[Polpolion]

Most overrated game ever = Starcraft

People go nuts for it, and I can't for the life of me think why
*Congratulations! You worship a mediocre game :-3*

I take it you've never really played multiplayer?

[phatosealpha]

Possibly he just came late to the game.  Really, if you were to start playing starcraft multiplayer today, for the first time, it would be a decidedly negative experience as you got eaten alive by veterans who had become build order, map memorizing cyborgs.  And that not even considering the really high level players who click faster then the machine does.

[Vretsu]

Basically, HL2 is an overrated, under-par, run of the mill shooter, that everyone salvitates over simply because it's the sequel to a shooter that they all have fond memories of (and if you go back and play it now, wow, you'll be surprised at how crappy it is. I couldn't get past the second or third level because I got so bored with it).

I played HL1 after I played HL2, and I loved it. I didn't think it was crappy at all. I had a lot more fun with HL1, than, say, Halo (although I liked Halo as well). I also thought that the Half-Life 2 storyline, while not rich or particularily focused, was still interesting and available to those who paid attention. You aren't spoon-fed, and I liked that. With the exception of one that I can think of, most "plotholes" are resolved ingame.

I thought Doom 3 and Quake 4 were crappy. But that's just my opinion, obviously, and I don't feel like writing an epic, scathingly irreverent essay on either game at this time. Any such essay/massive block of text could essentially be summed up as, "to each his own," anyways.

Which is the entire point of this thread. Which basically cancels out this entire swath of the post. So, really, any text you think you're reading right now is, in this entirely subjective reality, solely the product of a deranged mind.

So now it's our faults that Steam treats us all like criminals?

Yes, absolutely. Well, like I said specifically, perhaps not you, specifically, but PC Gamers in general. The President of Epic gave an interesing presentation on this. Piracy is eating the PCGaming industry alive. And the PC software industry in general. Almost four million copies of Quake 4 were pirated within the first week of release. That's just horrible (cited from a John Carmack interview/statistic thing from PCGamer, last year).

And how many of you have pirated software at some point? Eh?

Finally, Steam isn't that bad, anymore. Although I don't fault you for not trying it since the HL2 release debacle. Anyways, it runs quite smoothly, now, and complaints are relatively few and far between.

[Fury]

It is twisted morality indeed for someone who has downloaded numerous pirated copies of games to complain he is being treated like a criminal. Oh the irony. I'm not saying UT has pirated games (albeit there is a very high chance at that), this was just a general statement.

My own pirating days are pretty much over because these days I don't see any need to. Linux offers all the software I need for free and legally. I can wait for DVD's to rent or buy, so that covers movies. I need one legal license of Windows to play games, no biggie because OEM versions have very good discount. Games I select very carefully and prefer internet download distribution channels like Steam and Stardock Central over physical copies with copy protection and DRM. This way more money should go to the developers, instead of greedy and stupid publishers.

If PC gaming industry dies or becomes a niche market, at least there is the upside that we don't need to upgrade our computers even nearly as often anymore, maybe once every 6-9 years as opposed to 3 years. The downside is that PC hardware industry would also suffer because there wouldn't be as much need to provide faster and faster PC components.

[Turnsky]

Now, in terms of graphics. Puh-lease. OMG OMG OMG PHYSICS LOLLERSKATES! Excuse me, ragdoll physics have been around since 2003. And moveable boxes and objects have been around long before that. If I knew coding I could add a gravity gun into Unreal Tournament 2003/2004, and ta-da, it'd be exactly the same as HL2. There's almost no difference physics wise, it's just that HL2 gave you a gun that actually exploited the physics (which was a nifty idea I'll admit). In terms of straight eye-candy - come on, you gotta be ****ting me. When games are coming out with dynamic shadows and bump, normal, and parallax mapping, what does HL2 have? Uhh...high resolution people textures and HDR lighting (aka bloom lighting on steroids - and bloom has been around for quite some years now)? Please. The game was outdated graphically before it even came out.asically, HL2 is an overrated, under-par, run of the mill shooter, that everyone salvitates over simply

Valve uses Havok for their physics, so it's hardly new, or revolutionary, Max Payne 2, for example, which came out before, used havok's physics engine.

the only thing honestly revolutionary about it was the fact that valve upped the sheer ability for character facial animation, which would be great.... if HL2 was an RPG. 

[Col. Fishguts]

It's the combination of the Havok physics engine with the features of the gravgun, that made HL2's environment unique. The sheer amount of stuff you can throw around to kill zombies makes for quite some fun time.

I'm just playing through it the first time, and I'm having a blast cutting zombies in half.

[Cyker]

Didn't like Halo that much as an SP game, but in multiplayer co-op it becomes one of the most awesome FPS ever created ("I'M driving!" "Fine, I call shotgun, *BLAM*, Right, now I'm driving!" "*&%$£'~!" ; "No, go left! LEFT!! OTHER LEFT!" *flies off a cliff*)

Ahh, good times

HL2 wasn't bad, but wasn't great either.

