Popular games you love to hate

[Sushi_b]

What are some games that you really love to hate that everyone else seems to love.

I think the 2 that come off the top of my head right away are...

Halo: I suppose I have nothing really against the game but I never found it to be any more special then other FPS. I know it's obviously a huge success and all but I don't see what the big deal is about the series. No I never followed the story but besides that point the game play didn't do much for me. I think I might be the only person in North America who owns both an Xbox and a 360 and never owned any of the Halo games.


Starcraft: Another one that just didn't grip me for some reason. I'm a fan of the Warcraft series and I was really excited to play Starcraft, but it never made me want to play through it. I don't know if the Sci-fi elements of the game turned me off or what, but I just didn't enjoy it like Warcraft did. I even liked Warcraft III but not Starcraft, regardless of people saying how much better SC truly is.

[Phakiel]

WOW: I dont like online games and I detest MMORPGs. I find it lame to pay continuously affter you purchase a game and I have never been able to get into the bandwagon.

[Poofy]

Halo: As an avid PC gamer, I find it pathetic that so many console gamers think this is the pinnacle of what an FPS should be. Honestly I think it's been more detrimental to the genre than any other game in recent history since now, every FPS games wants to be like Halo instead of trying something different, and lets not get me started on the rechargeable health bar system trend that it started.

And now the not-so-obvious...

MGS4: It pisses me off beyond belief that professional reviewers handed out 10/10 scores for this game, but then backpedal in their own defense when someone points out the game isn't perfect. No, I don't hate this game, but way too many people think far too lofty of it. The game itself is only roughly 5 hours long, but diluted people love to claim it's a 20-30 hour adventure and thus has plenty of replay value. WRONG. I can only watch a cutscene so many times, and after you take those out, you're only left with a rather brief, unpolished experience that's no where even close to what a perfect scoring game should be. People really need to pull their heads out of Hideo's ass, take a step back, and look at MGS4 for what it really is, most certainly a good game but it isn't Jesus incarnated in Blu-ray form.

[Nickoten]

Ironically a lot of the games I love to hate on are games I play often. Metal Gear Solid, Street Fighter III: Third Strike (I actually enjoy playing it with friends though, even though it annoys me), most MMORPGs, etc. Mostly it's that I can derive some enjoyment from the game but it becomes very clear to me what problems I have with it.

[Void]

Final Fantasy VII. I can say all that I hate about it, but it's actually one of the FFs I like the most And that's not saying I'm a big time FF hater. I'd probably rank that series in top 10 for most enjoyable. Though it would be far down the list.

[Raidou]

I'm going to get a lot of flame for this.

Pokemon series - why? because is Pokemon.

[Cyrus the virus]

w\hat?

[Trillian]

Heeeyy... all of mine have been named: Halo, WoW, Starcraft. Well, that is except Zelda. That's right, I am not a fan of any Zelda game except The Adventures of Link because I had such a fun time playing it as a young child. Annd, at that time all I would do is go to the Inn, talk to some ladies, and avoid the forest and fighting blobs at all costs.

[Priest4hire]

Doom is probably the biggest one. I read some of the preview material about the game and the final product was a real letdown to me. Not only that but after playing the shareware version a little I started to really get annoyed by the level design. The huge gap between what it was supposed to be and what the actual levels were like simply ruined the game for me.

The other would be the Street Fighter series. Although it's really more a coolness towards the entire genre. Still, I played the original in the arcade as well as the legendary Street Fighter 2. I could never see what people saw in the game.

Although I don't hate it I could write a very lengthy essay on all the things I don't like about WoW. Oh, and then there's Diablo. I have both games but as of yet I've never drummed up the energy to play Diablo 2 past the second act. That's about it unless you count every sports game ever made. Just about anyways.

[Blackdragon]

All Final Fantasies (except tactics): I can't get through these games no matter how hard I try. I've played 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 and have beaten none of them. While the stories seem decent enough, it just doesn't help that the gameplay bores me to no end. Then to top it off, they're all random encounter games, so multiply that boredom times frustration and you have how I feel about this entire series.

Shadow Hearts Covenant: Again with the ridiculous encounter rate. Plus the overall difficulty of the game itself, coupled with there being no Inn thus making money a valueable resource that doesn't seem that easy to obtain. I just hated this game.

Wow: I'm sorry I refuse to pay for a game after I've already bought it, that's just stupid. I much rather play NWN or Guild Wars.

