2013's Most Overrated Game

I know my answer. I wonder what the poll will say.

This thread is going be an infuriating mess.

I abstain from voting.

if it's got people talking then it's done it's job

Windjammers. Once someone describe it as pong with powers it lost all of it's magic for me.

Easy, The Last of Us.

Having gone back to GTA 5 this week, I don't know why people were as enthusiastic about that game as they were. Open-world games really have moved on from GTA 4 and Rockstar modernised just enough of that formula to make me sad. It could have been so much more.

Windjammers (also Brothers). You're also crazy to think Red Dead Redemption is overrated, but whatever.

Brothers. I saw nothing special about that game.

@shadowconqueror: One word: Mexico :D Game falls apart the second you step foot on Mexican soil.

@adam1808: I didn't think about adding it to the list because I completely forgot about it :D Yeah, I think GTA has a lot of problems.

Bioshock. Three stars at best.

The Last of Us. I'm not just saying this because it's popular, either. The story was terrible, and that's the main reason I wanted to play it. I can tolerate a bad story if the gameplay is amazing, but I normally don't force myself to suffer through bad gameplay just for a good story. All in all, it seems that if the half of the game that is praised the most is horrendous, I'd say that constitutes being overrated, especially since most people seem to agree that the gameplay was the weaker of the two, even if it wasn't flat out abysmal. I can already tell I've pissed some people off, even though that wasn't my intention. Oh well. Bring the hate, if that's what you feel you need to do.

Gone Home.

@tyrrael: eh, I loved the story and even most of the game play. If people hate on you for thinking otherwise then they need to be taken out for a seafood dinner and never called again. :D

I hate when all right games get way too hyped and then mercilessly dismissed for being overrated. At the end of it all, I stand at the same place I started, still thinking it's all right. C'est la vie.

My answer is Brothers. I really liked the game, but it was definitely overhyped.

Wow, this thread is just built for angry argument. Perhaps that's indeed not your intent, but I've seen enough threads like this over the years to know this is a curiosity that shouldn't be appeased.

The idea of people ranking the most "overrated" games serves little purpose besides sowing greater fan discord during this already contentious time of people debating GOTY.

@truthtellah: Coming from a person on website whose staff talked loads of hot mess about some games many of them didn't even play? I think we can all keep this civil. If for some reason it doesn't get that way then that's what mods are for. If we can only praise games then we really can't have any meaningful discussion at all, right?

Papers, please

Hate on Last of Us all you want (I know I do) but it's at least an alright story, great art work, and the shooting stuff works. Even has good online.

Gone Home though. Wow. I think I will enjoy it when people see that game in a more realistic context about 1-2 years from now. Oh wait. No one will remember Gone Home in 6 months.

I'm a person on Giant Bomb, and speaking purely from many years on this particular site, you're crazy if you think this is a good idea. A little devil sat on your shoulder and whispered to you that this was a decent poll idea.

I'm sure some people can keep it civil; of that I have no doubt. But a thread purely about crapping on games that many people like(aka. talking about how "overrated" some games are) is inherently ill-advised.

A thread about discussing issues with popular games is one thing, and people discuss the merits and problems of games all the time. But a thread at the end of the year where the central point is voting on which popular game is the least deserving of that popularity is at its core bitter and based more on differences in personal preference than any actual determination of quality.

I liked the story in Gone Home, but yeah it's overrated what ever that means.

The Last of Us

How it came to be regarded as anything but decent 3rd person shooter with a slightly above average story is beyond me.

Brothers. The rapid-fire way they doled out fantasy tropes made the entire game feel more like an amusement park than an actual world. Once I reached it the end, it became clear that the entire game was built to deliver one admittedly clever moment. The cynicism of design that I felt drained any sort of emotional weight from the experience.

Also the fact that a bugged out, untextured model of the bird showed up and stayed on screen for the entire tree sequence sort of pulled me out of what probably should have been a very sad scene. I ended up having to drag the brother's body through the bird in order to bury him.

