Much like every other entertainment medium in the planet, every video game save for a few exceptions I could probably count with my two hands, has a consensus attached to it - everyone either loves it, hates it, or something in between. That's because gamers usually expect something specific out of video games, and products either deliver or they don't. However, at the end of the day, we're all different, and sooner or later we're all bound to not follow the general consensus at some point, and video games are no exception.

I made this a roundtable so we can hopefully get some good discussions going, and be baffled at some of our fellow board members' choices. I'm sure some of you will be dumbfounded even at this OP.

So, post games everyone loves and you hate. Of course you can do any amount of games you want, and include descriptions only if you see fit. You can also add games you acknowledge to be well made games, but just aren't for you. Also, feel free to include games everyone hates and you love, I just didn't make that part of the main topic because it's not that common for that to happen. When games are generally considered horrible, it's usually because they're just not well made from a technical standpoint - no one can stand horrible cameras, textures, frame-rates or glitches abound. But if you can find an example of this, go ahead.

This should be good. Also, sorry if it's been done before. I don't remember if it has. Anyway, I'll start.

I Hate:

Kid Icarus

I hate this game. Granted I didn't play it in its entirety, I was fed up with it far before the final stretch of the game, but I completely disliked what I played of it. It stole the Metroid engine and made me go around in very generic looking stages attacking enemies with lame attacks. And constantly scrolling upwards (I know not the entire game is like this, but still) is so annoying in 2D a platforming game like this.

Animal Crossing

I had never played Animal Crossing until a few months ago. It didn't look like my type of game at all, so I steered clear. In what seemed like a call from destiny, a friend of mine recently let me borrow City Folk and said - here, you have to play it. You can't go on with your life until you play Animal Crossing. So I did. And, wow. What the hell do you do in this game? Seriously, though, I can see how people could get into this game. It's a good simulation game, and I can definitely see the Nintendo touch. I can feel it, almost. But the game bored me to no end. I put a couple hours into it and I never wanna see it again. Everyone says all Animal Crossing games are the same, so I feel I am entitled to say I hate the entire series.

Zelda II

I'm not completely alone on this one, I know, but it's still generally regarded as a good game. It's not a fun game at all. It's comprised of all these different "pieces" that ultimately don't add up at all. Towns, overworld with RPG-esque battles, experience points, AND side-scrolling gameplay? It never comes together, it's terrible. It doesn't help that it's extremely hard. But you know what's even harder? Finding a reason that justifies actually beating this game. Fuck it.

I hate the following more than the rest...

Gears of War

I should clarify before I begin, I haven't played the second one. And I don't want to. As for the first one, I played a substantial amount of the campaign and a bit of multiplayer, too. The multiplayer's alright, it's well designed, the problem is it has to work within the confines of the design of the game (of course), so... it sucks. First of all, the game is gray. I don't care what you have to say - it's gray. Yeah, it has some beautiful textures, but it's so unappealing to look at. I know people often complain about this in realistic HD games, but Gears is easily the worst offender in this aspect. So you already have a raised eyebrow from the minute you fire up the game, and then you start to play it. Your character moves like a tank (the "worse than Leon S. Kennedy" variety of tanks), the environments all look the same (of course) and are like 2x2. You have to take cover constantly and fire generic weapons at generic aliens. Yeah, it's a third person shooter which is kind of original, but it might as well have been an FPS, it's hard to tell the difference honestly. "Stop 'n' pop" doesn't make a shooting game more strategic - it makes it more boring.

And there's soon to be THREE of these games! Damn! Gears represents everything that's wrong with this generation of gaming (it only needs a 99 cent iOS game and we're golden), and people love it.

I'll post more games if they come to mind. Looking forward to your responses!

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WrathOfSamus777 said:

@Dapper Dick
Place of ignorance? I think you're the one who needs to study your video game history friend. The FPS genre was created on PC and will always be best on PC, period.