Starwars KOTOR: The game started out waaay too slow and I wasn't used to the D&D combat system and was expecting a more realtime fighting experience. Though I'm thinking about giving this one another chance.

[Poofy]

Doom is probably the biggest one. I read some of the preview material about the game and the final product was a real letdown to me. Not only that but after playing the shareware version a little I started to really get annoyed by the level design. The huge gap between what it was supposed to be and what the actual levels were like simply ruined the game for me.
no wai

[Polygon]

WoW and GTA are the first and foremost that come to mind.

[drunken monk]

Wow: I'm sorry I refuse to pay for a game after I've already bought it, that's just stupid. I much rather play NWN or Guild Wars.


I love GW. I cant wait for the sequel.

Anyway I love to hate GTA. Its not bad but its way overrated. I usually get bored with each one about half way through. Thats about the time I realize that Ive been doing pretty much the same missions the entire game.

[Sen]

MGS4: It pisses me off beyond belief that professional reviewers handed out 10/10 scores for this game, but then backpedal in their own defense when someone points out the game isn't perfect. No, I don't hate this game, but way too many people think far too lofty of it. The game itself is only roughly 5 hours long, but diluted people love to claim it's a 20-30 hour adventure and thus has plenty of replay value. WRONG. I can only watch a cutscene so many times, and after you take those out, you're only left with a rather brief, unpolished experience that's no where even close to what a perfect scoring game should be. People really need to pull their heads out of Hideo's ass, take a step back, and look at MGS4 for what it really is, most certainly a good game but it isn't Jesus incarnated in Blu-ray form.
That was beautiful. I'm pretty much in agreement. Though I did thoroughly enjoy the game, it was really only those few precious moments of actual playtime that I liked. The overall storyline of the Metal Gear series has become so convoluted it's almost not worth paying attention. Especially since every other word that comes out of somebody's mouth is an abbreviation for something. Most of the game's length is due to outrageously long cutscenes, which (until this game's release) I was under the impression Hideo and his buds had done away with. Extended periods of the player just sitting there were the biggest problem with Sons of Liberty, so in the games that came out after that, Twin Snakes and Snake Eater, the cutscenes were drastically shorter, and the games ended up being more enjoyable. So why the hell did they not pay attention to the high quality of those games when making Guns of the Patriots? It ends up having the same damn problems as the second one, even though they had already made the necessary tweaks to their formula. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Anyway, World War II first person shooters don't interest me in the least. I spent some time with them back in the PlayStation era, with games like the first Medal of Honor, but somewhere in there I lost interest in them while the rest of the world came to really embrace them. Today, there's so many different WWII shooters out there, the concept has practically blossomed into a genre unto itself. Resistance: Fall of Man was the last (and currently only) pseudo-WWII game that grabs my attention, and it's mostly because it put a whole new spin on the genre with a plot that has you fighting something other than the Nazis or Japanese, and puts quite an emphasis on creative weaponry.

[Borg1982]

WoW: I love to hate it and I'm not afraid to say it. I hate how it ruins the lives of some younger friends of mine & my brothers friends. Putting it lightly: They did bad in the recent semester in college since the expansion came out.

Chrono Trigger: Afraid to say I hate it because its highly popular. I cause wars on message boards just because I hate the game. I don't like its use of non-random battles, where, in touching an enemy you start a battle. I don't like knowing where the enemies are or knowing how often I will battle. I don't like the plot too much as something different happens in each time zone and they just throw in a final boss later.

[Itaska]

The GTA series is hardcore overrated. Other than GTA3 being fun, the rest have been wildy repetitive and unoriginal.

I thought Gears of War was highly overrated as well.

[Sibek]

Shadow of the Colossus- It's one of those games you see getting a lot of accolades. However, 100% of those seem to come from its presentation, which is superb. The developer's usage of scale simply cannot compete to anything in recent memory. Though, when you get to the 'game' part of the game, I realized that it was overly monotonous and not really all that intuitive. Some may enjoy traveling 15 minutes in an aesthetically stunning, yet technically deficient (FPS drops), to fight one of the colossi, but I just found the landscape as a precursor to the overblooming or over reliance in filters and effects to make the game real (they still end up looking like a silly cartoon). The motives behind the protagonist and why he's trying to save the princess or w/e isn't entirely clear, despite the Ico allusions towards the end. Fighting the colossi may seem like a feat upon first glance but all you have to do is shine that light and hit the weak spot for massive damage (hmm, where have I seen this before). The camera can be a total pain. However ,there was one boss I did enjoy which was in the ruins where the protagonist had to platform around and climb columns to eventually expose the weak point of the colossus in order to fight. That was probably the climax of the game right there. The rest were just too straight forward or simple to warrant the 15 minute trek.

