Over rated / Under rated Games

Excite Truck was brilliant, well worth owning, I could easily revisit it for a quick bash as every race felt different, shame we never got Excitebots and it's online.

I know it is an old game and I am not even sure if it can be counted as 'underrated' but ill let you guys decide.

I was digging about in my drawer of games yesterday and found Pokemon Colosseum under a pile of games. I started playing yesterday and I couldn't believe I originally didn't like the game when I picked it up in 2002 or whenever it came out.

While I know some may not like the whole 'snagging' mechanic, I now actually can really appreciate how it controls the flow of the game. Your options are limited throughout the whole game and this actually plays very well.

For instance I 'Snagged' a Hitmontop which has really great stats, however after toiling away undoing its shadow status its moveset was quite crap. Slugma, a weak pokemon when limited by shadow is unveiled to have Flamethrower and Rock Throw making it very diverse. In this way, the normal perspective of one who has played all the core games is completely skewed, and it is a very refreshing experience.

While the whole 'shadow pokemon' plot does not make for a great story, the game mechanics work really well, with shadow afflicted mons being very powerful but having limited moves and being prone to ignoring orders, it is simply a bigger tactical decision to use one in battle, and to spend time reverting it back to normal. Also, this game is really quite hard. Stealing the pokemon can take multiple attempts and the opponents at times are actually leveled higher than your party.

The game actually starts you off with two level 25+ pokemon, which sets a very fast tempo for the overarching story.

Also, compared to other games in the series. The world is massively detailed, individual NPC characters will change their dialogue multiple times over the course of the game, the story isn't excellent but compared to the core series it is relatively superior with some colourful characters like Miror B....

Speaking of detail the pokemon models and animations are excellent. Probably the best out of all the games including X/Y. For instance it is noticeable on slugma that bubbles of lava emerge and pop on its surface, Noctowls flying animation is incredibly smooth and genuinely looks like a bird struggling to rise fast enough to prepare an attack. The animation is also well charactered with pokemon like Togepi attempting to run away upon defeat, or water types such as Goldeen and Qwilfish going bottoms up like a dead goldfish.

Overall, its a great addition to the franchise, and should be considered when next you play a spinoff.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Cube wrote:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Anyone not love Excite Truck? Reviewers aside, natch.

Quite simply the most fun game on the Wii.

While I wouldn't agree with that myself, I'm glad there are folk out there that appreciate that it was a really good game at the time. It's still pretty fun to pick-up and play, even after all this time. I'd quite like to see Nintendo/Monster Games do more with the Excite series, as I think the four I've played (NES, N64, first on Wii and WiiWare) are all quite good. Very underrated series, in my opinion.

It's the sort of game I regret snubbing back seven/eight years ago at Wii's launch. I was playing Wave Race 64 today, and it made me realise how much I miss the arcade-y Nintendo sports experience. Or just games I can pick up and play and have a bit of fun with.

Cube wrote:

fronkhead wrote:

Skyward Sword's main game world at least evoked the feeling of openness and exploration, since it wasn't literally on-rails, and what lay beneath the clouds was one, big interconnected puzzle.

Actually, it should have literally been a big interconnected puzzle. How awesome would have been to keep exploring these areas and actually finding paths between the regions?

A bit like how some of the levels in Banjo-Tooie were actually connected.

On the subject of underrated games, I think Yoshi's Story gets more flack than it deserves. I loved it.

That would have been pretty great, one thing Skyward Sword did lack was what Ocarina, Majora's Mask and Wind Waker did very well, in that what you saw in the distance is what you could literally walk up over to. And in the case of Wind Waker's always streaming-from-disc game world the world really was your Oyster, you could get off whatever island you were on and sail right over to the silhouette in the distance. Enchanting stuff.

I was really disappointed with Yoshi's Story, but probably because my expectations were elsewhere after Yoshi's Island. I should probably play it again sometime, I still don't appreciate what it tried to do (like the way it has a unique level-choice scoring system, almost like Star Fox)

Vidofnir wrote:

I know it is an old game and I am not even sure if it can be counted as 'underrated' but ill let you guys decide.

I think it can, but I don't think I agree.  The main problems it had were the short length and paucity of Pokémon available.  Oh, and some odd walking animation.  It's got a great core game with some good ideas, but they didn't give it room to breathe.  If only there'd been a sequel...



