Final Fantasy IV

Final Fantasy VIII on the SNES.

Final Fantasy IV, originally known as Final Fantasy II on the SNES, is considered one of the greatest games of all time.  It's not.  In fact, it's one of the cheesiest, most cliché-ridden, and downright stupidest games of all time.  That said, it does have a lot of what makes Final Fantasy great.  Well, it has a lot of what MADE Final Fantasy great before Square Enix shat all over it.

This is Final Fantasy, so we're looking for an epic story, and good gameplay can't make a game in this series alone.  So, that said, why does Final Fantasy IV suck (well, more so overrated than suck)?  Well, it starts off awesome in Mysidia with Cecil kicking ass and taking names, but then he goes all sentimental on our asses and questions the king.  So he gets stripped of rank and is told to go with Kain to deliver a package to Mist.  Too stupid to realize that the king is planning something nefarious, he goes to the village and the package kills everyone there except for a little girl, who you instinctively know is going to join your party.

 

That's Rydia's concept art? wtf gross

So they find out that Rosa followed Cecil and is sick, then they meet Tellah, who joins them through unspoken consent.  They go to Damascus, which gets bombed like NATO is about to do their asses in real life.  Anna, daughter of Tellah and lover of Prince Edward of Damascus, gets smoked by one of the airships.  Edward joins the party to help them cure Rosa and get revenge on Golbez, while Tellah leaves the party to get revenge on Golbez (?).  Which means you lose a powerful wizard for a pansy-ass flute-tooter with a feather in his hat.  Thanks for being a team player Tellah.  They cure Rosa (surprise) and go to another city to protect the next crystal that Golbez is after. 

They meet Master Yang, and the Red Wings attack with Kain under Golbez's control.  Kain kicks Cecil's pussy ass, and Rosa gets kidnapped (obviously).  Yang joins through unspoken consent, and the party leaves by boat.  They're attacked by Leviathan and everyone is scattered, with Yang later saying that Rydia got swallowed by Leviathan.  Cecil finds himself in Mysidia, where he's shocked to see how much the mages hate him (really?) and decides to become a Paladin.  Two annoying mages accompany him, he becomes a Paladin, and Tellah arrives to learn Meteor.  Cid comes and they fly away before getting killed, and the annoying mages thankfully sacrifice themselves to save the important characters.

Much better.

Kain dragoon jumps onto the ship and demands a crystal in exchange for Rosa.  They go to the tower (surprise) in which she's held and Golbez takes the crystal, though Tellah sacrifices himself by using meteor to injure Golbez and release Kain from his mind control.  It's ok though, because through the Force, Tellah becomes more powerful than anyone could imagine and helps them win the final battle.  They rescue Rosa (surprise) and get the fuck outta there.  Then the shit hits the fan.  Suddenly, it's revealed that Golbez needs underground crystals to go to the moon (the fuck?) and they find him underground fighting dwarves (seriously, where did this shit come from?) and he wins, though his army is defeated thanks to Rydia, who is now a grown woman.  Who woulda thought being shat out by Leviathan would have such healthy consequences?

Then Golbez gets the last crystal by controlling Kain again (who he has actually had control of all along, go figure), and it ends up that there's been a ship all along that can take them to the moon so everything ends up ok as they board the ship called the Lunar Whale (lmao).  It ends up that Cecil is half moon-man, Golbez is his brother under mind control of the moon-man leader, and that the moon-man leader, Zeromus, wants to eradicate earth's living creatures for the sake of all moon-kind.  After hours of power-leveling, you might beat the game, otherwise you'll get tired and never see the shitty ending, in which nothing happens anyway.  Seriously, the game is so laughably easy until you get to the moon, and then suddenly you'll need to train about 40 levels to even have a shot against Zeromus.  Wtf is up with that?  Oh, and the annoying mages get revived (bullshit).

7.5/10

Assassin's Creed

Ass Creed

Assassin's Creed, henceforth referred to as Ass Creed, is a highly overrated game by Ubisoft.  While a core of gamers and critics consider it nothing more than a "good" game, I consider it a "shit" game.  Most gamers love Ass Creed though, and I often see it ranked as one of the greatest games of this generation.  My ranking would put it alongside greats like Resident Evil 5, Gears of War, and Dragon Age: Origins.

