I thought it would be fun to share what everyone feels is the most overrated game they've played.  That one game that didn't just not live up to the hype, but was actively disappointing.  The game you hate that everyone else, inexplicably, loves.

For me, it's The Last Of Us.

I played it a month or two after it came out, and everyone I knew was raving about it.  "OMG, the story!"  So, being a person that loves a good story, I was intrigued.

The game sucks outright.  It's just bad.  The voice acting is brilliant, but everything else?  Terrible.

First, the story.  It's just a cliche ridden, trope ridden, boring slog.  The second you start the game and it's clear that Joel's daughter will die, you know how his and Elly's character arcs will go.  And since that's the meat of the story, it's very disappointing to see it happen almost by rote.  The rest of the story is also largely paint-by-numbers.  Joel's partner getting infected.  The other family - the two brothers - who don't make it.  Joel's brother who found his purpose in the midst of the apocalypse.  The crazy rednecks who want Elly.  The non-choice at the end.  It's like they had a series of check boxes to tick off.  And none of it is handled very interestingly.  Not if you've been exposed to post-apocalyptic fiction before the game.

The gameplay was also atrocious.  Standard 3rd person action marred by a crappy camera.  The rooms aren't very challenging, and the breakup of environmental puzzle -> combat -> story sequence becomes tired early on.  Spores = zombies makes sense in the story, but dulls the sense of danger, because when there aren't any spores you're generally safe (the same could be said for locked doors).  There's no sense of urgency or impending doom.  No surprises, and no scares, which, for a zombie game, is really unforgivable.  You just plod through the rock-paper-scissors design, lurching from one season to the next.

Ultimately it follows the same flawed path as the Uncharted games.  More story than gameplay, with neither being entertaining.

Rome II Total War

(April 4, 2016 at 1:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Rome II Total War

Unpatched and at release, that's a pretty undisputed judgment. I recently bought it at a steam sale for 9.99, considering that it's patched now and the Total War website has it's share of realism mods. Never in my worst nightmares would I have forked out 59 bucks for what they dared to release, and what they still charge when it isn't on sale.

With you 100% on Last of Us; a Frankenstein monster of popular post-apocalyptic fiction. And worst of all, it's a fucking zombie apocalypse, doesn't get much more generic.

I'll nominate the entire Halo series. I don't actively dislike it, but I never understood why it became so popular. Timesplitters came out at the same time and was way better.

(April 4, 2016 at 1:20 pm)abaris Wrote:

(April 4, 2016 at 1:15 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Rome II Total War

Unpatched and at release, that's a pretty undisputed judgment. I recently bought it at a steam sale for 9.99, considering that it's patched now and the Total War website has it's share of realism mods. Never in my worst nightmares would I have forked out 59 bucks for what they dared to release, and what they still charge when it isn't on sale.

The chasm between what was promised and what was delivered was vast.

Remember?

Tic-Tac-Toe

(April 4, 2016 at 1:51 pm)Minimalist Wrote: The chasm between what was promised and what was delivered was vast.

Remember?

It's the same with all Total War games. I watched the reviews at release, and especially Angry Joe's stuck. So there was no way I was buying at that time and at that price. All my Total War games are heavily modded. Especially for real historical uniforms, unit compositions and strategies.

I also waited over a year before finding a heavily discounted price - I think I got it for $19.99.  Even then, I never bothered to play the vanilla version but went straight for the mods at TW Center.  It didn't help.  There is no saving that thing.

(April 4, 2016 at 2:22 pm)Minimalist Wrote: Even then, I never bothered to play the vanilla version but went straight for the mods at TW Center.  It didn't help.  There is no saving that thing.

I didn't even dowload it so far.

So you're a member at TWs. What's your alias there?

For me, Skyrim.

Yeah, it's big and flashy. But FUCK, scaling mobs make the game feel so pointless. I could literally max out my character by going back to the same areas over and over and over again, and fighting the harder and harder enemies until I had my crystal armor. There's no sense that the world is anything but a slow reveal of new armor sets.