What Games Are Overrated to You? Underrated?

[Rob64]

Overrated:

(Insert title of any shoot em up here for the newer gen consoles): Don't get me wrong, games like Gears of War, Halo are pretty to look at for their art. Wolfenstein 3D and Goldeneye are classic shoot em up games that are good. But to say that shoot em up games of this generation are the best games is not something I agree with. There is hardly ever any difference between one shoot em up game from the other. I remember during Microsoft's E3 conference this year, when they were going through a lengthy list of shoot em up games, it just got boring to where we could predict what it was. Also, the only difference that seems to exist between one game from another is the perspective (1st or 3rd) and your target (humans or zombies). It just seems the same to me and is very unappealing as a gamer and consumer to see a lack in variety.

Final Fantasy: I know it's a big franchise and I do enjoy looking at the art and cutscenes from the game, but the game doesn't seem much fun to me. It's good but not as great as what some may think.

Underrated:

Glover (N64): Anyone that enjoys Super Mario 64 will enjoy this. The game has the same platform gaming type of structure around it. Not easy but not too hard either. It is quite original too with the characters and story and whatnot.

Caveman Ughlynpics (Commodore 64): Anyone that enjoys classic caveman cartoonie type of funny will like this game. My dad and uncle were exactly the people that would like it and they can't get enough of it. Find videos of it on youtube to see what I mean. It is a good game too.

[sonic-boom]

I think Final Fantasy 7 and Halo are overrated.
Luigi's Mansion is not exactly underrated but it's close.

[Gameguy]

Underrated: Bebe's Kids for SNES.

I'm serious about this one. I played the game the other day for the first time on my system, though it's not really a good game it's far from worst-game-ever like most people say about it. The worst parts of it are how slow you walk, and the slightly awkward controls. Once you get used to them it's not that bad, I'm guessing that most people who played this game did so on an emulator which is why it was so difficult for them.

The game is a licensed game and sticks closely to the source material, the levels I actually recognized from the movie and they had some variety to them. They weren't all the same style, most were standard beat 'em up style but some were different like the souvenir shop level where you had to break the glassware or the haunted house level which was sort of like a maze. I think I died at the souvenir shop level the first time I played it, but after I started the game again I got the hang of it and made it to the basement of the amusement park where you fight mutants and robots. It's not as hard as the reviewers on youtube make it look. I didn't beat the game, but I like it enough to play it again at some point and try to finish it. I should mention that I didn't like the movie that much, I'm not into the game because I'm a fan of the movie.

I've played much worse games than this one over the years; Dragon's Lair, Total Recall, Action 52 for the NES and Sword of Sodomy/Sword of Sodan for the Genesis come to mind. If I really thought it over I could probably list a whole bunch more. This really isn't as bad a game as most people make it out to be, it's definitely playable.

[kale]

Overrated:

The FPS genre in general - Halo, Half-Life, Call of Duty Counter-Strike, etc. I like running around and shooting things as much as the next person, but come on. It's essentially... the same thing. Also, the fact that there's a large demographic of people for whom gaming is only FPS worries me a bit for the future.

Final Fantasy X and up - I'm actually a pretty big fan of the FF series, but after X it just got annoying. I mean, X-2?? What? They finally decide to do a true sequel and they pick X of all games?

Mortal Kombat series - I like fighters a whole lot, so much in fact that I'm currently looking to spend tons of money on a Neo Geo AES, but I feel like this series in particularly overrated. It made a name for itself on late night news during the early 90s because of its over-the-top gore factor, and it's been irrelevant ever since.

.hack series - Just no.

Black and White series - SUCH a disappointment. After hearing about the concept, I expected awesomeness.


Underrated:

Within the FF series, both Tactics and FFIX are extremely underrated in my mind. FFIX is simply one of the most delightful games I've ever played, hands down. And Tactics, while not the world's best strategy RPG, had an intriguing plot and was addictive.

Okami - this game is a work of art, but all I'm hearing about

Blast Corps (N64) - I remember reading a tiny little bit about it in a Nintendo Power preview. That was the last I ever heard of anyone discussing it.

Earthbound/Mother series - it's not so underrated any longer, but it certainly has been for most of its life. Also, there's the fact that despite a strong cult following, Nintendo still won't release any of the series outside of Japan (besides the 1995 SNES "Earthbound")

[Platinum]

Overrated

- Any RPG ever made.

-Tetris

-GTA games

-Halo games

-God of War games

-Gears of War games

-Guitar Hero and any game similar in concept

-Sonic the Hedgehog

Underrated

-Duke Nukem

-Metal Gear and Snakes Revenge for NES

-Metroid series

[Lo0kY]

most you will find here is RPGs. I'm a RPG whore so what wanna fight about it?