Doom3/Quake4... I'd say they were overrated, but most people didn't rate them that highly anyway so my point would be a bit moot.


We need more co-op FPS.

I'm playing STALKER atm; Damned good game, but many times I wish there was a co-op mode (And a FSCKING CAR!! The world is too big and full of Nasty Pointy Toothy Things to slog about on foot everywhere!)


Fury: I hate to tell you mate, but Steam, Telltale, Stardock etc. have got more invasive and tighter copy protection and DRM than almost all physical media stuff. AND they know your address, e-mail, phone and credit card no.
They were smart 'tho and made it very easy, with lots of carrot to go with the stick so most people will go for it.
After enough bad experiences, I personally stopped buying anything that I wouldn't be able to run on an off-line machine. Unfortunately, it seems most commercial games are going this way, and I'm dreading the day when all software will be like that. Microsoft would certainly love that.
I wish more companies were like Rake in Grass in that regard, but even Bioware took the copy protection off NWN, and Dawn of War+Expansions doesn't have any copy protection at all!

[tifi]

Possibly he just came late to the game.  Really, if you were to start playing starcraft multiplayer today, for the first time, it would be a decidedly negative experience as you got eaten alive by veterans who had become build order, map memorizing cyborgs.  And that not even considering the really high level players who click faster then the machine does.

Quite an accurate assessment there.
It's not fun if you lose ALL the time....

Aside from my inadequacies there are one or two rather poor aspects of StarCraft that really let it down.

Firstly, the finite nature of the resources on any given map outright encourage if not demand that you commit to an attack as quickly as possible.
Fine, this is not in itself a really huge point but it guarantees that there will be rushing of some sort - personally I dislike such things and tend to prefer a longer more thought out approach with feints, decoys and traps.
Point #1 - SC is all about who can rush best. I hate rushing.

Now, this is the biggie. The one thing that drives me up the wall with this game. Unit control - or lack therof.
As we determined in Point #1, SC is a rushers game.
A rush is generally get as much stuff as you can and throw it at someone as soon as you can, right?
An SC rush will usually take place in the 1st few minutes with 5 or 6 units, so lets just pretend we don't like that sort of thing for a moment and we're into a well developed game with big armies and such.
You have hundreds of units to do battle with, but something is stopping you....
YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL UPTO 12 UNITS AT ANY GIVEN TIME.
Seriously. Who thought that this would have been a good idea? Especially considering that one of the races specialises in mass 'swarm' fighting but can't do so with any degree of effectiveness.
I find this immensely frustrating.
Point #2 - I don't know what Point #2 is, but I want to control a useful number of units.

StarCraft is a game I have no trouble enjoying occaisionally, but to my jaded perception it feels very much like a regression from the original (and limited) C&C.
I think I should shut the hell up about StarCraft eh?

Just a little fix:
>Possibly she just came late to the game

[brozozo]

Possibly he just came late to the game.  Really, if you were to start playing starcraft multiplayer today, for the first time, it would be a decidedly negative experience as you got eaten alive by veterans who had become build order, map memorizing cyborgs.  And that not even considering the really high level players who click faster then the machine does.

YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL UPTO 12 UNITS AT ANY GIVEN TIME.

Control groups, my friend, control groups.

[Ulala]

Still, this means you can control at most 120 units, right? (using 1-9 and also 0) This means there's 80 possible units that are left running around, let's say 40 are drones, still leaves 40 when your supply limit is maxed. And when I'm terran, I like to control group my ComSat station taking up 12 units of one of my groups itself. Granted, most units will cost more than just 1 supply, but having to make 10 control groups and forgetting which is what and what I need... I agree, it's annoying.

[tifi]

Control groups, my friend, control groups.

Yes, all well and good.
But say you have 100 units to move somewhere for x reason, why is it a good idea to have to issue that order NINE times instead of just once?
Why is it *not* a good idea to simply select ALL of them?

Even C&C got this sorted first time out years before

Also: Whats the point in creating the Zerg speciality of swarm tactics when you can't do it properly because you have a ton of micromanagement that needent be there?
Just plain counter-productive.

While I'm here I'll throw another contentious bone on the pile:
EvE
About as overrated as games get.
And this coming from a former player (Gallente).
I spent just under a month flying round in a rattletrap frigate trying to make any kind of money and getting repeatedly shot to bits for no reason I could ever determine.
I spent more time in the cloning tanks than in space dammit!
After the realisation I was basically paying to get wound up and frustrated I packed it in went back to playing proper games with shiny black ships...

[TopAce]

A comment of StarCraft's grouping limitation: I consider it as a kind of encouragement to use different kinds of units in a limited number, as opposed to countless units of the same kind. This way, you can attack from four directions with several different units. The question is if you can pay attention to four directions.

