Over rated / Under rated Games

Right, I'm going to add Steamworld Dig to the list of overrateds. Everyone seems to love it, yet I found that a mixture of procedural design in the mine proper and dull design in the little bonus-type worlds sucked much of my enjoyment out. It was still solid, right up until the last third where the mine became full of big holes and it was more a matter of joining them up than carving your own way down.

Also it sadly seems like DKCTF needs to go into the underrateds.  

For me, Sonic Lost World is the most underrated game on the Wii U and of the last year. It has some flaws and an unfairly balanced difficultly level, but there's definitely more to like than to not. While I expect Metro Gamecentral and EDGE to go over-the-top with their critiques of games like this (as they're bitter anti-rags that don't seem to enjoy gaming), I was disappointed with the general reaction from the gaming public and the way many so readily put the boot in. I'd go for Sonic Lost World 2 - the first was pretty good.

Can I throw Bike Rider DX on the underrated games pile? It's a great little auto-runner; not overly fussy and quite cheap. I don't think ONM have even rated it. 

Given that I've never even heard of it, yes, probably. Is it eShop?

Aye, at £1.99. I quite like it too - it didn't change gaming's landscape or anything like that, but it's a nice, simple platformer/runner.

Good to know. Something to pick up when I finally tire of Pokémon Battle Link.

If my sister had an account on this forum, she'd say that Brunch Panic is, much to her surprise, under-rated game. Also, Engrish out the arse.

Jay reminded me of something in the graphics thread: Prince of Persia 2008.

That game was immensely overrated. Yes, it looked nice, but the gameplay was a complete mess and it lacked any kind of fun.

It is one of the very few games that I bought, completed and sold in a short amount of time.

I'd say it was underrated. I've heard so much negativity about it but when I finally got round to playing it I absolutely loved it. Sure it was collectible heavy but the platforming was great fun.

Disagree totally Cube. I wouldn't say it was overrated at all as on release there were just waves of negative opinion about it, but having played it to completion recently I had a great time with it. Gorgeous to look at it, and whilst it was different from the Sands of Time trilogy in a major way, I thought the rhythmic style of platforming worked great. Combat was a bit naff, but on the whole it was a great experience.

It actually had loads of positive reactions and reviews at launch.

I remember the reviews being somewhat favourable but the fan response to it was lukewarm at best and crushingly negative at worst.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is very underrated. It got panned because it wasn't a platformer or a proper Banjo game.

It was a brilliant vehicle game and had the great Banjo humour from his previous games. I had a lot of fun making crazy creations and developing the perfect vehicle for competing in the leaderboards that each challenge has. The graphics were beautiful and the multiplayer was, surprisingly, amazingly well thought out, and is still one of the best multiplayer structures out there - imagine Halo, except instead of sitting on a menu all the time, you played around in the Forge between matches.

It's definitely my favourite Xbox 360 exclusive.

I think if it hadn't been billed as a Banjo game it would have received a far more favourable response. A lot of people felt cheated out of a Banjo experience because of it.

The worlds felt very Banjoish too which probably didn't help. I really enjoyed it but I couldn't ever make any decent vehicles.

It's a shame the Robot wars licence doesn't have much pull- Rare would do an amazing job with it, just modifying N&B.

Oh no, Nuts & Bolts is overrated - and it's hardly rated. It lets you run round like you're playing a new Banjo-Kazooie platform adventure game, and then it reminds you that you're not.

Paper Mario is hardly rated. It lets you run and jump like you're playing a new Mario platformer, and then it reminds you that you're not.

But no-one went into Paper Mario expecting anything but a Mario RPG. In fact, when the series tried to focus more on platforming, people were a bit miffed. With Nuts and Bolts, it deviates so starkly from the core formula and there's no reason for it to. Paper Mario's a continuation of Super Mario RPG - it worked, so people wanted more. Nuts and Bolts - which I still maintain shouldn't have had the Banjo name slapped on it - ended up cheating the fans out of a platforming experience. There's no need to compare Paper Mario and Nuts and Bolts - two entirely different kettle of fish.

I would have thought that most fans would have looked at the game before buying it. There was even a demo.

Cube wrote:

I would have thought that most fans would have looked at the game before buying it. There was even a demo.

Yes, and the demo had a loading screen tip that said "You don't like this? Buy the original on XBLA". Cheers then.

I've got a sealed copy of Nuts & Bolts waiting to be played, but the demo has put me off a bit. I guess I've got it as I'll always hope the full game is a bit better than the impression that I've got. Don't know how I'd feel about it - I'm with Cube in saying that Banjo-Kazooie is the best platformer ever (at least I think he said that), but I wasn't a fan of Tooie due to all the extra bobbins. 'All the extra bobbins' coupled with "LEGO f**king cars"...hmm...

On the topic of Paper Mario, I'd rate Thousand Year Door more highly if it ever shut the hell up and let me crack on.

I feel like a sufficient amount of time has passed since I last slagged these two games off that I can get away with doing it again: Phantom Hourglass and MaBoShi.

Phantom Hourglass was a good game marred by that stupid temple. I don't like speedruns and I don't like stealth and it forced you to do them both as a core part of the gameplay. MaBoShi is just something I could never click with. I found the games too slow-moving to be engaging and none of them to be particularly intuitive or interesting, meaning that anyone I did try the multiplayer with just tired of it very quickly.

I'd take that temple everytime over that stupid train in spirit tracks