceable when inbuilt. But the universe where I utilize their heavily branded portal to browse for games seems very distant.

Panel Three: Everyone likes to have fun. I'm having fun right now! So I don't mind them having a little bit of fun with their list. But when you feign ignorance or discard historical perspective so you can look fancy, I don't have to tolerate your stupid ass anymore. When you deny the profound effect of Donkey Kong Country's fully rendered sprites in 1994, making the system a bulwark against the 32-bit revolution, there is no educating you. When you are seemingly unaware of the dramatic progress in both modeling and Internet play that Quake II was, and when you start to talk some shit about Final Fantasy VII - the game that absolutely pierced the mainstream and deposited the notion of gaming into a new generation - we've got nothing to discuss. You're assholes or retards, and I don't care which.

You really have to go out of your way to make me mad these days, because I'm playing the great games of today that GameSpy or its vacuous future variant will one day overrate, only to lament the fact in some empty expose - without so much as a nod to what the games meant to the period, the system, or indeed to the history of our preferred entertainment medium. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, a highly amusing marvel of affectionate production, will no doubt be relegated to whatever bin their hideous cyborg interns reserve for games they suddenly revile.