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Tom Chick's 10 most overrated games of 2011

This list is exactly what I expected but not because I agree with it but because it's Tom Chick. I came up with the list any hipster would love and sure enough, Tom Chick is nothing but a character whose logic you can boil down to a flowchart. Nothing complex going on there.
 
Seems less controversial than his usual lists.

I pretty much agree with it. Mario 3D Land is the only one I don't agree with, but for whatever reason I wasn't expecting much going in. So for me it was like "Holy shit, this game I thought would be average is actually totally amazing!"

If you went in expecting something brilliant I guess you could have been disappointed.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
No, he gave Dark Souls a tugjob while insulting everyone else who "had no business" playing it. The worst kind of praise, to be honest. Enjoying or trying a video game shouldn't make you part of some secret club.
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I honestly thought that was the entire hype about Dark Soul around here. it was the "hardcore" game for "real" gamers so they could feel more elitist than the people who liked "dudebro" games.
 
Seems a bit reaching this year, though I haven't played the majority of the games he's listed.

I've usually agreed with Tom Chick's previous lists though (I don't particularly keep up to date with his work however), and half the time people just seem to automatically equate 'overrated' with 'it's a piece of shit'.
 
I hate these stupid articles. MY LIST OF THE MOST OVERRATED GAMES:

1) GAME OF THE YEAR
2) YOUR FAVOURITE GAME
3) GAME OF THE YEAR RUNNER UP
4) YOUR OTHER FAVOURITE GAME
etc...
 
okenny said:
This list is exactly what I expected but not because I agree with it but because it's Tom Chick. I came up with the list any hipster would love and sure enough, Tom Chick is nothing but a character whose logic you can boil down to a flowchart. Nothing complex going on there.
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What are you on about? You realize that he says that most of these games are good, right? He's just saying that in his opinion they aren't worthy of the hype and rave reviews they get.

PigSpeakers said:
Is Tom Chick the guy who writes all those little comic books about how all people are screwed but him, even other christians?
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I really, really doubt it.
 
If you can't understand how to play Dark Souls, you shouldn't be reviewing video games. I'm guessing if he was doing such a job back in the NES days, 90% of his reviews would have been "this is too hard, I give up".
 
outunderthestars said:
I honestly thought that was the entire hype about Dark Soul around here. it was the "hardcore" game for "real" gamers so they could feel more elitist than the people who liked "dudebro" games.
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It also seems to be exactly the hype Chick is buying into here, in a weird roundabout way. He's essentially saying that the game is so hard that the plebs below him couldn't possibly have really enjoyed it.
 
He is completely right about Bethesda. They need to get their shit together and the press has to stop waving them through because they are so "ambitious" and "good at world building" blah blah. Bethesda's games are, by a large margin, the jankiest and most incompetently made (from a technical standpoint) AAA titles in the mainstream. Ever since Oblivion they sell millions of them, so they really have no excuse anymore.
 
gears 3 should be no. 1

it is the same as 1 and 2 with more colorful environments

anything above 8.0 is too much for the game imho
 
Silly. The level of criticism hardly goes beyond GAF's lower levels.

"8) Super Mario 3D Land
Why is everyone so delighted with these same platformer concepts? Have they just not played all the better platformers that have come out in the last ten years?"

What better platformers? I love platformers and have probably played all the decent ones from 2001-2011 and I can't think of a lot that are better. The Galaxy games probably, NSMB maybe, Jak & Daxter 1 possibly, but there really aren't any I could say have expanded the genre - I mean the essence of platforming games as a test of timed precise jumping - beyond maybe Galaxy's gravity changing levels. I'm not talking about puzzle games or shooting games with platform elements, just pure platformers. I just can't think of anything that clearly adds new concepts to a genre that Nintendo defined with the original Mario brothers.

