What games or franchises do you think gamers are/were too harsh on?

I think people were pretty harsh on Death Stranding. It’s definitely not one of Kojima’s best, but the game has its bright spots. Overall, it’s a good game that got a little more hate than deserved. Another game or franchise I can think of is Call of Duty. Yes, the games are churned out every year, and yes, sometimes they come out with crap. But Modern Warfare and Cold War from the last few years are examples of the franchise still being pretty fun. Also, the games still offer a ton of hours for the money. I look forward to Modern Warfare 2!

How about you, SW? What games or franchises do you think gamers are/were too harsh on?

Can't think of any better games than Dark Souls 2. It got obliterated, but when we're comparing it to pretty much every other rpg/action rpg, it was superior to the massive majority of them. I get it, Fromsoft standards are higher than most devs out there, but seeing Souls fans completely skipping the game was kinda laughable.

COD Infinite Warfare. That campaign is brilliant. I get the feeling that game started as something else, but then they slapped the COD name on it. Space battles, in ships and floating around, shooting people while using a grappling hook, busting open their visors etc. So fun… It was a nuts campaign. But gamers dismissed it because either a) it was a COD campaign, or b) FPS fans were engaging in this “future shooters are lame” meme. We’ll look at what happened when we went back to the WW’s… The worst CODs and BFs ever… See what happens when devs listen to folks on the internet? Shit gets ruined…

Far cry 2.

Its masterpiece and was ahead of its time. but gamers were too harsh on it ubisoft abandon its immersive formula and made movie games from FC3 to onwards.

FC2 was more like STALKER than later ubi open world games.

the whole immersion in Africa, maleria, weapon jamming, realistic gunplay, weather system.

It was incredible game.

It is mandatory that I mention Halo Infinite.😎

Crysis 2.

Although I understand why. Still, the blueprint for that game, had it been open-world, would have been incredible.

Death Stranding is the biggest pile of trash I've ever spent money on. It deserve every ounce of hate it gets, if not more.

I second this. Crysis 2 was great.

TLOU2.

Horizon forgotten worst.

Tho I personally thought they scored more than they deserved

Mass Effect Andromeda

Does it live up to the original trilogy? Absolutely not. Are the facial animations wonky, making it highly meme-able? definitely.

But overall I still found it a very enjoyable Sci-Fi RPG with good combat, good locations, a good structure, and enough characters and quests that were at least passable to make it worth playing.

Not a great game by any means but definitely better than what most people made it out to be. I'd put it on par with something like Fallout 4

interesting. i bought it on ps4 but barely played it. not sure why. i think i picked it up more for the og modern warfare it came bundled with, although the code to redeem that has expired, and its not attached to psn account which means no way to redownload it for my ps5, which sucks. but anyway, i think i'll give iw another try after reading that, i fancy a shooter, not played one for a while

Pirate opinions don't matter FC3 is much better BTW. FC2 is decent at best.

I haven't played Death Stranding yet, but it's on my "at least give it a shot one of these rainy days" list. I am also looking forward to Modern Warfare 2.

As far as games I feel people are too harsh on... hmm.. I'd say most live service games. A lot are free to play and only offer skins and other cosmetics in a paid shop that usually don't effect gameplay (I see you Roze skin). For the monthly subscription games you either find value or you don't and you either pay that or don't play the game.. chances are if you like the game then you see the value... Spending money the way you see fit is each persons own prerogative, and if you simply don't like a game or a genre it doesn't mean anything is wrong with the model it means it simply isn't for you, but that's just my take.

@warmblur:

FC3 is dumbed down version of FC2. Same like Fear 2 was to Fear 1.

Couldn't disagree more. Andromeda is in my top 5 worst games that i purchased and fully completed without skipping any side content. It was an abysmal experience. Hell, i'd go further. Its so bad that i think i would rather play the yearly AssCreed over it, if someone forced me to replay Andromeda. Throughout the whole game, the only thing that i "enjoyed" was Liara's tapes you find in a room. Listening to them was more enjoyable than anything in this garbage video game.

I HATE THIS DAMN GAME. "Hate" is not enough to describe how i feel about this thing.

@marleykilladope said:

$up

This is a bot. Are mods aware of this?

Saints Row 4 is still a fun game.

Pirate opinions don't matter.

wow! ghost is getting rolled. how will he create threads about the next ID game when his opinion doesn't matter a single bit?

you cant debate with me. always loose debate.

still I respect you.

Sorry Ghost the GS community has spoken your opinion don't matter.

@warmblur said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@warmblur said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@warmblur:

FC3 is dumbed down version of FC2. Same like Fear 2 was to Fear 1.

Pirate opinions don't matter.

you cant debate with me. always loose debate.

still I respect you.

Sorry Ghost the GS community has spoken your opinion don't matter.

Thread no longer exist. Check

no evidence of me being pirate? check

Im too nice that I cant name call you like stupid or idiot or something.

your last sentence undermines everything that came before it ;)

Probably FarCry2, the series changed quite a bit after it.