Then there is the argument about it being minimalist. This is not the 1980's; this is not the atari; we're not playing for points. We're playing to get some sort of grasp on the environment, the characters involved, and the motives for the actions the player will take in the present and future. Considering the amount of time and money at their disposal, at the very least could there be some sort of time in the story where I cannot describe with the terms 'supposedly' or 'possibly'. I'm not climbing a 200ft stone warrior just to save some bitch that the protagonist 'supposedly' loves. The ending was dissap...'minimalist' that basically served to act as some sort of connection to Ico...or fanservice. Though, I really enjoyed the presentation. Still, minimalist isn't something I consider a beneficial characteristic of a game. It's a terrible defense.

If I were still reviewing on the site, I'd consider this a 8.0 game. It had to be 5-8 hours long because any longer and players would realize how monotonous the game was. This is a shame because the world was large enough to handle much more than sixteen colossi.

Mass Effect- Another one of those games that just ooze greatness in its presentation, yet fails to understand that its a game. None of the side missions are at all interesting and reuses the same template for the buildings through and through. This is just bad design and is really annoying walking through the same outpost or bunker then fight some guys then reach the objective. Bioware was most likely trying to bring in some sort of open world into Mass Effect but it only makes the open world seem like a copy pasted closed world just done 100 times. Don't get me started on the Mako. If you thought KOTOR started slow it took me 6 hours to just finish the citadel and by that time the number of people I've killed in the entire game was less than 20. This was on the veteran difficulty. It's quite possibly the slowest moving action game in existence. Sure, its and RPG but so is Deus Ex, and it was still able to handle action and RPG elements well --albeit not to the scale of current generation.

I'd probably give the game a 7.0 or a 7.5.

[Sushi_b]

Mass Effect- Another one of those games that just ooze greatness in its presentation, yet fails to understand that its a game. None of the side missions are at all interesting and reuses the same template for the buildings through and through. This is just bad design and is really annoying walking through the same outpost or bunker then fight some guys then reach the objective. Bioware was most likely trying to bring in some sort of open world into Mass Effect but it only makes the open world seem like a copy pasted closed world just done 100 times. Don't get me started on the Mako. If you thought KOTOR started slow it took me 6 hours to just finish the citadel and by that time the number of people I've killed in the entire game was less than 20. This was on the veteran difficulty. It's quite possibly the slowest moving action game in existence. Sure, its and RPG but so is Deus Ex, and it was still able to handle action and RPG elements well --albeit not to the scale of current generation.

I'd probably give the game a 7.0 or a 7.5.

While I wouldn't disagree that there is some lack of variety in the physical settings and NPCs, the game has great character interaction and characterization. I didn't feel that the side quests were a waste as they lead to a little more story for each character. The Mako does suck and will hopefully be a much better handling machine in the next game.

[Sibek]

The thing is that it's all presentation. Character interaction only take 5-10% of the time spent in the game. There were only 3 side quests out of at least 30 remotely related to the characters (Wrex's Armor, Garrus's revenge against a scientist, and Tali's revenge on the geth). The rest were simply, go to this outpost, kill some guys and then reach an objective be it some crazed gunman ready to kill a scientist or whatnot. Bioware wanted to compete with other open world games like The Elder Scrolls. However it just made the open world/galaxy concept mundane and uninteresting.

[Cyrus the virus]

Chrono Trigger: Afraid to say I hate it because its highly popular. I cause wars on message boards just because I hate the game. I don't like its use of non-random battles, where, in touching an enemy you start a battle. I don't like knowing where the enemies are or knowing how often I will battle. I don't like the plot too much as something different happens in each time zone and they just throw in a final boss later.

Don't you start this all over again...