"4) Forza 4
While talking to a colleague who really liked and reviewed Forza 4, I was surprised to discover he’d never played a Need for Speed: Shift game. Are Forza fans in a bubble in which only Forza and Gran Turismo exist? Because that would explain a lot."

I love Forza 4 and GT5 but that doesn't mean I can't like arcade racers too! What's his point? That it's impossible to enjoy realistic racers and arcade racers equally? Sometime I want steak sometimes pizza - sometimes nothing with scratch that itch like a 10 minute thrash through Outrun or Ridge Racer and sometimes I like to get the wheel out and settle down for a GT evening. Why can't he understand that one thing doesn't negate the other?

I haven't played anything else on his list yet - backlog - apart from LA Noire which I enjoyed but can sort of see the point of his 'review' - it was a good story, good dialogue, fantastic facial animation but I felt the game could have been a bit more complete. Saying that I played the shit out of it and loved every minute so I'd still easily put it in my top 10 of the year.

The points he tries to make are really not thought out very well though and expressed poorly. However if he is, in fact, a baby chicken I have to hand it to him, his English is remarkably advanced for an infant farm-fowl.
 
farnham said:
gears 3 should be no. 1

it is the same as 1 and 2 with more colorful environments

anything above 8.0 is too much for the game imho
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That could be said for almost every franchise right now.

Aselith said:
If anyone thinks after reading his sentence that he insulted Dark Souls, that person is seriously retarded.
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No, I ready his diary entries about it, where he basically says the gameplay is antiquated, frustrating, obtuse and that he didn't enjoy it, even with his reviewer's guide to game.
 
you guys need to save up all the anger and dumbness for the top ten disappointing games thread

someone make a bingo card with these checklist words: hipster, clicks, pageviews, armond white, couple more i can't be bothered to add

i never even agree with the dude but geez gaf, stop being so predictable
 
Raxus said:
If Dark Souls violates every rule in 'good game design' then I want to burn every copy of that book, find out who wrote it and shoot them so such sinful words will never be written on paper ever again.
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heh, well said.

outunderthestars said:
I honestly thought that was the entire hype about Dark Soul around here. it was the "hardcore" game for "real" gamers so they could feel more elitist than the people who liked "dudebro" games.
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see, i thought that bout Demons' forever, then i played it & realized: no, it's just an amazing game is the thing.
 
BigJiantRobut said:
It also seems to be exactly the hype Chick is buying into here, in a weird roundabout way. He's essentially saying that the game is so hard that the plebs below him couldn't possibly have really enjoyed it.
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No no no no no no. No.

He's saying that fans of Demon's Souls buy into that hype. His comment was sarcastic, he's saying that the people who celebrate the Souls games expend huge amounts of energy taking steamy dumps all over game journalists for not appreciating HARDCORE GAEMZ.
 
Chick should do a '10 games people should've paid more attention to in 2011' list. Bashing on a popular opinion is easy, convincing others of your own is harder and more rewarding.
 
I agree with everything on his list this year, although the reasons why Dark Souls doesn't work for him is precisely what makes it a good game. It's the Japanese version of Saints Row 3.

As for Catherine, the story/themes it raises elevates it more than every other game. That's how low our standards are when it comes to any storytelling not involving murdering other human beings with AK-47s.
 
A Link to the Snitch said:
What does being on a handheld matter for anything at all? Do you believe that handheld games do not have comparable standards to console games?
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I think it warrants some consideration, yes, for being what I consider the best 3D Mario game on handhelds. You don't usually get this kind of production value and polish for handheld platformers. And I disagree with your stance that 3D Land is a typical Mario game. Typical, how? It blends the best aspects of the Galaxy games with Mario 3-esque 2D level design plus a smattering of top-down levels. Unless you mean it feels too much like the Galaxy games. Those have become typical Mario designs now? Geez.
 
This one is far better than his others. I posted before about how he usually is horribly inconsistent just to get fanboys to note a game's problematic areas, but each game on the list can be taken down "objectively" or philosophically.