It's all fun and games until someone talks shit about Fire Emblem: Awakening.

@truthtellah: A thread about discussing issues with popular games is one thing, and people discuss the merits and problems of games all the time. But a thread at the end of the year where the central point is voting on which popular game is the least deserving of that popularity is at its core bitter and based more on differences in personal preference than any actual determination of quality.

That paragraph shows you've missed the point of the thread entirely.

Definitely Divekick. I appreciated that they wanted to try something different and I liked the footprints-on-punching-bag joke, but that's pretty much the entirety of my positivity about that game.

I would have said The Last of Us a couple weeks ago, but I finally got out of Boston and its really fantastic, it may not be the most original story, but the delivery really carries it far for me. I would say that Brothers is the most overrated game on that list for me personally.

Every single game that was released

Rogue Legacy, bar none. That game doesn't do anything special, and it doesn't look special to boot. It's totally generic, and a lot of its mechanics are aggressively bad (upside-down mode? Come on. A maximum of 6 choices out of a random flock of characters, resulting in flocks of characters that are practically useless in comparison to the ones you want/specced for? Fuck that). Generic music, generic tilesets, generic enemies, generic story... generic game.

Gone Home. Interesting presentation but I was more interested in the dads writing career than a girl who likes Street Fighter.

Brothers. Now that I've played it I feel more confident than ever saying there are at least 20 games better than brothers is year. I said that before of course but now I have first hand experience.

Edit: Oh shit, forgot about GTAV since it didn't get any love his year. At release that game was not given enough shit for its vile personality. I also think the music wasn't very good, Saints Row IV music way better.

Bioshock: Infinite. I really disliked playing that game, but kept going for the promise of a good story, but that ended up just being a lame twist ending that undermined everything I had suffered through. I don't think I have ever gone against the "popular oppinion" of a game as much as I did with Infinite.

I just bought Divekick. Granted, I'm not playing multiplayer. But from the single player it was neat for about 10 minutes. I don't see how it is on anyone's list for GOTY but whatever. Opinions.

Gone home. I was super excited about it and kept waiting and waiting for something to happen. I mean I wasnt expecting monsters to pop out, the ending was neat but...thats kinda it...neat...alright...ok. Was glad I received it as a gift when it was 5 dollars. 20 buck is so overpriced. There wasn't anything that I hated about it but it just felt....meh...it was an interesting way to tell a story but maybe the story was old. Still much more entertaining that spec ops the line. Everybody was going crazy about that game but the gameplay was sooo boring (but thats how its supposed to be!) just for the same twist at the end.

I like windjammers because I played it when I was a kid a lot so it was awesome that they rediscovered it, but I agree that it got boring to watch pretty fast, except maybe the last minutes of the 24 hours stream, that was intense.

I'd say it's a difference of opinion on how people determine whether or not a game is "overrated" rather than missing the point of the thread.

I think dwelling on whether a game is overrated is generally rooted in someone having different taste but not fully recognizing or respecting the validity of other people's personal preferences. I don't know what value the concept of "overrated" has in this context besides providing an opportunity for people to gripe about games other people like. Usually this just comes down to "what are the most highly-rated and/or buzzed about games".

If you want to explain the possible benefits of dwelling on what is or isn't overrated, I would be curious to hear it, but I don't see it. It usually just appears to encourage the worst in gamers.

GTA V is my most overrated followed by Gone Home.

GTA V

The last of us... What i heard about this game made me expect more than what it gave me.

It's easily Brothers for me. It is neither a good game nor a good story. I can accept games where one is bad in favor of the other, but I found pretty much no redeeming qualities in Brothers.

@truthtellah: Honestly, you're the only one in this thread causing a fuss so far.

Probably Gone Home - in saying that; I still enjoyed it but can see how others don't. It's still important in the context of how games are made, these days - with mechanics at the forefront and the story not given too much thought.

