The ten most overrated games of 2011

Posted by on December 11, 2011 in Features

Every year I try to explain that this list isn’t necessarily about games that are bad. It is instead about games that I’m surprised weren’t received more critically. So again, let me point out that I actually like and continue to play some of these games.

After the jump, the most overrated games of 2011

10) Catherine

Why wasn’t this weird Japanese RPG story with awkward puzzle sequences eviscerated by reviewers and unsuspecting gamers? I’m happy for publisher Atlus’ success when it comes to Catherine selling well, but it couldn’t have happened to a thinner game. Read more here.

 

9) Crysis 2

People love cookie cutter shooters when they’re beautiful. But Crysis 2 wasn’t particularly beautiful. Read the review here.

 

8) Super Mario 3D Land

Why is everyone so delighted with these same platformer concepts? Have they just not played all the better platformers that have come out in the last ten years?

 

7) Rage

Id idem. Read the review here.

 

6) LA Noire

Really good writing in search of a game. Read the review here.

 

5) Gears 3

People are taking these neckless space marines seriously? It’s the same good gunplay it’s been all along and not much else. Read the review here.

 

4) Forza 4

While talking to a colleague who really liked and reviewed Forza 4, I was surprised to discover he’d never played a Need for Speed: Shift game. Are Forza fans in a bubble in which only Forza and Gran Turismo exist? Because that would explain a lot. Read the review of someone who played a Need for Speed: Shift here.

 

3) Dark Souls

Most people who play videogames have no business playing Dark Souls, no matter how good it is. The beauty and the madness of this thing is how it nonchalantly violates nearly every rule of good game design from the past ten years. Despite this, it was well received and I couldn’t be happier about that. The game diary starts here.

 

2) Uncharted 3

The cautionary tale of how games that think they’re movies can go wrong by forgetting they’re actually games. Read the review here.

 

1) Skyrim

I love Skyrim, but not because it’s well made. Bethesda’s been doing this long enough that they need to work on the actual game design basics and not just the nifty world-building. Read the review here.

 

The ten most disappointing games of 2011
The top ten games of 2011

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  • http://twitter.com/broccoman Jeff

    Catherine has gained some oddball success as a competitive tournament game, seriously.  I’m unsure if that justifies moving it off of this list though.

  • Thongsy

    It blesses my heart to see Uncharted 3 there. Though odd to see Skyrim there and neither Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3. 

  • Jeff3f

    I loves me some Mt. Tsukuba (even if it has a honda flit in the foreground)…

    Skyrim is on the list, but I find myself playing the hell out of it and I don’t know why.  Skryim has supplanted Stains Row (sic) the turd (it’s not but I can’t help myself), and that supplanted Batman ArkHam (uhh ham) City.  Oh yeah, and I forgot but I think Anus 2070 has supplanted Skyrim (ie I’m playing that instead of Skyrim but it’s only been 12 hours so it’s hard to tell yet).  And let’s not forget a new word puzzler (spell tower) on iOS that’s also getting some time in edgewise.

    Some great games, but I’m unsure how Skyrim needs to be in the list and at #1 for peets sake. But then, I’m playing something else instead of it so perhaps Tom is right.  Right?

  • Sone

    Why isn’t Spore on this list?

  • Superslug

    does anyone else build a world like bethesda though?
    Niftily built worlds are probably my favourite thing in single player gaming. The elder scrolls games seem to get better each time at putting a game into their world but I am happy for it to be slow so as not to come at the expense of the world.

    I guess they could look at mass effect 2 for inspiration next time.

  • Divorced

    Spore didn’t come out in 2011.

  • Monsieur Eek

    I’d say Tom is truly mistaken about Catherine, but I can sort of see how he got that impression. If anything, even the positive reviews largely underrated how much game there is in there.

    Also, the blurb about Dark Souls sounds like he maybe doesn’t have a very good opinion of his fellow reviewers, as though no one else can tell if a game is good just because it’s unorthodox. Or maybe it was just an excuse to praise the game some more and I’m reading too much into it.

  • Parallax

    The Souls series reminds me of Dwarf Fortress, at least in the motto.  Losing is fun!

  • McG

    Fakeout with the Starcraft 2 preview image!

    Seriously though I’d put Starcraft 2 at the top of my most disappointing games list. I loved the original for allowing some brilliant play with all the special units that allowed you to defeat a braindead spammer opponent with five times the army. Starcraft 2 was just more of your standard rock/paper/scissors grindfest that I’d expect out of something like an Age of Empires game. And the whole thing blatantly favors Terrans the way Dawn of War games have always blatantly favored space marines.