Now this is an underrated game.  It's like Colosseum, but much bigger and better.  I think it was mostly shafted for recycling areas from Colosseum, but it did new things with them (creepy Phenac, for example), had lots more Pokémon to catch, evolved the Shadow mechanics further (making them their own type, in fact), and had the crazy scientist in his Groudon mech with all the Sunkerns.  Plus - more Miror B.  It's the game Colosseum should have been, and remains to this day one of my favourite Pokémon games.  Only HGSS can compete.

Let the music play!

I loved that game as well and if i could find it for a decent price on Ebay I would get it again to go with Colosseum

Balladeer wrote:

Vidofnir wrote:

I know it is an old game and I am not even sure if it can be counted as 'underrated' but ill let you guys decide.

I think it can, but I don't think I agree.  The main problems it had were the short length and paucity of Pokémon available.  Oh, and some odd walking animation.  It's got a great core game with some good ideas, but they didn't give it room to breathe.  If only there'd been a sequel...



Now this is an underrated game.  It's like Colosseum, but much bigger and better.  I think it was mostly shafted for recycling areas from Colosseum, but it did new things with them (creepy Phenac, for example), had lots more Pokémon to catch, evolved the Shadow mechanics further (making them their own type, in fact), and had the crazy scientist in his Groudon mech with all the Sunkerns.  Plus - more Miror B.  It's the game Colosseum should have been, and remains to this day one of my favourite Pokémon games.  Only HGSS can compete.

Let the music play!

Oops, I sold my copy for £47.03 on eBay a few weeks ago (though Amazon fees meant I got less than that back).   

Amazon fees?

I've never played it due to its cost.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, to me, is really underappreciated/underrated, mainly (like ZombiU, which is another game I'll mention in this thread again at some point) because people looked at it for what it isn't (another Banjo platformer) rather than what it is (a great vehicle based adventure-game which feels very much like classic Rare).

I feel like playing it now, right from the beginning. It didn't get much wrong at all, the missions had bags of variety, the physics were great, reminding me a bit of Diddy Kong Racing but with more variety depending on how you built your vehicle, the premade blueprints made making a competent vehicle accessible (I spent a lot of it building on top of the blueprints), the writing was as witty as ever. It's almost a shame that unlike Viva Piñata it didn't receive a PC port, as it'd be great to play it with no loading times in 2013.

masofdas wrote:

Amazon fees?

I've never played it due to its cost.

Yeah, if you use the Amazon marketplace they take a 15% cut (including what the buyer pays for shipping).

fronkhead wrote:

Oops, I sold my copy for £47.03 on eBay a few weeks ago (though Amazon fees meant I got less than that back).   

That is not something to be grinning about!  Unless you beat it hollow, of course. Strange that it's still so expensive: I guess that they didn't produce many copies?

@Balla GameCube games like most Nintendo games hold there price really well. Take Soul Calibur II on PS2 it's worth about £1 but on Cube you'll be looking at around a tenner.

@Fronk but you said you sold on eBay, so what's amazon fees got to do with anything

Somebody (very, very kind) gave me a copy of Gale of Darkness, but I've not been motivated to play it. I'm putting that down to Colosseum - I just didn't think that was up to much. Fair enough it XD is a better game, but Colosseum was, in my opinion, quite overrated.

~

Happily, a quick check over on Metacritic shows that ZombiU was looked on quite favourably by many journos (though criticised by places that are probably made up, like Riot Pixels, Thunderbolt and WalloperChat). Deservedly so; it's a good game.

ZombiU is definitely a great game. What it does best is build tension through the environment. Also, probably has the most scary area in any horror game I have played.

Spoiler:

best survival horror I have played in years!

I've got another overrated one that'll raise some eyebrows - Animal Crossing.  I'm thinking of New Leaf here, but it more or less applies to the series in general.  Make no mistake, it's a good game with a lot of effort put into it, and enough material to keep people playing well into the New Year.  But how much of that is having fun, and how much of that is because you feel you need to go there every day?  You/I feel obligated to go in, clear the weeds, chat to the same-eight-personalities neighbours; but I don't enjoy it.  I don't even enjoy running around for hours waiting for the rare one-month-only dragonfly.  When I lost my ACNL village, it felt like a release.

