Overrated is so Overrated

Hello there I'm back again with this new piece I got where I'll be talking about overrated, now I think it is a fact that every gamer ever has at one point in their life called a game overrated.

Doesn't matter what game it was or if it really was overrated or not the point is you've used it to describe a game that was met with high praises from either the gamer community or critics which you ended up not enjoying for one reason or the other.

So that's what we mean we use the word but let me ask you this and challenge your thought process for a second and say, are those games really overrated?

Now one game that has seen popular usage of this word is the always present Call of Duty series, just name any one of them and gamers will be there to call it an overrated piece of trash that shrivels compared to the Battlefield series. Honestly both series can go dig an unmarked grave and get their heads shot off in them but I digress.

People call the CoD series overrated probably because every year it's almost the same game, same mechanics, same story, same assets and scenes etc. And yet they keep getting a lot of high praise from critics and millions of people keep making it one of the best selling games of the holiday season so is it really as overrated as we say it is?

Personally I've only ever played one game in the series which was the original Modern Warfare so I can't say much about the other games but you got to think yes these games are highly praised but maybe because they are that good.

Now hold your pitch forks a second there and hear me out, Call of Duty is not a badly designed game and while visually the games are nothing spectacular and the story is just xenophobic nonsense the gameplay however is where the series shines.

Sure it's nothing special but the mechanics are well designed, the game keeps a fast pace and it runs 60FPS even on MP which has been the draw for a lot of people but more importantly it's the multiplayer that people are attracted to it and like I said it is by all means a well designed shooter it's just not everyone's cup of tea.

CoD isn't the only game to ever be called overrated, go look at some vids about The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite or even Grand Theft Auto V and you're always going to find someone who will say the game is overrated. So let's put this in perspective here if you personally think CoD is overrated your bound to feel that your sentiment is right, that the game doesn't deserve the praise it gets.

On the other hand however if you see someone say the same thing about a game you loved than you feel inclined to think he's wrong and that the game is every bit of a masterpiece as you and many others who share this feeling believe.

The term overrated likes to be thrown at the game we don't like or just didn't enjoy as much as we thought we would be but the thing is can you really say that about them?

Can we really say based around how we think the game is less of a masterpiece because we just didn't enjoy it like others do, for that we got to change this idea that reviews are opinion based. Yes they have the opinions of the reviewer but at the same time you got to think that a review is not 100% opinion based because you can't say based on my opinion this game plays well.

Fact is there are a level of objectivity in these reviews mainly when it concerns presentation, gameplay and audio, stuff like story & fun will always be subjective because one person can find a game about shooting people boring but a game of chess to be super fun. So when a review calls out a game an incredible or great game sure some of it comes from subjectivity but the basis for it is objectivity.

Take a game like Gears of War for example the game does not have a good story, it's cheesy and goofy and full of testosterone but guess what the gameplay is great. On a pure gameplay level the game is fantastic so that and a few other things end up making it such a highly praised game.

So what I'm trying to get at is the word overrated is just a bad word to use to describe a game you don't like because you are challenging the quality of it by stating the game is not as good as people think it is but don't get me wrong here.

I'm not saying if you don't like a game as much that it means you are wrong to think that way, instead I'm trying to say that the games quality is still the same it's just you might not be a fan of that type of game. Like I said I'm not a CoD fan I have no love or joy for the series but I don't think it's an overrated series because it doesn't fit what I like.

I acknowledge it is a well designed quality game that delivers what people who enjoy these types of games expect and simply state I just don't like it myself because they are not my thing. Not saying you should say that but just to say "hey I don't like this type of game".

Anyway that's what I had to say hope you enjoyed it and I'll be back when I got something else to say till next time.

This blog was sponsored by Activision and the StopTheCoDHate group.