I believe I can fly...

While there are many minor problems with this game, the crippling flaw is that, like with many other games I've listed, Ass Creed is just so boring.  From its repetitive mission design to its slow, tedious combat, it's mind-numbingly boring.  You always have to do several little missions before you can do an assassination, but you do the same goddamn thing over and over again.  Give us some variety for Christ's sake!  You constantly get into fights with guards, who come at you one at a time like in an action movie.  These "fights" consist of waiting for one guy to swing, countering, waiting for another guy to swing, countering, over and over again while holding the block button in between.  You do this for HOURS.  Then you run away until they can't see you and hide somewhere for a while.  It would be ok if the assassinations were awesome, but they're just average.

Don't worry, they can only come at you one at a time.

Then there's the issue of almost no adventuring, despite the huge world.  This is because the Animus will only show certain areas at one time, and a large section for you to actually explore won't be available until very late in the game.  Every once in a while you get to ride your horse from one city to the next, with fucking nothing to do in between (think Twilight Princess, with many mindless NPCs everywhere).  Talk about dull adventuring.  At least it's kinda funny when you trample someone with your horse.  Is that about it?  I think so.  Oh, the story also sucks, and then there's the whole underlying sci-fi shit to make it even worse.

3.5/10

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

Call of Duty 6: Modern Warfare 2

Now, Call of Duty gets a lot of hate on the internet along with the love.  The hate, especially for the games following the original Modern Warfare, has probably outweighed the love.  So why the hell am I going after a more recent Call of Duty instead of Call of Duty 4?  Easy: Because this one is soooooo much easier to make fun of.  And actually, even though the first Modern Warfare had a craptastic, casualized multiplayer, it was still revolutionary on consoles, and the single player wasn't bad at all.  Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2?  It's not just a bad game that is hilariously overrated by critics, it's a total abortion.

The first problem that was widely overlooked because most people didn't even play the single player (the retarded masses much prefer casualized multiplayer to anything else) was that the campaign is only about five hours.  How the hell does a "great" development team like Infinity Ward get two years to make a game with virtually no changes to the graphics or multiplayer (or single player for that matter) but can only manage to give us five hours with the campaign?  Especially when it just sucks anyway.  And when about a third of it is spent doing shit like riding snowmobiles, climbing a mountain, and trying in laughable vain to match Ghillies in the Mist from Call of Duty 4.

GO GO GO!! WE CAN'T LET THE RUSSIANS TAKE OUR WHOPPERS!!

But there is a lot of exciting action (albeit completely set around set pieces as if Infinity Ward was like "This would be a cool idea, and this too, and THIS, let's just set up the rest of the game around these ideas!"), and if you're a tard, then I'll give you a pass for liking it.  Because this is easily one of the most retarded games ever made.  So, an American is sent undercover to kill Russian civilians and apprehend Macaroni, but the Russians knew the whole time he was American, so they kill him, resulting in Russia automatically believing the Americans were behind the entire attack (because the Russians apparently looked further into the agent's identity, but didn't even bother to follow-up on the DOZEN other attackers before deciding on starting a world war), resulting in a Russian invasion of the eastern United States (lmao) and war commencing.

Yeah. Snowmobile shootout. 

Then a whole bunch of shit suddenly happens.  One team goes to Brazil because that's where Macaroni's weapons dealer was for whatever fucking reason (we know they just wanted an excuse to go to Brazil).  The fight in the United States continues, with soldiers fighting frantically to protect Burger King and a convenience store from the invading Russians.  Then we go to Russia, where it ends up that Captain Price is still alive even though we saw him die in Call of Duty 4, though I guess it's possible the soldier that pounded on his chest was actually just pissed because Captain Price slept with his wife.  Anyway, Price takes control of the group, which goes and captures a nuclear submarine that fires above the United States, destroying the International Space Station and creating an EMP, resulting in aircraft raining down on the streets like meteors.