Whether his critiques fit into a coherent game design philosophy is up in the air (his complaints about Super Mario 3-D Land and Dark Souls seem to conflict), but his points are well-made. For once!
 
outunderthestars said:
I honestly thought that was the entire hype about Dark Soul around here. it was the "hardcore" game for "real" gamers so they could feel more elitist than the people who liked "dudebro" games.
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If that's what you think about Dark Souls, then you don't understand it. It isn't about being a game that only "real" gamers can enjoy, it's a game that actually puts demands on you in terms of getting better at playing—which so many other games never bother doing.

Anybody can play and enjoy Dark Souls, you just have to actually enjoy games that don't hold your hand the entire way like you're a child. You know, like the way many games used to be back in 8- and 16-bit eras.
 
I think L.A. Noire had good writing right up until you start the homicide desk. People kept pointing out that even though Phelps had that attitude where he believed in justice he still had flaws and demons to overcome from Okinawa, and that would have been fine and all if it didn't stop dead in its tracks and pull a 180. It is absolutely overrated.

With that said, Chick is seriously the least interesting games writer on the fucking planet.
 
I find these lists kind of weird, I'm a pessimistic dude who complains about video games too much, and I probably would even agree with some of those choices on the list, but how do you gauge what games are "overrated"? Almost every big game has its flaws and are very well received, sells extremely well, and has a lot of fans, in some ways, if I'm to nitpick, every big games are kind of overrated...
 
so is this the guy who hated on Deus Ex?

wonder what his thoughts were on Human Revolution, as it's not on this list.
 
Skyrim is what at 95% and Uncharted 3 is at 92% from critic reviews I don't see them as overrated at all since there are still quite a few games that have got higher scores then that. But whatever the guy has his own view I remember last year his list was something I didn't agree with mostly either. How about throwing in some things like Infinity Blade or Angry Birds that are so hyped.
 
jim-jam bongs said:
No no no no no no. No.

He's saying that fans of Demon's Souls buy into that hype. His comment was sarcastic, he's saying that the people who celebrate the Souls games expend huge amounts of energy taking steamy dumps all over game journalists for not appreciating HARDCORE GAEMZ.
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Most people who play videogames have no business playing Dark Souls, no matter how good it is. The beauty and the madness of this thing is how it nonchalantly violates nearly every rule of good game design from the past ten years. Despite this, it was well received and I couldn’t be happier about that.
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I'm really not seeing the sarcasm here. Despite the fact that the game is obtuse, it was well received? Most people who play games have no business playing it?
 
8) Super Mario 3D Land
Why is everyone so delighted with these same platformer concepts? Have they just not played all the better platformers that have come out in the last ten years?
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I agree with some of the things he said but this comment it just plain wrong and he seems to be insulting the whole Mario series here rather than just 3D Land itself. Mario 3D Land wasn't exactly derivative either it was a new spin on the Mario franchise. Whilst obviously not as original or revolutionary as Mario 64, it's blending of old and new in short bite sized levels was perfect for a handheld console. Also I wonder what other platformers he is talking about because all the best platformers of the last 10 years are Mario games. *shrugs*
 
Gooster said:
With that said, Chick is seriously the least interesting games writer on the fucking planet.
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For that to be true, you'd have to ignore how truly uninteresting 99% of the other game writers are. He can be flat out wrong about things, but his writing and reviews are definitely more interesting than what you get from any of the writers on Gamespot, Kotaku, Destructoid, IGN, Giant Bomb, etc etc. Imagine a writer willing to say bad things about Red Dead Redemption, Heavy Rain, and Uncharted 3. And Civilization 5. You can't even get any of these other guys to say anything meaningful about Civilization 5! Even if he was wrong(and with games like Deus Ex and Vanquish, he most certainly is!), that makes him so more interesting than the metacritic echo chamber.

Anyway, for fun, here is last years thread

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=415896
 
2) Uncharted 3
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