    Not to mention Blizzard’s writing and humor has been unbearably atrocious for the past 10 years.

  • Evrett

    Sc2..ya..I want to agree with you..it wasnt worth the money and I uninstalled it after a few weeks with a “cheated” taste in my mouth..but I dont think anyone was expecting the single player campaign to be so good.

  • Doug Erickson

    where’s bastion and skyward sword on this list? unlike, say, crysis 2, those actually HAD commonly inflated scores!

  • McG

    That’s the insane thing! Every review was gushing with how fantastic the campaign was! The zombie mission was kind of fun but the rest was a boring glorified tutorial just like all RTS campaigns, and the story was the exact same cookie cutter template they’ve been using for over a decade: “The bad guys were really good and vice versa boo hoo hoo”.

    I can’t wait until it’s revealed that Diablo just wanted to bring Christmas presents to children before the evil heroes killed him.

    The problem with Starcraft 2 is it lost a lot of the asymmetrical play that made the original great. Every race is basically broken down into “fast weak ground unit” and “slow, heavy armored ground unit” and whoever has the bigger income automatically wins ,

  • Hardcorebabbler

    Tom has been pretty clear about unequivocally loving Bastion. Can’t say I disagree, as it was probably my favorite game this year. I thought it totally deserved its scores.

    This seems like a pretty good list to me, although I can’t speak to all of them. I would’ve slapped Modern Warfare 3 somewhere on there, but then those games haven’t appealed to me for a couple of years now.

    As to the Starcraft 2 image, I assume it was one of Tom’s picks last year (must have been a Fidgit post so can’t check) and so it is referencing that. Which is good, since that game was waaay overrated in my opinion.

  • Sone

    I thought that such a high level of over-rated would span multiple years.

  • Anonymous

    No Bastion, yet you ding Skyrim for being long on world building and short on game play? Beyond its beautiful art direction and lovely soundtrack, Bastion offers absolutely nothing in terms of actual gameplay. It’s Secret of Mana without the systems or challenge. Yet it was lauded to the stars by the gamerati. My money says that Bastion will get more mileage out of its soundtrack than the game a year from now, while people will be restarting 60-hour journeys in Skyrim for years to come.

    Gotta support the rest of this list, though.

  • Anonymous

    Once again Tom misses (or ignores) the point as to why his annual list pisses people off. (I.e. see the “disclaimer” at the top: “So again, let me point out that I actually like and continue to play some of these games.”)

    What is this list? Is it expressing the opinion of Tom regarding the games on the list? Nah. It essentially reviews opinions about these games, and dings those people who like the games on the list “too much” relative to the level of enthusiasm that Tom feels to be proper. So people are entirely right to be pissed off at Tom for it.

    I don´t care if Tom likes other games than I do. I do care however, if he hectors me that I shouldn´t like the games that I do. None of your business, pal.

  • Anonymous

    Agree on the story part.

    Really, really disagree about the asymmetry aspect though. I think that it plays out in a highly asymmetric (and highly entertaining) fashion in MP.

  • Thongsy

    But that is what an overrated games list is. It’s your opinion of the game in contrast with the much wider opinion of the game. Same is true for an underrated games list. 

    Otherwise it would just be a list of The Worst Games of 2011 instead.

  • Saltiness

    Obsidion write better games (thus making better worlds/storys/etc) while have about the same amount of bug testing. Bethsoft is just a marketing/litigation machine.

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, I know that Dark Souls is kind of weird being on there.  But it really is as simple a matter as me being surprised more people weren’t critical of its design choices.  I’m glad it was so widely praised, but I’m still surprised.  And, frankly, despite the fact that I love it, I wouldn’t recommend it to many people.

  • Anonymous

    Superslug, I think Rockstar, Ubisoft’s Montreal team, Avalanche, Rocksteady, and Double Fine have all built worlds equally as good, if not better, than the great work Bethesda does.

    I can’t tell if you’re being facetious when you mention Mass Effect 2, but I think Bioware does a mostly disappointing job when it comes to world building.  I feel they rely too much on dialogue trees and codex entries. :(

  • Anonymous

    Yeah, as Mr. Babbler mentions below, the Starcraft image is because that was my pick last year for most overrated game.  I really like Starcraft a lot, but — as per the intro to these articles — I was really surprised it was so well received.  I’d link to the article, but Syfy flushed all the content away when they closed the site I used to write for them. :(

  • Anonymous

    Just to clarify, this isn’t just a matter of scores.  Frankly, I don’t really pay that much attention to scores.  This is more a reaction to my overall feeling about how people reacted to the game, in reviews, in discussions, on podcasts, in blog posts, in Tweets, etc.  Except that I don’t do Twitter, so I made that last one up.