Over rated:

Any of the GTA games
Final Fantasy 7 (PS1)
Gears of War 1 and 2 (X360)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Gran Turismo (PS1/2/3)
World of Warcraft (PC)

Over rated:

Final Fantasy 4/5 (2 US - SNES/PSX/GBA)
Illusion of Gaia (SNES)
Lufia 1 and 2 (SNES)
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Mega Man X 1/2/3 (SNES)
Super Castlevania 4 (SNES)
Super Double Dragon (SNES)

[NCN]

Overrated:
---------
Final Fantasy VII (SNES)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Secret of Mana (SNES)
Gears of War (360)
Marvel vs Capcom 2 (Yeah, I said it)
Metal Gear Solid (PSX)
God of War series
Guitar Hero series
GTA series
Pokemon series
Halo series
DDR

UNDERRATED:
------------
Condemned (360)
Breath of Fire II (SNES)
The 7th Saga (SNES)
Secret of Evermore (SNES, my all time favorite game)
ActRaiser (SNES)
The Ultima series
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest (best soundtrack on the SNES, hands down)
Jumping Flash 1 & 2 (PSX)

...and I'm sure I have overlooked a ton in both categories.

[ReTrO-pLaYeR]

For the over-rated category (and, I know I'm going to get hate mail out of this) I am going to have to say the Zelda franchise. I could never really get into any of the games no matter how hard I tried- I suppose it's just not my thing. I also believe Super Mario 64 to be over-rated as well. I do love Mario platformers to death, but most of the levels are a bit bland and at some points I feel like I'm controlled a greased plumber and not the heroic Mario.

There are at least a million games that I think are underrated to death. For starters, I am going to have to go with NEC's Bonk series. People constantly complain about the controls and criticize it for being on the easy side. I find nothing wrong with the controls, and the levels are interesting enough to forgive the light difficulty. Gex games are also heavily under-rated, especially since stupid reviewers (Gamespot, I'm looking at you) whine about a "bad" camera...but you DO get three modes of camera control in part 2. Can't really complain there, and hey- most 3D platformers of the time didn't exactly have great cameras due to technical limits.

[Ackman]

Overrated:
---------
Okami so damn boring, annoying squeaking nosies all the time, crappy gameplay
RPG's usually 92% of RPGS but esp jprg eg FF games, I hate grinding, endless encounter battles, clunky systems, unintutive, long boring cutscenes, whinny girl man charas, timesink, too long etc etc
Silent Hill games, crappy gameplay, poor level design, very un-user friendly, repeats stages, clunky.
MGS games, esp 2, boring, crappy gameplay, poor stealth mechanics, SC CT for the win, irritating charas.
Soul Calibur 2 and 3, just boring, new charas are uninteresting, not as good or fresh as SC was meh
Shadow of Colossus, terrible controls, boring grindy levels, has aged poorly, really good story tho and I liked Ico.

Deus Ex, I think I fell of my dinosaur, it aged badly not that it was good to begin with, choices are really nice, but doesn't compare to Halflife now and at the time.
Halo, I liked 2 tho.
Super Mario Bros World, (I prefer NSMB or MB3)
The Warriors, good but overrated
GTA SA
GTA3
Ratchet and Clank PS2 series, Yes good games but not super fantastic

FF7
Wipeout Pulse
Mercenaries PS2, crap
Killer 7, interesting story but crappy gameplay, level design, how the hell do you make a game 2d in structure but 3d in looks but make it terrible to navigate around? What an achivement.
COD, esp the new ones.
God of War, yes good game but not uber fantastic, I tried to replay it and I couldn't and this was quite a while after I beat it.
Crysis, boring just not fun
Stalker, badly designed and boring
WOW
Hitman series
Bully, yeah not quite all that, quite good tho
Lego SW, IJ, BM whatever, It stinks, hey but it least it looks good and has co op? Yeah but it still stinks.
Guilty Gear series, boring and the animation flat out sucks, it doesn't look good if you only have 2 frames of animation, who cares about the rez and sparkly effects, it's decent tho, but I can't stand it when ppl talk about how good the animation is.

UNDERRATED:
------------
Shadow of Rome, Simply astounding! Bravo Capcom, bravo!
Tenchu
Urban Reign
Yakuza 2
Urban Chaos (same guys who did Batman AA, and it shows, really good game, not perfect tho but much, much better than Black.)
Bloody Roar Series
DKC 2
Nightslashers X
Star Wars Revenge Racer
Lugaru
Jak3
Ackman series
Flatout 2
Hammering Harry
Mobile Games, esp the Java platform, basically dead or busy dying now, but had some really good fine 2d action in it's day, better than a lot of DS games imho.
Soul of Darkness
Chuck Norris Taste the Pain
Rally Bike
Ninja Kid 2

Onimusha 4, superb all round.
Sonic 2, the best 2d game of all time imho
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon PS2, not perfect but interesting at least.
HL series, esp 2.
DMC 2, yes it isn't fantastic, but it is decent to good this will keep you warm on a cold night.
RE2, still beats RE4 in some areas
Conkers Bad Fur Day
Red Ninja, (yes far from perfect but what it does well it does really well, could have been something truly great if they put more time into it, still decent to good game, last stage sucks tho.)
Manhunt
BG&E
Psychonauts
Hello Kitty Roller Rescue, decent fun game.
Oni


Games I previously thought were overated but I was wrong:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
RE4, This game is everybit as good as everyone says it is and then some.
Ardy Lightfoot, actually a pretty good game, once you get used to it.
Boogerman, decent fun game, with some really nice animations/touches

[jms5118]

Halo = most overated series of all time.

