We all have a video game (or two) that we absolutely love despite the general consensus that they are less than stellar! For me it’s the Fable series, while it has its fans, the majority’s opinion seems to be that they are a shallow experience not worth revisiting. But bollocks to that! I love to run around in my pants twatting people with a frying pan….in Fable of course, I was found innocent at the inquest. But the opposite is also true, how many times have you been chatting to a friend, or reading a glowing review about a video game just to say, “wow, I do not get it”. Here are 5 video games we’re supposed to love but just don’t.
Bioshock (The entire series)
When Bioshock first came out I didn’t get a chance to play it, I was a broke student and any money I did have spare for video games would only go towards games I knew I would love, so the first two games slipped by me. It wasn’t until years later when the third instalment “Bioshock Infinite” was free on “PS Plus” that I ever played any of them and let me say this on record “it was the most boring, overrated video game with delusions of grandeur that had ever been recommended to me”! Since then friends have told me the first one is the best in the series, so I tried it, I got maybe 2-3 hours in before I gave up. To this day I still don’t understand the hype, the only thing I can think of that makes people think that it’s good is the “shock twist”, but it’s not. It’s a slow paced, boring snore-fest.
L.A Noire
God, who remembers this one, eh? I remember being so excited about this game, I watched all the trailers and followed all the news stories. The idea of exploring neo-noir world filled with crimes that we would actually have to investigate sounded awesome. It was just what the FPS-multiplayer saturated games industry needed, but for me it just didn’t live up to its promises. The main character, Cole Phelps, was an unlikable, morally reprehensible dick with a giant chip on his shoulder and a superiority complex that would make twice impeached FORMER president trump seem like a stand-up guy. Now you may think that that is on brand for a “RockStar” protagonist, but unlike “Trevor Philips” from GTA V, L.A Noire expects us to root for this sentient ballbag. Add to that the frustrating controls, a barren in game world not worth exploring and arse controls and you get a game worth forgetting.
Gears of War
I’ll probably get quite a bit of push back on this one because a few of my colleagues here at N For Nerds are huge fans of the “Gears” series, but quite frankly I never got the appeal. Don’t get me wrong, I love to shoot and stab as much as the next gamer but Gears of War doesn’t do it for me. In fact I think the only reason it gets a pass is because it was the progenitor of the (now) FPS cliché “crouching behind walls and shooting”, that and it had the best multiplayer available at the beginning of the generation. But beyond that, all it had was sluggish, boring gameplay and a mediocre story that I can’t for the life of me recall.
Assassin’s Creed: Origins
You know, before we all discovered that Ubisoft were (and have always been) total and complete bastards, I actually liked a lot of the games they made. I loved Far Cry 3 (and only 3), the Prince of Persia series is…, sorry, was, awesome and Watch Dogs 2 is one of my favourite last gen games. But of all the games the bastards at Ubisoft published, the Assassin’s Creed series was my favourite. Admittedly I was more enamoured with the “Ezio” games than with the series itself and yes, I jumped ship (hehe) with Black Flag, but when they announced a reboot with Origins I was willing to give it another chance. I mean, a revitalized franchise with fresh mechanics set in ancient Egypt, fucking hell to the yes. But then it came, YET ANOTHER paint by numbers, open world, microtransaction filled, loot box ladened borefest. No longer did you scout out locations, or tail your target so you could kill them without being seen. Now it may as well be an RPG, a shit one, you collect weapons with varying degrees of rarity (of fucking course) and the bigger number wins.
Red Dead Redemption 2
This game is the reason for this article, I was listening to a gaming news podcast the other day and they were discussing Red Dead Redemption 2. The hosts were waffling on about how realistic it was and how deep the characters and the writing are and all I could think was “what a complete load of wank”! I played Red Dead Redemption 2 when it first came out, I think I only got 10 hours into, which may seem like a lot but it was only the first town if I remember correctly. I was just so bored! The missions while fun enough were bogged down with so many gameplay inconveniences and mechanical contrivances that it just left me annoyed. And God fucking help you if you accidentally did something illegal, like say trespass on private property. Even though there’s no way you could’ve known, fuck you, go to jail. Or if some dickhead walked in front of your horse, it’s not jay walking mc fuck-stick that pays the price, it’s you! And woe betide anyone who happens to get mugged in a town, because if you fight back, you, and only you, would become a fugitive. Even if you somehow managed to get the muggers to follow you to a cop, they wouldn’t do anything to stop them! Fuck this 100% overrated video game.
While these games were very popular and had a lot of fans, they just didn’t hit like they were supposed to in terms of every aspect of their existence. You can appreciate the cinema aspect and the fact that they were created like something out of a blockbuster film producer’s brain, but that wasn’t quite enough in terms of creating the ultimate masterpieces that we were perhaps promised.
Well, those are our thoughts on overrated video games, do you agree? Disagree? Let us know in the comments below. Also don’t forget to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and subscribe to our YouTube channel and if you’re feeling generous feel free to donate to our Patreon, thanks for reading.