    As for the other titles, I have more lists coming!  Stand by!

  • Anonymous

    Fair enough!  You are hereby allowed to like whatever you like. 

    Seriously, though, I hear what you’re saying, but I think you’re attributing the wrong tone to what I’m doing here.  I play a wide variety of games.  I read about them a lot, I discuss them a lot, I write about them a lot.  It’s kind of my job.  And sometimes I am surprised at how people react to something.  I don’t necessarily intend that surprise to be a value judgement on other people’s opinions so much as my comment on the wider discussions about videogames.  I don’t get that so many people dig Rage.  I don’t get that more people aren’t affected by Skyrim’s shortcomings.  I don’t get that so many people buy into Uncharted 3.  I don’t get that so many people are willing to embrace Dark Souls.  I don’t get how people can play Need for Speed: Shift and still rave about Forza.

    Tell you what: If it makes you more comfortable, you can think of this list as the ten games where I am most out of touch!

  • McG

    It wasn’t completely symmetrical, but much less so than SC1. The whole marauder/roach/immortal thing was a terrible change and made it feel more generic rock/paper/scissors.

    You could do AMAZING things with the special units in SC1, easily taking out armies 10 times larger under the right circumstances. No such luck with SC2. Psi storm weakened. No more plague. No more spawn broodling. No more irradiate. I’ll use Tom’s old saying that it was all about trump/countertrump. All these aspects were toned down for SC2 and combat became more about your economies grinding against each other than brilliant tactical play.

    Hey, how about that Generals 2?

  • McG

    Speaking of which, where is the Most Disappointing of 2010 article? I can’t find it in the Dec ’10 archive or under a search for “Starcraft”.

  • Superslug

    If it helps I am australian and therefore always facetious.
    Just Cause 2 felt like a very large and interesting playground rather than a world to explore to me.

    Arkham Asylum felt like a bunch of levels to me, I haven’t played city yet. I have plans to get to it but my crippling sc2 addiction and 2 small children means I get to games late. Did City feel like a solid world?

    Double Fine are a significant gap in my gaming history. Is there a game of theirs you are thinking of specifically?

  • superslug

    I think the polish on sc2 is the reason for its reception. It might not be as good a strategy game as others but that means nothing to me (and I suspect many people reviewing the game) because it is the first rts I have ever actually understood. I couldn’t tell you why but I can watch a replay and see what I need to improve and that has never happened before.

  • Jorune

    I wish this article had more meat and substance instead of a link fest :-(

    Jorune

  • Anonymous

    It’s gone forever. :(  Syfy deleted the articles I did for them when they closed the site where I posted it.

  • Anonymous

    Well, this is really just a list.  But I promise that you’ll find some meat and substance behind some of those links.

  • Alan Kleiman

    You liked LA Noire’s story? I was under the impression you hadn’t. There’s also a face-heel-turn for Phelps in the middle of the story that really soured it for me in a ‘why did he do that with her again?’

  • Sori

    srsly Tom Chick, shut the fuck up your damn overrated bastard

  • Anonymous

    “Tell you what: If it makes you more comfortable, you can think of this list as the ten games where I am most out of touch!”

    If that was the headline (or for that matter “the games I am most surprised… etc.”), I wouldn´t care much. You wouldn´t get the clicks though.

    But that in turn does mean that “overrated” goes into the headline slot instead, which is a pejorative term, so don´t be surprised when people proceed to get their hate on.  After all, you are kind of hating on their taste.

    Which is also why the disclaimer is besides the point – I don´t care about your taste in games. I do care if you call out my taste as being somehow faulty, which is what most reasonable readings of the term “overrated” implies.

  • Anonymous

    Oh, I definitely liked the story. A lot, in fact. I just didn’t like the game that supposedly drove the story.

    I’m not sure I know what moment you’re talking about, but I think I have an idea. Consistent characterization has never been Rockstar’s strong point. :)

  • Anonymous

    I think if I imagine an Aussie accent while reading your posts, it will help.

    Arkham City is definitely more cohesive than Asylum.  Although you could argue it owes more to Metroidvania style worlds than GTA style worlds.