Price and company go looking for Macaroni, but General Shepherd turns on them, revealing that he was behind most of the shit because he's still mad that a bunch of towel-heads ended up nuking his men.  So he sets up the slaughter of countless other soldiers and American civilians to get some imaginary revenge.  Price and Soap and everyone actually decide to make a deal with Macaroni to kill Shepherd, and despite the impossible odds, shock all of us by getting the job done.  That's what happens in Modern Warfare 2.  And yet people argue that this story makes perfect sense, once again proving that most gamers are fucking retarded.

 Changing the meaning of the phrase "bringing a knife to a gunfight."

Let's move on to the multiplayer, the co-op being the only redeeming factor here.  It's still the casualized bullshit it's been since Call of Duty 4, with few tweaks.  There are still a lot of narrow maps, and there are few situations in which you'll actually find yourself working as a team.  It's become more of a knife-fest than ever before, and if you bring a gun to this knife-fight, then so God help you.  You can even throw them now for instant kills; you might as well go bare-hand against a grizzly bear for all the chance you have against a Call of Duty knife-wielder.  Oh, and you get rewarded for sucking, through a system called "deathstreaks."  Because Infinity Ward actively strives for the most casual games in existence. 

4/10

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops

Key word is "Portable." As in, it can't even compare to Metal Gear on console.

Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops was hailed as one of the greatest games to hit the PSP system upon its release.  To this day, it's still claimed by many to be the greatest PSP game of all time, at the very least top 5. Irrefutable proof that the PSP is one of the biggest jokes ever.

If a game with broken controls that will take gamers back to the N64 days (when auto-aim and control pad aiming was ok because outside of the PC, we didn't know any better), graphics that constantly display lengthy texture tears, and boring-ass missions that will see you spending hours dragging enemy soldiers back to specific points so you can force them to join your team, is one of the best games on the system, then you know there are some serious problems with it.

You're going to spend many hours capturing bad guys to join your team.

The worst part about this game is definitely the controls, unless you just want to go shooting your way through every mission, in which case the auto-aim might work for you.   But some of the missions are extremely difficult if you go in guns blazing, so you're definitely going to need to learn how to take precision shots.  Which means careful aiming with the crap control pad controls while moving the crap analog nub.  If you're ever in a situation in which you take a shot and then realize you need to take another in a hurry, then God be with you.  Taking multiple precision shots in a row is true hell.

You'd think the guy on the left would just take the hint.

The main criticism aimed at Portable Ops is that it is too short, which is true, but shouldn't even be fucking noticeable in the midst of other actually serious flaws.  The really astounding thing (which makes me lose faith in video game critics nowadays) is that the complaint is specifically directed at the game's short length in hours, and not how half of that time is spent carrying enemy soldiers across the map to join your team.  And then how your team goes to the missions hiding in cardboard boxes the entire fucking time until you need them instead of actually being worth something in-game.  

Did I mention how beautiful this game was?  Yeah, it looks great, resulting in PSP fanboys claiming it as far superior to anything the DS could ever dream of making.  While partially correct because the DS has its fair share of shit, these fanboys don't take into account the constant texture tears and lag that results due to these great visuals, nor do they take into account that the game sucks regardless, unless you're one of those people who derives pleasure from just looking at a game, in which case you're probably an idiot anyway.  The last boss is especially ridiculous because it manages to play at an unsteady 5 fps.  But at least it marks the end of a horribly boring game that doesn't deserve Metal Gear in its title any more than golfers deserve to be called athletes.

5/10

My Most Overrated Game of 2011

It's getting a bit late to still be talking about 2011, but I've got to do this.  I'm choosing a game that's not only overrated in my so very humble opinion, but one that I feel just completely sucks as well.  While there are a lot of games I feel have a shot at this award, there's one in particular that received great reviews and yet managed to be utter garbage.  You can expect it to get a full review as to why it sucks in the future.

That's right, Crysis 2 is my most overrated game of last year.  In short, it's a cookie-cutter shooter that isn't even as visually impressive as its predecessor, and is just so goddamn boring.  Perhaps it could've overcome the absolute boredom because there are plenty of highly rated games these days that I find to be just as bad, but its predecessor was so good (meaning I got this huge letdown feeling) and its also totally simplified from it.  I guess this is to help the generally more retarded console gamers to not have any problems.

