Unfairly Hated Video Games

As with any media format, video games are often hated for reasons that have nothing to do with their actual quality.

Don't get me wrong, not every game that gets hate gets it undeservedly. You would be hard pressed to find a gamer that will go to bat for Superman 64, it's easy to explain why that game is hated. It's hated because it is a miserable, barely functioning mess that is an absolutely abysmal experience from the time you press start to the time you inevitably shut it off in a rage when you can't fly through a million stupid rings because of the crappy controls. That's a problem with most media, how "good" or "bad" it can be both subjective or objective. Sometimes one will just completely outweigh the other, like the aforementioned Superman 64. You can like the art style all you want, I know indistinguishable blobs and random fog are some people's thing, but the bottom line is any subjective enjoyment you get out of the game is rendered moot by the game being objectively bad. But that isn't always the case, sometimes games will generate a lot of hate for reasons that are subjective or, at the very least, objective but not actually a big deal. I want to look at examples of games like that throughout history.

In doing my research, I've found these games usually fall into one of a series of categories. Some fall into more than one, but it's usually at least one major issue. I realize this is my own subjective opinion, but I find with unfairly hated video games, one of the following is usually true:

-It was released unfinished

-It vacillates between "overrated" and "underrated"

-It's too popular

-It was too different from what was promised

-It's too different from other games in its series

-Outside factors impacted its reputation

-People didn't "get it"

Again, this is just my opinion, though I did do plenty of research into which games are widely hated. At the end of the day, no one is obligated to like a game. I'm in no way saying that it's not okay to dislike any of these games, I'm just pointing out titles that are largely trashed on by the community for reasons they shouldn't be. All the games I am about to mention have flaws, all games ever have flaws, it's just that a lot of times those flaws are overstated. Anyway, without further ado, let's look at some of these categories.

It was released unfinished

This is the newest reason on our list, and the one I am going to spend the least time discussing. It sort of represents both the best and the worst of modern gaming, with titles being released in incomplete states only to be patched into solid games later. Back in the day, when a game came out terrible, it was terrible forever. Sometimes, a game's reputation can recover. But usually, it's too late. I would say No Man's Sky is a great example of the former. Barely a shell of a game that could be beaten in five minutes at launch, it has since been patched into a well-regarded adventure title. As for the latter? I think Cyberpunk 2077 fits the bill. It was full of bugs at launch, but all reports indicated that things are much better now. Unfortunately, the game still seems to have a bad reputation.  

It vacillates between "overrated" and "underrated"

I guess the name of this tier is a bit misleading, but I couldn't think of anything else to call it. It also has a lot of overlap with some of the categories that we will be discussing later. But basically, it goes like this: a game comes out and it's an all-time classic. People love it, critics give it great scores, it sells a million copies and earns effusive praise. But then come the naysayers, all over the internet message boards and boutique gaming sites, declaring the game to be overrated five years later. Sometimes they give good reasons, other times they give reasons that are ridiculous attempts to build nerd cred, but either way, the once sacred cow game in their sights gets stuck with the "overrated" label.

Then, 10 years later, the narrative changes again. The hype has died down, the bandwagon fans have moved on to the shiny new toy, the generations have changed and people can once again look at the game objectively. They remember how truly great it was, even when separated from the hype, and the common narrative that said game was overrated begins to shift again. In fact, it shifts so hard that what was once overrated is now underrated. That's a hell of an explanation, but it happens all the time. To me, this category is typified by three games: Final Fantasy VII, Goldeneye:007 and Halo. All were revolutionary when they came out. All were classified as overrated and were widely considered as such for a few years (though they have also always had very dedicated, hardcore fans). But now the pendulum is starting to swing back. There are other games that fit the bill, but these are the most obvious.

It's too popular

At this point, gaming is a major part of everyday, mainline popular culture. But it wasn't always that way. When I was a kid, video games were largely for losers, people that the masses vilified and grouped as "other." As is often the case when this happens, those outcasts banded together to create their own community, much like, say, fans of heavy metal music or Dungeons and Dragons did. While that is totally understandable, it does lead to some negative behavior of its own, behavior I myself admit to being guilty of. Again, I totally understand the bias against things that become "popular" or "mainstream." This was our little community for how many years, and now all of the sudden these jocks and bros want to step onto our turf?

Look, I totally get it. When I see the dude who used to scream homophobic slurs and sexual innuendos at me while I played Magic: The Gathering at lunch splooge all over himself at the greatness of "Game of Thrones," it bothers me a bit. But I've also played on both sides of this game. I made the mistake of wearing my wrestling jacket to a booster draft one time and you would have thought I walked into that store with both birds flying, telling everyone their mother was a hooker. Anyway, the point of that diatribe is that gamers often hate on things that are popular for no other reason than they are popular and while I understand it, it's not a great attitude to have. I do not like Fortnite, but it's not an objectively bad game by any means. However, it generates tons of heat because of how popular it is. The same is true for the Call of Duty franchise, all really good to great games that catch hate just because they are what they are. I guess you could loop most sports games in here as well. Again, this cuts both ways. Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's good. But it shouldn't be a disqualifying factor either.      

