Jun 26th, 2018, 01:01 AM
There's a whole lot of games out there, with many coming out seemingly every second, so it is inevitable that at least some of them get sent to relative -or total- obscurity, despite showing much promise otherwise. Sad but it has always been part of the menu and I don't think it's necessarily gonna change, despite reviewing being opened to pretty much anyone with a working keyboard nowadays (which is not meant as an insult -far from it, actually-, just what it is).
Of course, there's also the complete opposite... you know, games that don't add much to the conversation -and aren't even done that greatly to begin with- that get such high praise, you have to wonder if everyone just got drunk at the same time.
Needless to say, whether a game is over or underrated is entirely a matter of personal opinion, so let us hear yours! What games fall onto those categories for you?
Here's mine:
Overrated: My pick for this one is the original Monkey Island.
When I first got online (at age 14, in the year 2004) Abandonware was still a relatively obscure term and very few communities were built around it at the time (Hispanic and otherwise). So whenever you came across one, you could half-expect LucasFilm's 1990 adventure game title to be the flagship of the whole thing... and no joke, that first place I got into was MI-high, having the forum themed after it, with most of the articles on the article section written on the subject and the theme playing as background music on the home page. Yeah, they went a little overboard.
Naturally, half the forum posts were talking about it as well, which made it nearly mandatory to play thru at least the first one in order to really get into the community (this was before the spoiler tags and spoiler forums were a thing, in glorious PhPBB-based boards).
I grabbed and played a copy of the floppy disk version off the same site (obviously) and, while I did have fun going on and about as Guybrush Threepwood, my general reaction never stopped being: "What? That's it?" Like, I didn't hate the game or anything, I was just vastly unimpressed by it. Later on I picked stuff like Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle -not to mention Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis- to play thru and I was blown away by every single one of them... even Monkey Island 2 was very superior in my mind, yet it wasn't talked over much (not before nor since I joined said community).
I know it is weird to hear someone saying such a classic is overrated, but that was the impression I got from it both as a teen browsing the genre with a 56k dial-up connection and lots of free time to burn and as an adult going back to revisit the past.
Underrated: Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon-Ra.
I know this game is generally acknowledged as an "ok" one, and has some following around (which I think was a little cut when it got to more people -and especially once the slightly offensive tones and representations of the characters used on it became more well-known-) but I think it deserves much more love than what it ended up getting.
It is just a fun game with some very interesting ideas and tight schedule that really made you feel like you were solving the mystery you were thrown in the middle of. Of course, it being a Sierra game, you will die early and often, which definitely takes a lot off the experience for the most casual players looking for something to just enjoy a slow and rainy night with. And the deaths can be cheap, so don't expect something like Shadow of the Comet here... it's much worse on that regard.
Still, it is a very solid game and I wish it had sold more copies when it came out. It truly deserves it.
What about you?
Of course, there's also the complete opposite... you know, games that don't add much to the conversation -and aren't even done that greatly to begin with- that get such high praise, you have to wonder if everyone just got drunk at the same time.
Needless to say, whether a game is over or underrated is entirely a matter of personal opinion, so let us hear yours! What games fall onto those categories for you?
Here's mine:
Overrated: My pick for this one is the original Monkey Island.
When I first got online (at age 14, in the year 2004) Abandonware was still a relatively obscure term and very few communities were built around it at the time (Hispanic and otherwise). So whenever you came across one, you could half-expect LucasFilm's 1990 adventure game title to be the flagship of the whole thing... and no joke, that first place I got into was MI-high, having the forum themed after it, with most of the articles on the article section written on the subject and the theme playing as background music on the home page. Yeah, they went a little overboard.
Naturally, half the forum posts were talking about it as well, which made it nearly mandatory to play thru at least the first one in order to really get into the community (this was before the spoiler tags and spoiler forums were a thing, in glorious PhPBB-based boards).
I grabbed and played a copy of the floppy disk version off the same site (obviously) and, while I did have fun going on and about as Guybrush Threepwood, my general reaction never stopped being: "What? That's it?" Like, I didn't hate the game or anything, I was just vastly unimpressed by it. Later on I picked stuff like Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle -not to mention Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis- to play thru and I was blown away by every single one of them... even Monkey Island 2 was very superior in my mind, yet it wasn't talked over much (not before nor since I joined said community).
I know it is weird to hear someone saying such a classic is overrated, but that was the impression I got from it both as a teen browsing the genre with a 56k dial-up connection and lots of free time to burn and as an adult going back to revisit the past.
Underrated: Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon-Ra.
I know this game is generally acknowledged as an "ok" one, and has some following around (which I think was a little cut when it got to more people -and especially once the slightly offensive tones and representations of the characters used on it became more well-known-) but I think it deserves much more love than what it ended up getting.
It is just a fun game with some very interesting ideas and tight schedule that really made you feel like you were solving the mystery you were thrown in the middle of. Of course, it being a Sierra game, you will die early and often, which definitely takes a lot off the experience for the most casual players looking for something to just enjoy a slow and rainy night with. And the deaths can be cheap, so don't expect something like Shadow of the Comet here... it's much worse on that regard.
Still, it is a very solid game and I wish it had sold more copies when it came out. It truly deserves it.
What about you?
![[Image: latest?cb=20180131180347]](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/undertale-au/images/f/fc/Img-1880473-1-Objection.gif/revision/latest?cb=20180131180347)