Is history the only subject on which there can be knowledge or ignorance? I was speaking on the present. The first video game was created on an oscilloscope, and will always be best on an oscilloscope, period.

@Xbob42

It controlled awfully and went on forever. I thought it might not have translated well to consoles but when I played the PC version it was the same issue. It literally kept me from playing through the rest of the game for I would guess 2 months.

Analog movement is useful in every FPS game. Specifically it allows for greater cohesion between aiming movement and forward/backward and strafing and not the WASD problem of 8 directions and that's it. I love aiming with DA. It will always require some correction like ADS or Auto Aim/Sticky Aim but it just feels right.

stephen08 said:

@WrathOfSamus777
Not sure why you are saying that DA is archaic in console FPS, the only other console substitute is the Wiimote which is very poor .

I'm not going to get into the whole GE/PD vs Halo argument again (it's clear where we all stand on that), but I am going to take issue to your statement about Wiimote FPS control.

A properly calibrated Wiimote is light years beyond any DA control scheme. Fact. This is not up for debate.

It's faster, more responsive and more accurate. It is superior in every possible way. And I can only hope some sort of pointer control whether Wiimote, Move or otherwise becomes standard for next gen FPS games.

@Shadowlink

Nope. Wiimote FPS controls are sloppy for many reason which I have discussed numerous times before. Non-distinct aiming channels, lack of inputs. It's slower, and more sloppy than DA so much so that multiple games acknowledge this in varying ways. MP3 had a lockon mode, and GE came bundled with a CC pro.

I can go into more detail if you like but this is starting to get pretty far off point so it should be done elsewhere.

Metroid and any fps. I just can't stand playing any of them.

@stephen08
Check your second to last post to me. You mentioned Halo in the first sentence claiming how much better it is than PD.

You are way, way oversensitive about Halo and it's blatantly obvious in your typical passive-aggressive fashion writing an essay on everything you think is wrong with PD after a bunch of people crapped on Halo. As soon as Shadowlink posted what he did about Halo, I was 99.9% positive you'd make an appearance in this thread. And sure enough.

As for D/A vs. MS/K, it's not a contest. Take any FPS game with good multi that you can play on Xbox Live and on PC and take the five best players from Xbox Live and pit them against the five best players who play the game on PC. Who do you think is going to win? The PC guys, no contest. They'd not only win, they would annihilate. It wouldn't even be a contest. There's nothing subjective about it, unless you're just too lazy to learn how to play with MS/K or just don't want to.

And I never said Half-Life is above criticism, I just said it's probably the best FPS series ever. I never said it was flawless.

As for PD, I disagree, especially since pretty much no FPS devs are making local multi-player in their games anymore. PD was never even designed to be played online. Me personally, I would much rather take a remake of PD or Goldeneye 64 with the tech issues ironed out (framerate etc.) and silky-smooth Wii-mote controls than play something like Halo, any day of the week.

Different strokes man, get used to it. We don't all worship at the altar of Master Chief.

Dapper Dick said:

WrathOfSamus777 said:

@Dapper Dick
Place of ignorance? I think you're the one who needs to study your video game history friend. The FPS genre was created on PC and will always be best on PC, period.

Is history the only subject on which there can be knowledge or ignorance? I was speaking on the present. The first video game was created on an oscilloscope, and will always be best on an oscilloscope, period.

It helps to know your history if you're going to say that a FPS like Halo wouldn't work on PC, since Halo was originally going to be made for Mac and to be played with a mouse and keyboard. And Halo is available for PC as well.

And this topic was going well before Halo had to get mentioned by someone.

But in any case, I will throw my two copper in and say that I cannot stand Earthbound as a game. It does have a certain charm to it, the rolling health system is definitely something unique, and I like that after a certain level you can just plow through weaker enemies without a fight, but other than that...well...it's just not appealing to me at all. I don't like any of the characters, the art style doesn't jive with me, I dislike the combat system and the view it has (reminds me of a 'poor man's' Dragon Quest), and none of the music is memorable to me. The limited inventory system (even after you get storage options) also grinds my gears and that items don't stack (I don't recall them doing so, but if so, then it makes it -slightly- better) in your bags, and the random battles can sometimes be downright nasty with the RNG, even early on when you hardly have any items or ways to defend yourself.