[metreon]

paper mario: i just do not get it. i tried playing the gamecube one and it was just flat out BORING! i mean, what's the point in playing the thing? the story sucked and the rewards for playing were crap. the battles were annoying too. how the hell did this game get to be so popular?!


doom: (i'm basing my judgements on doom 3 and doom 64) i have to agree. this game sucked, and so did quake. i used to get scared by doom 64 and quake, but after playing stalker shadow of chernobyl i tend to think of these games as rather silly. doom 3 was especially childish in its execution. monster jump out, go boo, then i kill. i mean, what's so great about that formula? SSOC was far more frightening without the boogeyman effect. those Ukrainian guys know how to create atmosphere!


and this one might really be blasphemous of me... but...

the witcher: the story was great and all, but the gameplay was boring as all get out. killing drower, bloodzuigers, and wyverns gets old after a while. especially when you've been running around killing drowners most of the game. I HATE DROWNERS! there should be FAR fewer enemies, and they should be more difficult and more rewarding to kill. why don't developers get this? plus, the brunt of the game lies on running errands. he's a god damned witcher! not grandma's servant! why is he saving the world by running errands?! why!? and the spells, they could be more useful. ingi-ing my way through the game was easiest. i couldn't understand the point in laying traps or trying to hypnotize enemies when this method was so slow and the enemies were SOOOOOOO common and numerous.
they need to go back and take a strong look and make some hefty changes to this battle system and at the way the game progresses. it'd also be nice to have a much more open world to explore. it's funny, the story line isn't linear but the witcher world itself is.

[scorpion]

well theres 2 games that everyone seems to love and I seem to hate:

tekken: tried it at the arcade once and hated it, never much liked having left and right punches instead of small and large punches.

kingdom hearts: disney with final fantasy just never appealed to me plus sora is kind of a dork.

[jerubal]

Snap on Tekken. I got good at it because I knew a lot of people who played it, and it's nice to play your friends at that kind of shit... but for the longest time people refused to admit the control system sucked balls and the graphics were nowhere close to good enough to cover for it.
I mean, you might've played it for the story, but why?

[Devil King]

Halo.

[marshtric]

Pointless game because we all know Ninjas would win. When you play this game you choose your side (ninja of course), and battle others. It?s not anything extravagant but if you are one of the many that enjoy this epic battle, then you will get a kick out of this app. People will especially enjoy the ranking system, considering that the top ninja rank is ?Chuck Norris-Level Ninja.?

[Polygon]

doom: (i'm basing my judgements on doom 3 and doom 64) i have to agree. this game sucked, and so did quake. i used to get scared by doom 64 and quake, but after playing stalker shadow of chernobyl i tend to think of these games as rather silly. doom 3 was especially childish in its execution. monster jump out, go boo, then i kill. i mean, what's so great about that formula? SSOC was far more frightening without the boogeyman effect. those Ukrainian guys know how to create atmosphere!

I was going to say, BLASPHEMY!!! However, Doom 3 and 64 both did genuinely suck balls.

Snap on Tekken. I got good at it because I knew a lot of people who played it, and it's nice to play your friends at that kind of shit... but for the longest time people refused to admit the control system sucked balls and the graphics were nowhere close to good enough to cover for it.
I mean, you might've played it for the story, but why?

Who plays any fighting game for the story? :p

But really, I liked Tekken 3 and Tag. The rest are pretty meh to me. Even at that you guys are right, they weren't the best fighters out there. The original Soul Caliber remains my favorite by long shot.

[Sushi_b]

The thing is that it's all presentation. Character interaction only take 5-10% of the time spent in the game. There were only 3 side quests out of at least 30 remotely related to the characters (Wrex's Armor, Garrus's revenge against a scientist, and Tali's revenge on the geth). The rest were simply, go to this outpost, kill some guys and then reach an objective be it some crazed gunman ready to kill a scientist or whatnot. Bioware wanted to compete with other open world games like The Elder Scrolls. However it just made the open world/galaxy concept mundane and uninteresting.

Sorry to respond so late, I totally forgot about this thread.

I agree with that, but even so I didn't mind doing those quests nearly as much as I might in another RPG. I can safely say that those parts in Mass Effect were much more interesting and important then getting a Newspaper for a guy in an outhouse in Sonic Chronicles (another Bioware game). I suppose these equate to a fetch quest in any other typical RPG.

The game feels like it gives you freedom to do what you want but has enough linear parts to keep you on a path if you choose to do so.

[Data]

WoW: I love to hate it and I'm not afraid to say it. I hate how it ruins the lives of some younger friends of mine & my brothers friends. Putting it lightly: They did bad in the recent semester in college since the expansion came out.

WoW kept me from dropping out of school. Without it, I would sit and be depressed about being away from my family and husband. With it, I'm a happy camper.

