[pac-man]

I've read the board, followed the topic, and didn't plan to post. The obvious choices are now out of the way.

Final Fantasy VII is a cinch, and for a while, this might as well had become a FF message board; it says it right on the back of the box: "Quite possibly the greatest game ever made." How could it not be overrated?

Halo 2 & 3 are locks too... Shooters have evolved less than JRPG's in my opinion, and most of the one's that are highly regarded since Doom got high marks on their graphics, story, or multiplayer.

WoW is a take-it-or-leave-it proposal; MMO's generally are, and just because this one got recognized by South Park doesn't make it special or great, just popular. I've played it and others. It doesn't do anything special. It just does what it does better than the rest.

Metal Gear Solid 2 was overrated by the gaming press, and I think even those who exalted it when it came out would deride it now.

Only one person mentioned Fable, and I agree. However, it was more a victim of hype than most of the others. Molyneux promised more than he could deliver, and more than any forseeable generation of consoles can deliver. It's rating's as I remember weren't great, but they were generous.

No one has mentioned The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. So I'm going to put it out there. It's the Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull of that series to this point. And I liked the graphics and stylistic direction of the game. The storybook/waterpaint motif worked. I don't think that it was a victim of hype, because once the screenshots were released, everyone ignored every aspect of the game to bitch about the new look. Don't get me wrong, Wind Waker is way better than a slew of games out there. The mechanics put in place by Ocarina of Time set the series up for success in the third dimension. But the pacing, the plot, the bosses, the adventure, and so on and so forth were just "meh" compared to what Nintendo Power, IGN, GamePro, EGM, and most other reviews I read made it out to be.