I definitely agree it's one of those games where you either 'get it' and love it, or you just 'don't get it' and don't like it...definitely not something I like and I don't regret passing this one up as a kid or even now.

Zero said:

Especially Anand. I haven't actually read all of the replies in this thread, but he probably posted his racist anti-Metroid propaganda somewhere in it.

Haha, I wanted to mention Metroid Prime, but, in all honesty, I don't hate it. I just hate Scanning.

Hate the mechanic, not the game.

WrathOfSamus777 said:

@stephen08Dogging on Halo is like the Stephen Bat-signal.

Hey don't steal my material!

Did Stephen really get his friend to sign up just to back him up? That is... amazing.

GelatinousEncore said:

Super Castlevania IV obliterates the NES games so much it's embarrassing, though. And not just because of better graphics.

Completely disagree. The best Castlevania game ever made (Dracula's Curse) is an NES game, and blows the SNES "sequel" out of the water. Super Castlevania IV took everything that made Castlevania what it was, and threw it out the window. Controls got too loose, whipping in 8 directions took away strategy (and nearly eliminated the need for sub-weapons, booo!), and the final boss was the most disappointing final encounter the series has ever seen.

I'm adding Super Castlevania IV to my list of "hated" games, despite being a HUGE fan of the series. Seriously, Super Castlevania IV sucks so bad. The SNES version of Dracula X is a better game than that piece of crap.

@GameDadGrant

Falling blocks level precludes Castlevania III from being the best at anything

I'd go with the original.

@Jargon

The falling blocks in the "Alucard" path? I'll admit it was slow, but that one (ONE!) level was created that way on purpose - slow the player down and realize what dire straights he/she was in. (should have taken the Sypha path, lol)

Also, I need to add one more game to my hate list: Chrono Cross. Much for the same reasons I hate Super Castlevania IV, it took everything I loved about the precursor, destroyed it, and replaced it with crap. Terrible!

@GameDadGrant

Yea, I ended up getting too frustrated to go on and started over taking the Sypha path. Else than that level it is a great game, and I agree it's better than Castlevania 4. But the original is so pure to me, that it takes the top spot.

Zelda: Wind Waker.

I really wanted to like this game. In fact, at around the midway point, I was considering the possibility that it could end up being my favorite Zelda (over OoT and MM, my two favorite overall games ever).

But MAN, was the second half of this game awful. And I'm not just referring to the much-scrutinized fetch quest, which was bad enough on its own. The remaining dungeons were some of the series worst; they added filler in the form of facing all of the bosses again, for no reason really. And then the final boss, which so many people still rave about, was really weak. It was style over substance, something Nintendo is not known for.

The game was rushed to release and it showed. I understand that the GameCube was struggling to keep up with the Xbox around that time, and there was pressure to get the "Big 3" to market within the same year, but I still contend that they should have held it off until the 2003 Holiday. That way they could have held off the release of another game that was rushed, Mario Kart. It's so apparent when you play the game that much wasn't ready for prime time (one dungeon is entirely removed), and lots was added to extend the game's length artificially.

I've never played a Nintendo game and hoped for it to end soon so I'd be done with it. Never before and never again afterward. Wind Waker, particularly everything after the Tower of the Gods, was just not a fun game to play in the slightest.

I was so excited for PD to hit XBLA. I loved Goldeneye and PD back in the day. It should've been awesome to play it at 60fps in HD, right?

While it was a fun trip down memory lane, Stephen articulates a lot of the problems that game has. The mission objectives are pretty cryptic at times, and sometimes do require some trial and error to figure out exactly what to do (what computer console needs hacking, that kind of stuff).