[Less Than Liz]

Ha, people doing poorly in school, etc is not the fault of WoW!

[Itaska]

I'd also have to make a case for Shadow of the Colossus. I thought it was terrible, couldn't even finish it. And there are people out there who liked it better than Ico. Stupid.

[Sushi_b]

I'd also have to make a case for Shadow of the Colossus. I thought it was terrible, couldn't even finish it. And there are people out there who liked it better than Ico. Stupid.

I've got nothing against Shadow of the Colossus because I haven't played it but I never understood why so many people enjoyed ICO. I bought the game new for 10 dollars a few years ago and though I was in for a treat. Instead I was giving a bunch of boring and annoying puzzles as well as a girl I had to drag around constantly because she is brain dead.

The best point of the game was by far the atmosphere though. It really was well made.

[Devil King]

I'd also have to make a case for Shadow of the Colossus. I thought it was terrible


I thought it was a masterpiece.

[Itaska]

I've got nothing against Shadow of the Colossus because I haven't played it but I never understood why so many people enjoyed ICO. I bought the game new for 10 dollars a few years ago and though I was in for a treat. Instead I was giving a bunch of boring and annoying puzzles as well as a girl I had to drag around constantly because she is brain dead.

The best point of the game was by far the atmosphere though. It really was well made.

I loved everything about Ico. You've said it though, the atmosphere was the best part. The storyline was good and the puzzles were decent. I think the main thing that stood out for me was simply the fact that I've never played a game quite like Ico.

It was the little things that stood out:

- The only way the game ended was either falling to your death or Yorda getting captured.
-The only weapons at your desposal was either a wooden sword (later upgraded to something a little more useful) or a bomb.
-While Yorda needed Ico to escape, Ico also needed her (only she could open certain doors).
-For an escort game, it didn't really feel like one. Yorda played the bigger role, while Ico was just there to help.
-The creatures you had to battle were in small variety, but also creative in there own way. And the final battle was genuis.
-I loved the simplistic side of this adventure. Nothing too complicated.
-There were no glitches or malfunctions. Everything ran smoothly.

I can completely understand why someone wouldn't like this game. But for me Ico was nothing short of perfect.

I thought it was a masterpiece.

I thought it was garbage. The boss battles were boring, and the storyline (from what I played) was practically non-existant. But what bothered me the most was how there was little to do between boss battles. A puzzle here and there definitely wouldn't have hurt. And the controls were glitchy and ill-resposive. Can't really say anything good about the game other than it's graphics.

[Void]

I like Shadow of the Collosus more than ICO. ICO is a great puzzle game, but I would never want to play it again after beating it once, and it's what... three, four hours long? Shadow of the Collosus is fun to just free roam in. Of course, it WAS fun to free roam in, but now there are other games which are more fun to roam in, such as Oblivion, Fallout 3, Grand Theft Auto 4 and The Twilight Princess. Hell, even Two Worlds.

I know that doesn't appeal to many people who prefer story, character development and the use of the brain over simply exploring a world.

The only real qualm I have with it is that I would like at least some kind of reward for exploring (other than health or stamina boosts). What it had over other games of the time is that there weren't many free roam medieval games (unless you consider PC gaming, which was unfortunately uninteresting at the time).

[Devil King]

I thought it was garbage. The boss battles were boring, and the storyline (from what I played) was practically non-existant. But what bothered me the most was how there was little to do between boss battles. A puzzle here and there definitely wouldn't have hurt. And the controls were glitchy and ill-resposive. Can't really say anything good about the game other than it's graphics.

I enjoyed it's ambiance most of all, but yeah, it could've had some more difficulty value. I always put it in when I needed to get away and just admire a long lost land. Mind you I loved this game before any of the new stuff came along, like the games Void mentioned.

It still holds a place in my heart, though.

[Sen]

The shining achievement of Shadow of the Colossus was its magnificent sense of scale. To me, I never felt that it was the intentions of the game creators to release a perfect game, which was why there was quite little to accomplish and the actual gameplay was a bit of a chore. Instead the idea behind the entire game was simply to induce a feeling of awe in the presence of something massive, and in that respect, the game was an overwhelming success in my opinion.

I feel much the same about Ico, which also provided the player with a basic set of tools, just good enough for progression through the game. But the major difference from Colossus here, is that the feeling the developers seek to convey, companionship more or less, is realized more through puzzle solving, as the two characters rely on each other to do so. To that end, Ico was a fine game as well.