Gears of War

Gears of Bore.

Huge guns?  Check.  Muscular, homoerotic men?  Check.  Online multiplayer?  Check.  A single-player that revolves around constant action?  Check.  Blatant plagiarism of other franchises?  Check.  Looks like we've got the recipe for an extremely popular game.  Or, in other words, a game that really sucks.

Outside of the online multiplayer, which is pretty good (though not so much for me being a single-player gamer), I've long been incredulous that people actually find the campaign "epic," "thrilling," "innovative" (gtfo), and whatever else.  The only inventive thing here is the well-done cover system, and damn do they ever force you to make use of it.  In fact, probably 80-90% of this game will see you ducking behind cover, shooting, running to more cover, throwing nade into hole, and then repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat repeat, etc etc.  Yeah, fucking THRILLING.  As with virtually every other game I've bashed so far, be it God of War or Dragon Age or Resident Evil 5 (which is a ripoff of this game lmao), anybody who is not easily amused by BOOM BOOM BLOOD will be bashing their head in with the nearest blunt object within an hour of starting this game.  Thank GOD the sequels learned to mix the action up some, because otherwise constant facial abuse would have my face in similar condition to the guy's from Mask.

The Kryll!! Wait.. didn't I see these things in some Vin Diesel movie?

Let's look at the egregious unoriginalities in this game next.  First, you fight against the Locust which look like orcs with guns.  But that's ok cuz orcs are cool.  Then you've got the taken-from-Halo story which was taken-from-The Lord of the Rings or whatever-other-story about Man-is-fighting-a-brutal-war-hopelessly-out-manned-and-outgunned.  But I'll give this a pass too because there are so many other games that do the same.  But it just gets laughable when you see the blind Berserker, ripped straight off of Resident Evil 4's Garrador.  The main scene in which you fight it in Gears plays out in almost the exact same way too!  Apparently, somebody told the developers how much of a ripoff they were, and so the Berserker isn't seen in Gears 2 and is slightly tweaked in Gears 3.  And then there's the Kryll, shamelessly ripped out of the movie Pitch Black, and the developers don't even give a shit because one of the characters even makes reference to how hard getting past the Kryll would be because "it's pitch black."  Laughably, the level isn't even hard (like the rest of this cakewalk of a  game).  And then there's the thing with the long legs from The Matrix, but the ones in Gears look a little different, so I won't complain too much there.

The Gears characters love penetrating their enemies with long, sharp guns.

Ok, so obviously this game is like God of War in using blood and guns as its selling point instead of blood and guns and GOOD GAMEPLAY.  You get virtually nothing but action and the obligatory driving level.  But additionally, this has got to be one of the most homoerotic games ever made.  Every main character is a heavily muscled male with a gruff voice and hot temper.  The most famous part of this game's combat is using the Lancer gun to chainsaw your enemies.  And man, the Gears team loves penetrating Locusts with their long, hard guns.  Usually, they ram the Lancer into the Locusts from the front in a peculiar missionary style, but they also like to get them from behind in the more brutal doggie style.  Sometimes, two guys will gang up on one, typically with one taking whatever urinary orifice the Locusts possess and the other taking the anus or Locust equivalent of such.  In the multiplayer, it's not rare to see male "rape chains" in which one person gets penetrated from behind, somebody sees and wants in on the action and penetrates the original offender, another person enters the fold and waits for the latest exchange to end before taking the survivor from behind, and so on.  The victim will often shake with orgasmic pleasure upon insertion of the Lancer phallus.

5/10

Dragon Age: Origins

Um.  This game sucks.

