pretty much all games are overrated by the mainstream media

I'll say Skyrim though, doesn't have much scope or depth compared to both Daggerfall & Morrowind and very unpolished

fun for an actiony run but get Dragon's Dogma for that kind of play

I want to talk a tad more about Ocarina vs other Zelda games. The reason I get upset about people going on about it so much as that they use it as an excuse to say other Zelda titles are "bad" or "don't compare", when really that's a massive load of animal droppings.

Pretty much every Zelda game since, including the handhelds, has looked better. You can NOT genuinely believe the great faeries look appropriate. That's not even touching on the subject of increased detail, prettier looking designs, sharper resolutions and so forth. Then we have elements of the soundtrack. It's a great soundtrack, sure, but it's still borrowing from Link to the Past, which is also where it gets a couple of the gameplay concepts. The idea of going through 3 dungeons, getting the Master Sword, and then finding 7 people was all introduced in the SNES game. So was the spin-dash, hook shot, minigames, and so forth.

Sure the overall concept of the swordplay, shielding and target locking, having an "assistant" who follows you around, and numerous other aspects were taken from Ocarina, but they've also been slowly made better and more impressive over time, too. And while the idea of going between the past and future is a really interesting idea, it's the same dynamic as going back and forth between the Light/Dark Worlds in LttP.

If we're fine that Ocarina of Time borrows so much from the previous game, why are we suddenly NOT fine that later games borrowed concepts from Ocarina and so forth? It really gets on my nerves.

In my experience the talking points of Ocarina fanboys tend to all revolve around the new concepts. They'll say Wind Waker is bad because of the sailing and the cell-shaded graphics and that it's not in a standard fantasy setting, or Spirit Tracks is back because it has Link driving a train rather than riding a horse. It's like they want every Zelda game to be nothing more than a graphically enhanced clone of the previous one.

I'll be honest, as a fan of the 2-D games, there's a part of me that actually doesn't mind revisiting the same gameplay over and over.. but that's cause growing up in the 80's we saw a lot of that.

But as far as 3D titles go, I know better than to simply remake the same game over and over. It's what some series do, such as Sports titles, or certain FPS series, and while some eat it up, others give it flak for it.

I actually do embrace that Nintendo tries to make the games different in some way, whether I like it or not. Heh.. personally I loved it when Zelda abandoned the traditional fantasy setting. :p

EDIT: Since it doesn't read very well, I meant to say I agree with you.

Wow. I disagree with your post so much.

Seriously, there are multiple solutions to several puzzles within each individual path, and the three paths are so very different from each other there was no other way than to choose which you're going to play in advance – the overall structure of each of them is absolutely incompatible with the other two. Have you actually played through all three?

As for the plot's over-dependence on Orichalcum, yes, that is true. But that occurs mostly in Atlantis which was supposed to be powered by that stuff, so it makes sense. Also, I agree the third act has quite a few similarities with The Dig, but it also pre-dates The Dig by three years, so I don't really see what's the problem there.
Frankly, I think the problem with DX is that people remember only the first few levels, and heap praise on the many alternative paths, each choice matters thing etc., except that is only true for the (brilliant) first third of the game. For the vast majority of gameplay time, the alternative paths are very cosmetic and your choices don't matter at all. Everyone remembers the Statue of Liberty level. No one remembers all that crap after Hong Kong, and there's a lot of it.

The idea behind the game is amazing, but the execution is not even close to perfect.

Errant Signal: "Half-Life is probably a little bit overrated."

Very good critical analysis about the weaknesses of Half-Life.

Have we played the same game?

Last Crusade is way too unfair.

In which case I would rather play Dungeons & Dragons than spend another minute with Deus Ex. In fact I do. I'm going to be DM soon; really looking forward to setting up situations and seeing how my players approach it.

And like I said, the superficial open-endedness doesn't even matter all that much because the plot is a trainwreck. Reminds me of Post Mortem in that respect.

Well, it wouldn't be overrated if most people agreed with my post now, would it.

I didn't replay the gamen on a different path, firstly because I didn't like it enough to replay it, secondly because I find the principle poor. If you want to have alternative paths, branch them in the game depending on choices. If you want a game that allows for opposite approaches (action, strategy, etc), make these approaches selectable on-the-go. Or else, it is not a game with different possible approaches (like Crusade ws), it is several indivudual games. With re-used parts. This is just a cop-out, lazy structuring, to m eyes.

And I should try to dig up my sources, but I had learnt that the plot similarities with The Dig were not a coincidence. Atlantis was built upon a script and concepts that were meant for The Dig, and that work much better in The Dig, where everything takes place on a weird planet, and has damaging effects when used on humans. In Fate of Atlantis, the magical nuggets work on everything, not just in Atlantis, they are basically sonic screwdrivers, which makes no sense in that context (being fuel more than machines). It is a very very cheap, universal, plot and puzzle device. Indiana Jones and the balls-that-do-everything. Again, the puzzles in Crusade were more elaborate because they weren't centered on such wildcards, and they were more grounded. I like the Indiana Jones trilogy because, despite of some rare magical tricks, most of the stuff are quite grounded in logical, material, down to earth action-adventure. Atlantis went way too far into ridiculously convenient fantasy. Convenient because "use bead on (it will work)" is easier to think up, as a puzzle solution, than thinking up a real coherent solution, and convenient because just aligning "reactivate ancient machine" puzzles for half of the game also spares you to think up plot development and puzzles that are grounded in it.

This game features a nice sum of what I dislike and consider lazy in adventure games. Last Crusade happens to be the opposite exemple, for me. And, unlike Crusade (in which it was the case for a reason), none of the puzzles and solutions felt like an "Indiana Jones would do it like that", they just felt like "Simon the Sorcerer would do this" - that is any random adventure game character. The puzzles themselves didn't have the Indy flavor. You could just as well switch the fedora wth a baseball cap and call this game "Flight of the Amazon Queen : the magic beans". I felt closer to the Indy movies with Crash Garrett or even Lost Horizon.

There. Disagreement.

Also : I didn't like Baldur's Gate.

Diablo 3. Totally over hyped, poorly delivered.

Well, it's still a point and clicker, not an immersive sim. And as far as I know, it's the only point and clicker in existence that tried to extend its replayability this way, which still counts for something.
(spoiler alert) Well, the same is true for Atlantis, actually. It's of alien origin, and the stuff in there has damaging effects on humans as well.(/spoiler alert)
No. They only work on artefacts from Atlantis.
I'm fine with disagreement, I just don't find your arguments very convincing (or applicable, really). I'm not mad at you for not liking the game, as that would be just silly.
Also, I do agree it's not as much Indy-like as the movies are, but then again, almost nothing in the franchise is, except for the first three movies (or even just the first and third one, depending on whom you ask).
Nor did I.

Well, the Last Crusade games were, and, you know what ? You KNOW WHAT ? I'll tell you what. I LIKED the emperor's tomb.

Yes. I've said it.

"For nineteen years we've been calling it the indiana jones trilogy and now it's the last day we can actually call it that."

Hm. Not so sure.

Many people think overrated means

a) A game they didn't like

b) A generally positively received game that (shockingly) has some flaws

c) A game that had better sequels/similar games following in the years after the release

What is does mean:

Given an undue amount of credit for quality or merit in a field; not necessarily related to popularity.