[Centrixo]

i have my doubts on steam, recently (6 months ago) i played a shooter called Sin Episodes: Emergence, it was not particularly interesting, then i remembered that there was a game with a similar title from along time ago, and i did play it. i replayed it and i was amazed that i even remembered where everything was, considered the first time i played it was when i was 7.

so with that in mind i can imagine that hl2 is no different in many aspects.

Quake 4, is in my opinion, average and something i was expecting given that quake was the beginning, quake 2, some blood and dead bodies. then quake 4 where it built up and besides that, it was quite predictable.

i would definatly put EvE online a highly overrated game, the advertising is fake on some lines. and now - well, before eve had a trial, now they do not have it. imo if you ever want to play this game and lucky enough to have a friend who plays this game and you want to try it out, then this person will probably link you under their account, otherwise if you ever want to play this waste of time for a game and you have no friend who plays the game, it's going to be a real pain for certain people who do not have the right credit cards as one example of fake advertising.

the other points are, it is very limiting. can be extreamly boring. and the upgrades are not for people have no time for being the biggest in 30 minutes.

[Ulala]

A comment of StarCraft's grouping limitation: I consider it as a kind of encouragement to use different kinds of units in a limited number, as opposed to countless units of the same kind. This way, you can attack from four directions with several different units. The question is if you can pay attention to four directions.

They shouldn't force the issue. Chances are, a variety of units from different directions will work out better for you in the long run anyway, so that should be your encouragement, not bad game design.

[Ghostavo]

Firstly, the finite nature of the resources on any given map outright encourage if not demand that you commit to an attack as quickly as possible.
No, it encourages the player to expand, although this may imply an attack it is not always so.

Fine, this is not in itself a really huge point but it guarantees that there will be rushing of some sort - personally I dislike such things and tend to prefer a longer more thought out approach with feints, decoys and traps.
Point #1 - SC is all about who can rush best. I hate rushing.
No, SC is about who can use the gathered resources best, like every other RTS. Just because your playing style is very bad compared to the oposite playing style (booming vs rushing) doesn't mean it's a rushing game. Go see some high profile player's replay.

Now, this is the biggie. The one thing that drives me up the wall with this game. Unit control - or lack therof.
As we determined in Point #1, SC is a rushers game.
A rush is generally get as much stuff as you can and throw it at someone as soon as you can, right?
An SC rush will usually take place in the 1st few minutes with 5 or 6 units, so lets just pretend we don't like that sort of thing for a moment and we're into a well developed game with big armies and such.
Starcraft and big armies are mutually exclusive.
You have hundreds of units to do battle with, but something is stopping you....
Apart from the 199 pop cap limit and most units above the first tech tier costing more than 1 in pop cap.

YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL UPTO 12 UNITS AT ANY GIVEN TIME.
Seriously. Who thought that this would have been a good idea? Especially considering that one of the races specialises in mass 'swarm' fighting but can't do so with any degree of effectiveness.
I find this immensely frustrating.
Point #2 - I don't know what Point #2 is, but I want to control a useful number of units.
As someone else mentioned, you can use control groups. While it may seem to be strange, it is an encouragement to have several groups of units instead of a giant blob of doom fighting another blob of doom which strangely most players prefer. Also if you have enough units that you don't have enough control groups to manage, you are doing something wrong.

[Polpolion]

Point #1 - SC is all about who can rush best. I hate rushing.

YOU CAN ONLY CONTROL UPTO 12 UNITS AT ANY GIVEN TIME.

...

Point #2 - I don't know what Point #2 is, but I want to control a useful number of units.

ROFL!!! HAHA!! HAHAHahaha.....

...



The twelve unit limilt is used to berate rushing and large swarm attacks, while fostering the use of strategy and tactics.

And have you ever noticed how long it takes for most units to build compared to other RTS's?

[Ulala]

Don't get me wrong, StarCraft is fun, well balanced, and well made, but I do find that most of the games online last less than 10 minutes due to someone rushing me with 6 zealots (more or less) and unless I have more zealots than they do, I'm hosed. If I survive, I can usually counter. I wish I didn't have to play every online sc game the same way because of these rushes, that's all. If it's cause I "suck" as you might say, so be it. I'd rather suck and not play than play the same boring way again and again because it's unbeatable most of the time.

[Centrixo]

there are bugs in the game, quite a big one indeed. if you have an arbiter and a lot of zerg units on any custom pvp map, then you can cloak them. burrow them, wait until the artiber is at the edge of the range, then unbourrow them.

another is hydralisk stacking and a programme called Oblivion....

i have noticed this quite well, atleast when i use it on pvp!

if i do not have the resources or time, i created control groups and send them in, likewise with star trek armada 2 (very frequent on sta2) and age of empires... and you say you can only control 12 units .

[Polpolion]

Does anyone play with the 'use map settings' multi maps? You know, the crazy insane ones?

[Centrixo]

ahh i play of them more then pvp. my fav is Turret stacking or Sunken Def.