MMN’s Top Five Most Overrated Games

Ever heard somebody say how great a game is, or a lot of people for that matter. So you say it must be great so you go out and buy it or rent it. Then you realize you’ve been had. The game just doesn’t live up to what your friends have been telling you. It’s not to say they’re bad games but they’re just… meh. Here’s my top ten most overrated games, in no particular order. To get on this list, I have to have played them.

God of War Series (Playstation 2, PSP)
The God of War series, featuring the fallen Greek god of war Kratos has become the de facto standard for melee beat-em-ups. The series is also said to be one of the best on the Playstation, ever. It has spawned imitations such as Heavenly Sword and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. While the gratuitous sex and violence ropes you in, the games themselves are only so so. God of war looks good, the story is good, but like so many good games gone bad, the controls are an issue. Namely they can be sluggish at times or the button pressing action sequences often don’t give you enough time to react. Sometimes the controls won’t respond at all. To add insult to injury, the game is vary unclear regarding objectives and can it can be quite frustraiting at times. Overall, the entire God of War series just feels stiff to play. Hopefully this is fixed for its third outing.

Bioshock (PC, Xbox 360, PS3)
Bioshock was named one of 2007’s best games by the press and gamers alike. However, when I played it, I quickly discovered it was another typical console shooter, but with super powers and a moral system along the lines of Jedi Knight. It looked fantastic but there was really nothing special or innovative about the gameplay. Plus it had a lot of technical flaws, especially in the PC version.

Fallout 3 (PC, Xbox 360, PS3)
Wow, for a game about a post-apocalyptic war zone, this title is boring. While the Mad Max elements are there, you spend a great deal of time just looking for items or a bed to recover health around the Capital Wastes. There really isn’t a lot of meat to the main story either. Enemies in the game tend to fall into two camps: annoying or nearly invincible. I find Fallout 3 gets stressful and tedious to play after sitting with it for more than an hour at a time. Unfortunately you do need to spend hours on end to get anything accomplished. I wish I had bought the PC version. At least that has cheats. Whatever happened to the fun cheats that used to be in console titles? No more big head, paintball, or god mode. Sigh.

Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)
Another game I found tedious and stressful to play. Complex controls, a lot of slow moving from point A to point B, and so much cheese in the dialogue, it would makes the French jealous.

Lock On: Modern Air Combat (PC)
As readers will know, I hate this game with a passion. It’s just so bad. However, back in my flight simming days, a lot of people talked about how great it was. In reality it was so broken the game was unplayable on pretty much any computer I threw it on. I doubt my Phenom II and HD 3850 would do much better since the original system I had vastly exceeded the recommended (not just the minimum!) requirements.

Echochrome (PS3, PSP)
Like watching paint dry, that’s how I describe this game. Bland, colourless, and boring, it belongs more as a looped video exhibit at a university art gallery. There’s little point to it and certainly nothing pretty to look at. I guess the living-Escher painting idea is interesting but as a game it turned out as incredibly dull. A bit like watching Sinefeld reruns. I have no idea why so many people love this title.

The Legend of Zelda: The Phanton Hourglas (DS)
It’s a Zelda game but not like any other Zelda game. Not as out there as Zelda II was but a black sheep none the less. Obviously designed for young kids, a lot of adult gamers professed their love for this title. I found it boring and way too easy. Plus who wants to talk to their game on the subway? The story was also pretty dumb too. I can’t believe Nintendo actually made a sequel to this game using the same formula. If you want portable Zelda games, get the Gameboy and Gameboy Advance titles.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Genesis)
Widely considered to be the best in the original trilogy of Sonic games, I only found this one to be so so. It’s certainly not equal to Sonic 3 by any means and lacked the charm Sonic 1 had. The Spin Dash was neat and Super Sonic was cool if you ever could beat all 7 special stages, which were known for their punishing difficulty. The Sonic Team actually toned the difficulty on them down for the Sonic 2 & Knuckles expansion. Tails was also a pointless addition to this game since all his powers were identical to Sonic, and in co-op play, he just got in the way. He didn’t become useful until Sonic 3.

Star Wars: Battlefront II (PC)
Hugely popular but the single player campaigns sucked. There seems to be no way to avoid dying in them every two seconds. Hero characters were pointless.

Echo the Dolphin (Genesis)
This is on everybody’s must have list of Genesis and Sega CD titles. I don’t know why because this game is so incredibly boring, long, and difficult. There’s not much to gameplay, the sonar attack is useless, and it just seems to go on forever. Another one of those titles that looks pretty but has no substance to it. Who would have thought dolphins didn’t make good videogame characters!