@ajamafalous: heh. Well, I hope you're right, ajam. Even if it doesn't necessarily devolve super quickly, I'm still curious what people think is the value of dwelling on the idea of some games being "overrated".

I don't see the appeal outside of possibly feeling good that you have better taste than a lot of people that like a game. It seems to me that a thread like this is more of a "popular games that you don't personally care for" thread than anything to do with games actually being rated too highly by anyone.

Bioshock can't possibly be overrated since apparently everyone thinks it sucks and I'm a bad person for liking it.

@starvinggamer said:

Brothers. The rapid-fire way they doled out fantasy tropes made the entire game feel more like an amusement park than an actual world. Once I reached it the end, it became clear that the entire game was built to deliver one admittedly clever moment. The cynicism of design that I felt drained any sort of emotional weight from the experience.

Also the fact that a bugged out, untextured model of the bird showed up and stayed on screen for the entire tree sequence sort of pulled me out of what probably should have been a very sad scene. I ended up having to drag the brother's body through the bird in order to bury him.

I didn't have that egregious of a bug - at least not one during that moment - but I had enough minor bugs that I assumed the "Whoa bro the controls!" moment was just yet another glitch. But I definitely agree: didn't find much of it to be interesting or unique outside of one moment.

I preferred it when Big Bro literally flew through a Goddamn mountain and died for me. That was cooler.

@likeametaphor said:

@starvinggamer said:

Brothers. The rapid-fire way they doled out fantasy tropes made the entire game feel more like an amusement park than an actual world. Once I reached it the end, it became clear that the entire game was built to deliver one admittedly clever moment. The cynicism of design that I felt drained any sort of emotional weight from the experience.

Also the fact that a bugged out, untextured model of the bird showed up and stayed on screen for the entire tree sequence sort of pulled me out of what probably should have been a very sad scene. I ended up having to drag the brother's body through the bird in order to bury him.

I didn't have that egregious of a bug - at least not one during that moment - but I had enough minor bugs that I assumed the "Whoa bro the controls!" moment was just yet another glitch. But I definitely agree: didn't find much of it to be interesting or unique outside of one moment.

I preferred it when Big Bro literally flew through a Goddamn mountain and died for me. That was cooler.

I had this happen:

So, I have tried to play The Last of Us for a couple of days now (bought it on black Friday). I like everything about it but, like Jeff I cannot stand the gameplay at all. I will be clear on this I'am playing on hard and have passed bill's area. I find the shooting to be horrible (how many shots will it take to kill this unarmored human whom I'm shooting in the face one, two and maybe three). The friendly AI makes me want to use them as zombie bait. Ex: I was sneaking around some zombies in Bill's town when on numerous occasions Ellie would get in front of me and then just stay there in my way or, when I tried to use my shiv (I have issue with those things breaking all the time too) on a clicker without being noticed Bill took it as the go ahead signal to just start shooting at everything around him.

Every time I get into an area with enemies I just look down and breath out a sigh. All of this bums me out because, I want to enjoy the game but, the part where I have to play the dammed thing just begins to piss me off.

And as for Brothers; I just could never care for it at all. Watched the quick look and it was to easy for me to tell what kind of story it want tell. The type I just have zero care for.

@gtcknight: Why are you playing on hard the first time through? I've found most games don't hold up on hard (or higher) difficulties.

Couldn't care less.

I really enjoyed Gone Home, I think it's great but much like Breaking Bad something can be totally great and still over hyped/rated.

I think it's super dumb to try to tell people they liked a game too much.

yep.

it's as if you not being able to understand something is a sign that thing is not meant to be understood, rather than a sign you should really just try a little bit harder to understand it.

As far as what game that a lot of other people liked did I not like as much goes, that'd probably be Rogue Legacy. It's fun, the controls are tight, having progression in something roguelike-like is cool, but it's nothing particularly special.