Teeth is right. It is a good game after patches (on PC at least). Also, you say the game was "abysmal", but played the whole game without missing any side content. If it was truly abysmal, you would have stopped playing and not even have finished the main campaign. Stop being so overly dramatic. It just makes you look like an idiot.

@ghosts4ever said:

@warmblur said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@warmblur said:

@ghosts4ever said:

@warmblur:

FC3 is dumbed down version of FC2. Same like Fear 2 was to Fear 1.

Pirate opinions don't matter.

you cant debate with me. always loose debate.

still I respect you.

Sorry Ghost the GS community has spoken your opinion don't matter.

Thread no longer exist. Check

no evidence of me being pirate? check

Im too nice that I cant name call you like stupid or idiot or something.

Pirate opinions don't matter.

hah fair enough. I don't recall Fallout 3 fans freaking out about 4 in the same way that ME fans did about Andromeda but I could be wrong.

both had a similar dip in quality I felt

Herzog Zwei. Got bad reviews at the time, but is now heralded as one of the best games ever made.

@with_teeth26: oj dude i just really didn't like f4. i'm playing the mass effect remasters currently so will play andromeda when i'm done with me3. had a copy for ages but never played it

Halo 5, I like it better than Halo Infinite by far. I think most people judge it more on their opinions about the Xbox One and Infinite coming out when it's okay to like Xbox after Series S|X got much stronger appreciation. The linear style makes it much better to play in co-op. There's greater biome diversity (something Infinite lacks). The Warzone Firefight is fantastic. I also really liked the new abilities, and I feel their exclusion in Infinite was done because Microsoft and/or 343 thought Halo Infinite needed to be a repudiation of Halo 5 to appease the haters.

Batman Arkham Origins - find it odd lot of the hate I see is like "same gameplay as others doesn't do anything new"... I dunno, sometimes that's all I need for some sequels. I also feel Arkham Knight gets a bit too much hate for Batmobile combat, otherwise I though it was another fantastic entry.

Crysis 2 - I actually enjoyed it more than the original, people make the original out to be some kind of Far Cry open world when it really feels more like just a linear game with wider boundaries. I am just left to think it's nothing more than an over-glorified tech demo. Crysis 2's more contained structure really helped with pacing, and the enemy design was improved a lot. Original Crysis ceph were boring and bland. Most the hate seemed born out of that angry PC gamer hating the game believing it was compromised to pander to consoles. Well, maybe it was, but still a very fun in ways the original never was.

FEAR 2 - I had a lot of fun with this. Another one PC gamers were buttsore over compromising for consoles. And I actually thought the paranormal elements of this game surpassed the original. But the gunplay is what makes it interesting. Hell I jumped back to it a short while ago and it still holds up well.

Dead Rising 3 - another title that's hate stemmed more for its association with the despised Xbox One, but damn modifying a motorcycle with a steamroller and adding flame turrets on it and driving through hordes of zombies with it was oh so fun.

Metroid Other M - got good reviews all around but most gamers seem to echo the sentiment of the G4 X-Play review. I still had good times with it, and at its core it is still a very formulaic Metroid game through and through.

Resident Evil 6 - sure there's still a lot wrong with it but wasn't as bad as people make it out to be. More of the same RE5 co-op and there's 4 sets of characters to go through the games parallel narrative with. My main complaint on that design is while each set has some good missions they all merge at the same last mission area and that level feels way too same. The game had some grapple GTEs and context QTEs like that I don't mind, cutscene QTEs are boring as ever, but RE5 got s free pass on that and people raved about it at the time. Important to note too this is the first RE game to incorporate a proper dual analog design with moving and shooting. Something Capcom didn't think about until halfway through RE5 development and though added dual analog controls on top of the originally planned tank controls, limited this change to planted foot aiming and shooting because likely this drastic improvement to controls was likely going to require an overhaul to enemy scripting and fight scenarios through the game. Funny enough I have seen people praise Revelations 2 thinking that was the first game to implement modern dual analog controls which goes to show for all the crap talking people did of RE6 that many probably never played it.

Lost Planet 2 - seemed to get mostly crapped on for not being a capable solo game and instead encouraged matchmaking co-op for the campaign. Was probably ahead of its time in that regard, these days games like that can exist without ouahback like before. Though Left 4 Dead was same way, no point playing without other people, hell no point playing without human controlled zombies trying to wreck your day. Anyhow, another Capcom game that also shares an issue I forgot to mention about RE6, very buggy and unpolished. Capcom had a big problem with this after the mass exodus of Capcom employees after the Clover staff left and started Platinum. Relatively speaking though not the quality of game people use to expect of Capcom, under the conditions it was more understandable.

New Super Mario series. I'd like a hand drawn style game like Wario Land: Shake It! But it's still pure classic Mario fun. Console games (Wii, Wii U, Switch) were the best too

I think the original Watch_Dogs got undeserved hate but the hate against Ubisoft for downgrading the graphics is absolutely justified the game itself is actually a really good open world game and the combat is fun.