I honestly don't see how somebody could hate one or the other. While they're both quite bare in general video game content, that was never the point anyway. The truth is that Shadow of the Colossus and Ico are articles of interactive expression that make their respective impacts in different, though successful ways. They are a pair of artsy fartsy games; quite high on the artsy, in fact. It's cool if you don't dig what the game makes you feel or how it made that feeling arrive, but the real only intention of these particular games are to make you feel that certain feeling. Your own reaction to that feeling has nothing to do with the game. (I doubt I've ever employed such liberal use of a single word, in this case "feel" or "feeling", in one paragraph the way I just did there.)

In general, Shadow of the Colossus had more of an impact on me. I can't cite any moment in Ico that hit me with as much force as encountering that first giant, but it still left its mark. Anyway, that's my two cents on those games.

[Sibek]

Bad Gameplay and Great Presentation should not be a virtue in developing a game. Working an unfulfilling job for a good company still leaves regret.

Likewise, Good gameplay and absense of presentation give the game no motive to continue beyond a limited amount of playtime (Wii Sports without friends).

Presentation is certainly enough to make me finish the game. Though finishing a game really does not make it good. Especially when you are let down by the ending (Digital Devil Saga 2 and Shadow of the Colossus). I actually feel betrayed that the developers tried to pull wool over my eyes telling me I was doing some great adventure and ended up picking up groceries at the local supermarket.

I am not the developer but from playing games, developers do hold the ability to decieve players using things like top of the line graphics, good plot, or innovative design to draw attention away from things like unforgiving controls or short game time (Mirror's Edge though good plot doesn't fit here). Sure, Shadow of the Colossus was innovative in multiple senses like scale and art, I will argue for the game in that sense. Still, its the job of gamers and adults, to take a look at the entire picture and ask "why can't I do this" instead of defending only a fraction of the game and calling it the whole.

[Mark]

.hack//
it was great at first. the first game was very fun...the second one was the same...the third one didnt change at all...and the 4th one...I nearly snapped...I never even finished the last one, because I was so bored doing the same damn thing over and over that I nearly went insane from boredom. now I cant play any of them because I got so bored trying to get cores to advance replaying any of them just drives me up the wall completely.

[Sushi_b]

.hack//
it was great at first. the first game was very fun...the second one was the same...the third one didnt change at all...and the 4th one...I nearly snapped...I never even finished the last one, because I was so bored doing the same damn thing over and over that I nearly went insane from boredom. now I cant play any of them because I got so bored trying to get cores to advance replaying any of them just drives me up the wall completely.

True enough. I enjoyed the .Hack series, but it does wear thin near the end. Instead of trying to make more money as they did by cutting the game into smaller segments, it would have been nice to just get it all in a single package. I haven't played the second series so I have no idea if it was any better at being fluid.


Sibek, I think a lot of people felt that way (betrayed by the ending) about Assassin's Creed. We were given an interesting plot and character that only evolves so much and then the game abrubtly ends. That and we were never told about the Animus in any fashion before the game came out. It was just kept a secret (I have no idea why).

[Sen]

developers do hold the ability to decieve players using things like top of the line graphics, good plot, or innovative design to draw attention away from things like unforgiving controls or short game time
I like how you worded that.

Sure, Shadow of the Colossus was innovative in multiple senses like scale and art, I will argue for the game in that sense. Still, its the job of gamers and adults, to take a look at the entire picture and ask "why can't I do this" instead of defending only a fraction of the game and calling it the whole.
I agree. I wouldn't say Shadow of the Colossus was by any means a perfect game. But because it did manage to accomplish something quite impressive, I would still suggest that praise for the game in that respect is justified, even if the game was a tad broken in other areas. The game isn't recommended by so many because it plays like a dream, but because it did that one particular thing very well. You're right when you say that to judge a game appropriately, it's important to consider everything about it, even the stuff that didn't work out so well. And that's why I don't view it as any masterpiece, as it most certainly does fall short more than it excels. But in that one area that it does excel, its excels greatly, because that one area was obviously the focus of the developer's attention. It's unfortunate that they spent so much effort there, to the extent that other aspects of the game quite noticeably missed out on the same level of dedication. Still, their work on that specific element of the game paid off magnificently, which is why it's worth experiencing, even if the rest of the game can't be so highly regarded.