    My GOTY when it came out was Brutal Legend, which was an amazingly built world.  You know how in that movie The Cell they go into Vincent D’Onofrio’s head?  Brutal Legend was like that, but you go into Tim Shafer’s head, which is apparently the head of a teenager who’s really into heavy metal, girls, and cars.  I think we can all relate.

    But you are right that Bethesda does a great job realizing worlds.  I just think, fortunately for us, they’ve got plenty of competition.

  • Glycerine74

    Tom you are so full of shit I can almost smell you through the internet.  How is that possible?

  • Anonymous

    Yes, that´s the point. But Tom shouldn´t be surprised if people take issue with the list, since it is – by its very nature – an attack on the taste of other people.

    Unlike, say, a “worst of 2012″ list, which is usually not about reviewing the taste of others.

  • Anonymous

    I´m surprised that you´re surprised. The whole point of Dark Souls is that it takes a different tack to the rest of the market when it comes to difficulty and guidance (or lack thereof). Hell, that´s what they are marketing it as. “Prepare to die”, indeed…

  • Alan Kleiman

    I don’t want to be too spoilery, but there’s a point where Phelps does something out of the blue that sets him up for his downfall. It has to do with the female lead. Given what they showed of their interaction and given that she had the appeal of a boiled potato (and that we know zilch about his homelife), I just couldn’t see a good character reason for Phelps to do what he did. It came off as ‘well, we need to move to the next spot in the narrative’.

    Though yeah, now that I think back, there was some cool riffing on Chinatown near the end.

  • Alan Kleiman

    Addendum: I don’t mean that Chinatown comment as in ‘yeah, good job ripping it off’. I mean that they took familiar plot points and played with them, and I enjoy that sort of thing.

  • Anonymous

    Yep, that’s what I thought you were talking about.  Rockstar  – and LA Noire has Rockstar’s fingerprints all over it! — has problems doing female characters and romantic relationships.  Consider poor Bonnie in Red Dead Redemption.

  • Alan Kleiman

    In my case, it just made me check out. Suddenly I don’t care what happens to Phelps anymore.

    Uncharted 3 made me check out too, but for a different reason. I actually didn’t like the ship parts you mentioned, because they really started to strain my suspension of disbelief. To keep the action moving along, their efforts to keep Drake an ‘everyman’ as opposed to some enormous badass made Drake into a bumbling doofus. He destroys enormous things, and always by accident. He never looks where he’s going, so if there’s a chance for him to stumble or for him to be suckerpunched, he will be. It’s like you’re playing Mr. Bean.

  • Galactapuss

    I don’t think it’s fair to compare Skyrim with sandbox games like Arkham City or GTA. None of them deal with persistent NPCs the way that Skyrim does. If you follow someone in GTA, they’ll repeat the same cycle of actions or eventually disappear. I never get the sense that they’re real virtual people (which is why it’s so easy to do horrible things to them.) Skyrim’s world-building requires that each NPC have their own schedules, sleeping quarters, etc. This system has only seen incremental improvements from Oblivion, which means that the numbers of actors on screen are still stuck in the single digits, hamlets are still masquerading as cities, etc. But Bethsoft is still unsurpassed in this type of open-world games.

  • Saltiness

    Double Fine only have two releases.  Psychonauts (which is amazing and you should play it) and Brutal Legend, which I never got around to.

  • Anonymous

    Trenched, Costume Quest, and Once Upon a Monster would like to have a word with you. :)

  • Anonymous

    Stacking is another Double Fine game, and also very well written.

  • Anonymous

    Tom: did you play much of Forza’s Rivals mode? *That * is some seriously addictive (and challenging) driving.

    BTW: what platform do you play Shift 2 on, and what wheel do you use?

  • Anonymous

    I did, but I played more of Shift 2′s bracket mode, where you started at the bottom and had to work your way up a ladder by winning 1-on-1 races. It was like Rivals Mode, but with a mini-meta-game built around it. Did Rivals Mode have a system like that? I don’t recall. What makes Rivals Mode stand out for you?

    By the way, I wouldn’t be surprised if there wasn’t much of a community for Shift these days. It seems like the kind of game that has a very small and very hardcore player base. I suspect Forza is the game to get if you want an online community.

    As for my system of choice, I played Shift 2 on the 360 with a Fantec wheel.

  • Harfmarf

    Oh Tom. Always trying to be so edgy with your lists. It’s getting a bit boring. :(

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