I love Fantasy, I love role-playing games, I love epic battles, I love dragons, I love ages, and I love origins.  So if a game has all of the above and still manages to suck such asshole, then there is something really wrong.  Quite frankly, I believe BioWare paid off websites to make sure this game received universal acclaim.  I can see how most gamers these days are stupid enough or blinded enough by what everyone else says to like a game like this.  But how gaming journalists, people who typically have been gaming their entire lives, can play a game broken in virtually every respect from its The Lord of the Rings ripoff story to its combat that doesn't pick up until halfway through, its long-winded and boring dialogue, its lack of significant choice-and-consequence, its art direction that ranges from banal to hideous, its repetitive quests, and yet STILL rate this as one of this generation's greatest games is honestly just unbelievable. 

The orc army leaves Minas Morgul under the gaze of the Nazgûl.

I'll start with the story, which is, as I've said, a complete ripoff of The Lord of the Rings.  And yes, Dragon Age fans, it is a ripoff when you take every other idea from Tolkien.  There's a difference between being influenced by him and just plagiarizing his ass and Dragon Age crosses that line by a mile.  You can choose several different characters to start with, and each one changes the ending slightly and gives you a different opening scenario.  You then go to Osgiliath, which is the fortress city that stands guard over the orcs and the darkness that comes with them (you know, like in The Lord of the Rings when orcs take over places it gets blighted, like Minas Ithil becoming Minas Morgul).  The orcs are corrupted elves, humans, and dwarves like they are in The Lord of the Rings.  Anyway, the king is slaughtered after one of his greatest generals leaves the battle, and Osgiliath is overrun, meaning the orcs have an open path to Minas Tirith.  

As one of two surviving Grey Wardens, it's your job to build an army by gaining the support of the earl in Edoras, the mages in Isengard, the dwarves of Moria, and the elves of the Woodland Realm.  Then you need to put Aragorn, your party member and true king of Ferel- I mean Gondor, on the throne.  The return of the king will provide much-needed stability to the country.  So when the orcs make a diversionary move to Edoras and catch everyone off-guard (which makes perfect fucking sense because how can't you mistake a few thousands orcs for the entire army when you already know there are hundreds of thousands in their ranks?), the vast majority of their army moves on Minas Tirith. Then you kill the Sauron Dragon and died.  Unless, of course, you make a deal with Morrigan to impregnate her and let her keep the kid which no sane person would pass up because who in the hell would choose death over sex, especially when the mother has already stated she won't even require child support.  When that's the biggest choice you have to make all game, then wtf?

The mages live in a tower called Isengard.

Then we get stuck with all this fucking dialogue, where you can either be nice to everyone (pussy) or be an asshole to everyone (douche-bag).  But you have to sit through sooooo much of it, which might be all right if the story had even a hint of originality.  The dwarves have a caste system to set them apart from Tolkien dwarves, but they're still stubborn turds, and the elves are mortal and live in squalid conditions after years of human subjugation, yet they're still arrogant and belittling.  But enough about that shit.  The combat doesn't help matters either.  We get MMO style point and click, then wait for the battle to end.  Later in the game it picks up big-time as strategy and making correct commands are important, but through the first half of the game, it often just sucks.  The real bad thing is how repetitive the quests are.  They're soooo very long-winded with soooo many battles, that you'll probably have a headache shortly after you leave Osgiliath.  Not only that, but the side quests are pretty much all the same as well, leaving me to just say "fuck all the people" and move on with my life.  I just don't get it; how is a game hailed as epic and deep be so goddamn boring?

Morrigan: The obligatory bitch.

I'm tired of typing at this point, but I guess I really need to point out my other big problem with this game.  It's fantasy, and yet there is no adventuring.  Imagine my shock, as someone who has experienced hours upon hours of Fantasy adventuring in The Elder Scrolls, The Legend of Zelda, Shadow of the Colossus, Alundra, etc, when I saw that traversing the overworld occurs on a map.  Give me a fucking break.  The adventuring in each level isn't even any good thanks to the lack of any kind of original or appealing art direction whatsoever.  The cities look like any other Fantasy city I've ever seen, Isengard looks the same as it did in The Lord of the Rings, Moria is nothing special, and the Woodland Realm is an eyesore.  So to sum it all up: Dragon Age: Origins is a banal Lord of the Rings clone that is tedious, ugly, and very lucky (though not for us) that Tolkien isn't alive to see the series shut down due to plagiarism.

5.5/10