Sonic

It's fun.

That's the problem with Crysis 2 is all the would have and could have and should have's with that game compared to what we got and more importantly what came before it. Everything about that game was a massive step back and done so to squeeze the game onto consoles which couldn't handle it at the time.

Crysis 2 is nothing but blown opportunities.

@BassMan: except it isn’t though… hardwarezen might be a dramatic little b*****, but god damn ME:A is a terrible terrible game.

Halo in general fans beat the shit out of every little thing

I mean there's no way they're going to make everyone happy, it's like saying everyone in a competitive game is going to be a winner.

I played it on launch, and the issues with the game cannot be patched. I played the whole thing, didn't miss any side content and completed it on max difficulty. Why? because its mass effect, and i have been waiting for a sequel for half a decade at that point. This is not the first time that i don't enjoy a game, but still complete everything while bitching about it. Mass Effect is in my top 3 fav franchises ever, so no matter how shitty it is, i will play it in hopes to find at least something half enjoyable. I didn't like Dragon Age Inquisition, but you can bet your three Xbox Series S's that i will play Dragon Age 4, because Origins was amazing and i even enjoyed DA2.

Dragon Age.

I think overall it was a great series.

DA 1 people liked.

DA 2 was kind of weird. Lost a lot of the grand scale and scope of the second game, and I think people thought it was half-baked. On revisits, though, it had some really great writing, solid quests, really compelling characters...probably some of the more interesting and fleshed-out story and development in any game I've played.

DA 3 came out and while I personally loved it, most people did not. I'm not exactly sure why. The gameplay was solid, the characters were great, it added some neat management aspects to the game. Above all else, I really loved the level design; it combined the large-scale feeling of an open world game while still having well-designed, detailed, instanced levels. Best of exploration combined with detail.

I think all three games, plus most of the DLC, are all really great, and DA 3 got a lot of hate it did not deserve.

Also, Mass Effect Andromeda.

Was it the Mass Effect 4 we wanted? No. Did it have the great writing and characters we expect in a ME game? No. Was it polished and problem-free? No.

But damn it all, I still had a lot of fun with it. Again, as I said above with DA 3, it had really great instanced-but-open level design, the gameplay was excellent, and if you judged it on its own merits and not as part of the original ME trilogy, it was a fun sci-fi game.

My only legit disappointment with the game was the ending and the big bad. Pretty underwhelming.

Journey.

I can understand the dislike, but think many didn't truly appreciate enough the chirping mechanic that was a brilliant idea to break down communication and cultural barriers and allowed players from all walks of life to find common ground in coming to a common understanding through working out a rudimentary form of communication.

It was an ingenious idea and IMO not given enough acknowledgment. I received so many messages in foreign languages on PSN. Don't know what they were saying, but I doubt many were mean spirited.

FF VII Remake

It's quite possibly the greatest game ever made. Easy 11/10. It doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves, considering it revolutionized gaming as we know it forever.

I do think it’s a little underrated. It’s definitely a special game!

I wish they had kept the sci fi COD as a mode within the regular COD. Sometimes I miss the wall running lol

It’s funny you say that, because shortly after that game, mobility became a HUGE factor in shooters. COD IW and Titanfall 2 came out in 2016 and didn’t get the love they deserved. But in 2019, with Alex Legends, gamers were finally ready. It pisses me off. I want more Titanfall!

The IW campaign had some really cool gameplay moments. If so many gamers didn’t have such a hate boner for the sci-fi future setting, they probably would have loved it… And come on, the future is far more interesting than WW2 for the 193728th time…

Anything that gets labelled as "Movie game"

Mirror's Edge Catalyst. It takes about as many steps backwards as it does forward compared to the first, but it's still the best first person parkour out there (Side note, I have not yet played Dying Light 2). Yes, the skill tree hurts the first few hours, and the open world is too compartmentalized, but once you unlock the main movement abilities and learn the city layout, its a lot of fun.

Mafia 3

It's hard to live up to Mafia 2 but I think Mafia 3 is a decent game. I really liked the story but I think the missions should have had more variety like winning races, driving boats, etc. I liked the DLC more cause you got to do missions away of New Bordeaux. Those missions were fun than the main story missions.

Pokémon

Every time a new game comes around the same nonsense starts back up where adults who grew up with the franchise are upset the series is still aimed at kids and doesn't have teens or adults as their primary audience. They haven't for a long fucking time now. It's been nearly 30 years since this franchise got started. Whether it's the National Dex, graphics, lack of voice acting, low skill barrier, or whatever there's always something people are taking this franchise to task for like it isn't meant to be an 8 year old's first RPG.

And what's truly crazy to me is that the Pokémon franchise's formula works and fans don't get it. The Pokémon Company and Nintendo already know they've got life long fans who will keep returning for more anything Pokémon. Their goal is to get new lifelong fans who will continue this cycle forward for another three decades.

Like damn do they all complain Happy Meals aren't enough food for a full sized adult or is this the only kid's product they complain about doesn't cater to them?