games that are loved that you think are bad?

[DevilRising]

This list would honestly be too long if I were to include EVERY game/franchise that I feel that way about.

To preface anything I say hereafter on the subject, I was born in 1981, my first console was an Atari, I "grew up" with my NES, and got a Game Boy and SNES each a few years after they had launched (lack of $$$$). So that is the era I grew up in, when arcades were amazing and unique and actually mattered, and when 2D, sprite based gaming was king. I am not only "nostalgic" for that era and those types of games....I also just happen to very strongly feel that the video games industry and games on the whole were a lot BETTER back then. I think the industry has grown, but with that, has also come the price of becoming more "mainstream", and we're seeing and experiencing it. And I honestly haven't been a fan of the change since all the way back in the PS1 days, when a lot of top games were judged by how much FMV and voice acting they had, and not always whether or not the game itself was actually GOOD or fun to play. That, in my eyes, has only gotten worse and worse and worse with each passing generation.

Part of the reason that I like and have stuck with Nintendo as a console maker all these years (despite also owning a TG16, Genesis, PS2 and PS3, among others), is because especially at this point, they're the last big publisher that still bothers to turn out "old school" style games. They still make VIDEO GAMES, whereas to me it seems like most developers, especially western developers, are obsessed with trying to prove "video games are art", and as such trying their very best to turn gaming into interactive movies, instead of just GAMES. Thus the birth of bullshit like QuickTime Events gameplay, and a heavy focus, again, on cinematic cutscenes, voice acting (nowadays with actual noted Hollywood actors, including the expense that costs). Game budgets are getting more and more bloated, and you're seeing studios that lasted for in some cases decades, that used to turn out amazing products, disappear after one or two flops. Just look at Apogee/3D Realms, Midway, Factor 5, Free Radical, Acclaim, THQ, etc. Companies like Sunsoft, Hudson Soft, Taito, SNK, Tecmo, Jaleco, Kemco, Enix, Tradewest, Data Easth, etc, are all either dead, bought and absorbed into other companies, or otherwise now fairly irrelevant. Once-great developers like Capcom, Konami, Namco, Squaresoft, Activision, and even Ubisoft to some extent are all shells of their former selves, and have turned into lumbering, soulless corporate giants, that at least in this man's opinion, rarely ever put out TRULY quality games anymore. A developer like RARE got bought out by Microsoft, emasculated, castrated, and are now making shitty Kinect games instead of masterpieces. Even the other two of the ORIGINAL "Big Three", Atari and Sega have had their problems and in their own ways are each struggling to stay afloat and stay relevant. And that sucks.

So, with all of that said, you can start to imagine where I'm coming from and how I feel about modern gaming. Don't get me wrong, there have been many modern games that I thought were great, NOT made by Nintendo even. I happen to think that younger developers like Vanillaware and Clover/Platinum and Team Ico, for example, have made some great stuff. I'm not a fan of Bayonetta or Godhand or Madworld, but Okami easily is one of the best games I've played in the last several years, and The Wonderful 101 looks like it could potentially be fantastic. I also enjoyed what I've played (haven't beaten yet still) of Batman Arkham Asylum. For what they were worth, I enjoyed the Ghostbusters game and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. de Blob was entertaining, as was something like 3D Dot Game Heroes. I even have found enjoyment to be had in Skyrim (the first Elder Scrolls game I've ever bothered playing), IN SPITE of how retardedly glitchy the fuckin game is. There are many others I can't pull off the top of my head.

BUT, it needs to be said that in answer to the actual thread question.....yeah, there are a LOT of high selling, seemingly beloved games/franchises that I quite simply couldn't give a fuck less about, and while I do acknowledge the quality and finer points of SOME of them, many of them I do in fact consider to be terribly overrated, and just straight out "bad" games. What, you may ask? Well.........here goes:

Halo. Call of Duty. Battlefield. Assassin's Creed. Crysis. Infamous. Prototype. Uncharted. Metal Gear Solid. Gears of War. God of War. Grand Theft Auto. Killzone. Mass Effect. Bioshock. Deus Ex. Half-Life. Saints Row. Resident Evil (the first couple were good, after the DC game, nope). Final Fantasy (haven't been into the series since FFVI). Tomb Raider (was never into it). Splinter Cell. Borderlands. Far Cry. Silent Hill. Ninja Gaiden (like the original trilogy, not the new one). Devil May Cry. Dead or Alive (never into it, poor man's Virtua Fighter). WoW (liked the first three WC games, but it's gone to shit). Etc. etc. etc.

So yup.