The story starts out fun and moves towards laughable, but not in a good way. This has been a gripe that many people have had with PD since its initial release, so I won't keep harping on that.

The controls are indeed pretty wonky. It's difficult, if not impossible to consistently get good headshots, and over time, the game just adopts a spray and pray kind of combat. Circle strafe around someone and pound on that trigger button in hopes that they die before you do.

I didn't have as much of a problem with that gameplay in something like Timesplitters, however...I think overall the controls were tighter and allowed the player to be more intentional in his aiming/shooting.

But yeah, as much as I LOVE PD...the game's controls and combat are kind of a mess. I think Stephen is right to bring up the word "chaos." There just never felt like there was a lot of consistency to the game's combat. Sometimes in single player, the auto aim would allow you to one shot a guard in the chest...while other times, it would just take forever for the guard to go down, making him look like Will Ferrell in Austin Powers ("I'm still alive, but I'm very badly burned!")

There were indeed some great concepts in PD though. I always liked the game's weapon management system, as you could just hold down the A button and quickly select your weapon (rather than tap the button over and over again like in Goldeneye). It was also great to be able to shoot enemies in the legs and have them fall to their knees, which surprisingly, doesn't make its way into enough FPS' (always my BIGGEST complaint with Half Life 2).

It was really good for its time, but yeah...there's no way I can label Goldeneye and PD as the pinnacle of FPS games anymore. There are just too many things about the games that feel completely broken.

(Though, both games, especially Goldeneye, still have have two of the best FPS soundtracks ever, which is a huge testament to the compositions because the N64's sound was awful).

EDIT: TheBigG, I would actually argue that, with the exception of going to the black and white area, Wind Waker starts to completely nosedive in quality after the Forbidden Forest. The game has so much filler after that point that it's mind boggling.

(For instance, after you beat the second dungeon, you go to Greatfish Isle...nothing there...so they play some cool music and make it rain for you, then I think they make you go to Windfall to get the bombs, and go through a really tedious rope swinging minigame...then they require you to go all the way back to Outset, which was kind of near Greatfish in the first place...then they have you go place the three pearls...and this is all not including any exploration that you might even think about doing, and the fact that you haven't gotten the bow yet...it's like a half hour of nothing. The game definitely felt rushed more than any other Zelda game).

I'd definitely agree that the last two dungeons are awful. I'll be happy if I never have to play or hear that Command Melody ever again.

I really wish Nintendo could release a director's cut of Wind Waker (and maybe even TP) that cuts out all the fluff and turns the game into a 5 hour affair of just the fun parts of the game - because the game is definitely fun at times.

Sorry to double post, but I just wanted to say that the US version of Castlevania 3 is too difficult to let it earn any sort of top spot in my book. The continue system is just kind of bananas, and makes an already hard game way too difficult. That falling block segment is beyond annoying.

And I *think*, when you get to the last fight with Dracula, if you get Game Over, you have to replay the whole level again, rather than just reset to the fight with Dracula like in the original game. I think in the Famicom version, they just kick you back to the beginning of the fight with Dracula.

Jargon said:

WrathOfSamus777 said:

@stephen08Dogging on Halo is like the Stephen Bat-signal.

Hey don't steal my material!

Did Stephen really get his friend to sign up just to back him up? That is... amazing.

We're bound in friendship by a slow, unimaginative, inferior, generic space marine shooter that we play everyday together and have loads of fun and excitement. And I'm not defending Stephen, I'm defending Bungie. File Halo under well-made games that just aren't your thing if you must, but much of the "criticism" on it in this thread is from people who know almost nothing about it (from our perspective).

@PogueSquadron

You're right, you have to do the level over. It definitely makes it harder to beat than the original, but it is doable.

@Dapper Dick

That's quite a crusade you've embarked on, defending Halo in every recess of the internet. Good luck on your mission, holy soldier.