I know that a lot of people say that I'm playing it the wrong way, trying to squeeze an hour's playtime out of it on the first day and getting fed up with it.  Trouble is, gaming is my major hobby.  When I get a game, I want to be able to play it for an hour on the first day, and nor do I think that's an unreasonable requested.

As an addictive drug, it'd get top marks.  As a game, it's good, but not the shining star of excellence that I feel some have made it out to be.

That's the spirit Balla, now talk about how rubbish Infinite Space is!

IS is great and you're wrong.  Anyway, I don't dislike AC nearly as much as you do!

ZombiU is not good,

Now Deadly Premonition is a under-rated game but is one of the best survival horrors you'll get.

I totally agree about Animal Crossing, It can be fun every now and again yet the game feels like it should be played often with factors like cockroaches turning up and villagers remarking on how I have been playing other games for 6 months a further deterrent.

I would go further but I would just be saying what I said on my vote for Andyman's thread.   

masofdas wrote:

ZombiU is not good,

Now Deadly Premonition is a under-rated game but is one of the best survival horrors you'll get.  

ZombiU is the best survival horror I've played in years (to repeat what Vidofnir said). Proper survival horror too, where your heart is always in your mouth half the time, and all the mechanics are as finely tuned as they can be for survival horror. Still the best use of the GamePad in a single player experience yet, even the use of the speaker (when you have the always-on scanning radar) was amazing.

Deadly Premonition was amazing (one of my favourite games of all time), and almost certainly underrated and misunderstood. In some ways it reminds me of Shenmue, constructing a small town which has plenty of heart and soul and detail, thus making you feel like you really belong there. I still can't get over how all the NPCs have certain schedules (like Majora's Mask) but these schedules are made on a day-by-day basis. The bit where all the townspeople are called for a meeting saw them all drive up to the meeting hall, it was great.

A true example of interactive narrative, where how much you learn and discover to solve the game's mystery is all up to you, and how you play your role as Agent York, and as such it's infinitely more interesting than half baked, insultingly linear and uninteractive games such as Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. Isn't that right, Zach?

Just such a shame the Director's Cut was a bug-filled, technically hampered mess on both PS3 and PC. Unsurprising given Access Games (the original developer) didn't even work on it, I guess.

What Heavy Rain is excellent, I've not played Beyond Two Souls but have played Fahrenheit also by Mr I don't like video game Cage .

I'm not going back over ZombiU again as I've said how much I think it's rubbish in the Wii U vote.

Then why did you have to say it was rubbish when we already know your opinion of it?

Vido wasn't here and I disagree it's under-rated if anything it's over-rated but there is far worse to me then ZombiU.

Also two under-rated games Afro Samurai and Valkyrie Chronicles.

I'm pretty sure vido was about when the whole zombi u discussion started on the forum, point is you say you don't want to explain why you think it's rubbish but you still want to throw out that statement.

It just sounds like your out to wind folk up about it.

Dark Souls.  I've never played it, I don't know how good it is, but I already think it's overrated.  Every multiformat gamer there is seems to be talking about it everywhere, including in places that have nothing to do with the game.  It's becoming the gaming equivalent of My Little Pony.  This blog entry contains a paragraph which says how I feel about it at the moment:

Quote :

To be honest, one of the greatest services some Dark Souls fans could do for the game they're eulogising would be to shut the hell up about it. It's an amazing game and the idea that a people could be put off it by the community-based hyperbole says more about the community than it does about the game.

   

Thanks, Internet!

Balladeer wrote:

Dark Souls.  I've never played it, I don't know how good it is, but I already think it's overrated.  Every multiformat gamer there is seems to be talking about it everywhere, including in places that have nothing to do with the game.  It's becoming the gaming equivalent of My Little Pony.  This blog entry contains a paragraph which says how I feel about it at the moment:

Quote :

To be honest, one of the greatest services some Dark Souls fans could do for the game they're eulogising would be to shut the hell up about it. It's an amazing game and the idea that a people could be put off it by the community-based hyperbole says more about the community than it does about the game.

   

It does bring up a good point but I'd rather have folk raving about something than staying quiet & effectively being selfish by keeping it to themselves but then again I've never been put off by something that is widely popular, if anything it makes me more interested to try it out & make up my own mind about it.