[megamaniaman]

Most overrated Donkey Kong
Most underrated Donkey Kong 3

[Ackman]

I agree Donkey Kong was kinda meh to okay, I could never stand playing it for long, but Donkey Kong 3 held my interest for much longer and had a lot variety.

[Nintega Grafx-16]

Overrated: Final Fantasy VII
Underrated: Final Fantasy VII

[AWinterFuneral]

Straight up, Call Of Duty, extremely overrated. I don't know why but I have never gotten into these games and I don't think I ever could. All I hear is "CoD this" and "CoD that". I mean cmon, there isn't much to it, and to me it's boring. If a person is so obsessed with the military persona, then why not just join the military? That's just my opinion though. I'm sure i'm going to get some hatemail for this one.

[Sabz5150]

Overrated: Every single military FPS. THE ENTIRE LOT OF THEM.

Underrated: The Guardian Legend.

[TheCaptainniatpac]

MARIO is super overrated.

[tentencanidae]

Final Fantasy XIII is stunning in the graphics department, but otherwise, it's a linear letdown. There is pretty much zero exploration. No level pumping, no trial and error, other than during certain boss fights. It's just a good looking game, that plays out like a movie.

That said, I am a HUGE Final Fantasy fan. I wish the characters and art could be used in a more open space environment, with some more randomized foes.

Other than that, Tekken 6. Here's why.

Tekken 6 is a great fighting game. Not quite up to my Street Fighter standards, but in my opinion, it's the best non-2D fighter. My reasoning for considering it a letdown, is because I found EVERYTHING in Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection to be superior. Graphics, loading time, button response... literally everything on my $19.99 PSN download, is better than it's newer, blu-ray, $60 successor. Like I said, it's just my opinion, and I'm not one of those guys that hates change. I just like change through progress.

[Koa Zo]

I think Shining Force III is pretty overrated. Not that it is a bad game, but it really isn't all that great either. Shining Force Resurrection on GBA or Shining Force CD on Sega CD were both just as good if not better than Shining Force III.

For underrated, more like under-appreciated, I have to point to Snoopy vs the Red Baron on PS2.
The game does the Peanuts franchise justice with true to form characters, storylines, and voice-overs. At first I felt that the flying was kinda slow and that bothered me, but I excused it since after all you are controlling a bi-plane!
Later on in the game as you upgrade your plane and get used to using the turbo jet, the flight is plenty fast enough.
I won't bother to go into it more here, as there are some spot-on favorable reviews to be found on the web if you're interested.
Anyhow, Snoopy vs the Red Baron carries on Namco's lineage of putting out really good flight games. The game bests the likes of (post N64)Starfox and Skygunner by a long shot.

Another game I feel is under-appreciated is Finny the Fish and the Seven Waters. That game has some issues, the worst of which being the obnoxious voice-acting. And my biggest complaint being that the game felt like it wrapped up suddenly and wasn't actually finished by the developers.
Finny is really challenging and has a unique and really fun battle technique. It is actually pretty difficult and not at all a kids game - same can be said for Snoopy vs Red Baron.

[RulerStabInTheEye27]

/////

[Andy]

Overrated:

Gears of War. I think the cover-based shooting mechanic is interesting but it got wearisome over the course of the game, and the game's grim-n-gritty style is unintentionally hilarious.

Diablo. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click...

The appeal of the entire MMORPG genre completely eludes me.

Bioshock. Take System Shock 2, dumb it down in every single way except prettier graphics and sounds, laugh your way to the bank.

Half-Life 2. I do like this game, but man those vehicular sections were monotonous to me. It's cool but I don't grok the "best game ever!!!" sentiment it inspires.

Underrated:

Brutal Legend. It's an RTS/Action hybrid in the vein of Herzog Zwei (speaking of underrated...), Sacrifice, Giants: Citizen Kabuto, but when it came out everyone flipped out because they didn't want to take a few minutes to learn how to play it as anything beyond a simple hack-and-slash game. It's not flawless - the open world missions are often dull and repetitive - but the core gameplay is satisfying to me and as a heavy metal music fan, the soundtrack is impeccable

Freedom Force/Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich. To me these are the best models of how to make superhero video games - party-based, tactical combat with a lot of environmental effects and gorgeous Jack Kirby-inspired presentation - but when they initially came out people couldn't stop griping about the lack of online multiplayer and then City of Heroes was released and stole all the remaining superhero game hype. The Marvel Ultimate Alliance games kind of took inspiration from them but it's not quite the same. I'd love to see Irrational get back to this series eventually but it seems they're all about Bioshock these days.

Outlaws. There aren't nearly enough western games for my tastes and this is a good one but it fell into obscurity pretty quickly, just like every other western game prior to Red Dead Redemption.

Tron 2.0. That Tron Legacy movie would have been better if they'd just adapted this game...