It was different from what was promised

We all remember the trailers for Watchdogs, right? We were promised a revolutionary new tile, a video game that would change the course of the medium forever. They were incredible trailers, promising a stellar new title for the then-new PS4 and XBox One, an undisputed killer app and a system seller. What we got instead was...a perfectly good, solid, 8/10 open world adventure game. I absolutely understand the frustration when this happens because, at the end of the day, the developers didn't deliver what was promised. However, hate for games like this gets taken waaaaay too far by the gaming community. Reading people's opinions of the game, you would think Watchdogs was the second coming of the aforementioned Superman 64. Trust me, it's not. I'm not normally an open world adventure game fan, but I did play Watchdogs to completion and I even did most of the side missions. It's a really good video game, even if it didn't live up to the hype. History is littered with examples of titles like this. I should add a caveat, that this is not inclusive of games like Duke Nukem Forever or The Bouncer, those games were hyped up and turned out horrible. We're talking about stuff that missed the mark by a little, not by a mile like those abominations.

It's too different from other titles in its series

Games in this category usually fall into one of two sub-categories. The first comprises "black sheep" titles, a few of which I've talked about in past reviews. I wouldn't call them "hated" per se, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone that considers Super Mario Bros. 2 or Zelda II as their favorite titles in those series. Those probably aren't the best examples; Zelda II was a product of the series having yet to find its footing and SMB 2 had all sorts of weirdness surrounding it. But the general idea is the same.

The other comprises what I like to call the "you did this to yourself" games: titles where developers were pressured into making wholesale changes to a new series entry just for the sake of making changes. This usually comes about because reviewers, either from mainstream publications and stupid blogs like this one, panned the previous entry because "it was just more of the same." Then, when the developers make wholesale changes, they go back and complain that it wasn't enough like the old games. The Mega Man X series is a great example. When X5 and X6 came out, everyone was quick to jump on them for being "retreads." That was true to an extent, but it shortchanges how good of a game X5 was in its own right and misses the point of why X6 wasn't very good. Either way, it made Capcom go back to the drawing board. When they came out with Mega Man X7, it was almost like it was from a completely different series entirely...and they got dunked on for it. I recognize X7 has plenty of flaws, but I maintain that it's a really good game and wouldn't be so reviled if: 1) the aforementioned scenario wasn't the case or 2) it wasn't a Mega Man game. Again, this isn't the first time this happened to a game, but it is relatively common.

Outside Factors impacted its reputation

I'm not going to spend too much time or give many examples, because some of this stuff wades into some pretty serious territory. I don't really want to get into that, so I will just give Kingdom of Amalur as an example here as it had a huge scandal surrounding it that greatly impacted its reception. It would take its own series to explain all the details, so I won't. I will leave it at "a loudmouth, overrated ex-baseball player's bad business decisions cost a lot of people their jobs and a ton of money." But it doesn't even have to be a big, seedy scandal that can impact a game. Sometimes it's a development issue or a series of production delays. Maybe it's a media report of some kind. But either way, sometimes games are hated because of things that have absolutely nothing to do with the actual games.

People didn't "get it"

I'm going to sound a little pretentious here, but a lot of times people just don't "get" what a game is trying to accomplish. This is true of most media, people often miss the point of films, television shows and songs. Video games are no different. That doesn't mean someone isn't intelligent, some of the smartest people I know miss the point sometimes. I myself do it all the time. I avoided watching "28 Days Later" for a long time, thinking it another brainless zombie flick, but once someone explained the finer points to me it became one of my favorite movies. I talked a bit about this in my Beavis and Butt-Head review, a lot of its fans and critics thought it glorified slacking and stupidity when that was most definitely not Mike Judge's intention. "Fight for Your Right" by the Beastie Boys became a frat party anthem, despite being written to lampoon such culture. People still miss the point of "Fight Club," it's neither a film about shirtless dudes beating each other up in a parking lot, nor a call to commit terrorist acts in the name of "fighting the system."

The first example of a video game I thought of in this category was Earthbound, but that isn't really hated anymore. In fact, quite the opposite is true and those who do dislike the game tend to provide good reasons for doing so. It's on my 10's list, but I totally recognize the inventory system is abysmal and understanding the game's aesthetic fully almost requires having grown up in the U.S., U.K. or Canada. From a gameplay standpoint, I think Bushido Blade might fit the bill, but again, it's not really hated, and most fighting game fans know it's not really a fighting game in the traditional sense. Some games are just quirky all around, but they are less understood and more designed for very specific audiences. Call of Duty bros aren't going to get, say, Katamari Damacy, because it just wasn't designed to appeal to them. I don't get Katamari Damacy either, for what it's worth. But there's one game, one major title that I think epitomizes this category. It's a game I love, and one that does have a big following, but also generates a ton of hate. It could just be me, but I feel it's among the most hated, least defended "big name" titles of all time. In some ways I understand it, it could absolutely fit into almost every category on this list (it didn't really have any outside controversy surrounding it and I'm not sure if it qualified as releasing unfinished, but it definitely touches all the others). But I think the crux of the hate comes from it fitting into this category. As for which game I'm talking about...well, you'll have to wait until next week for that.