It was always here, you just were younger and didn't see it. The internet has opened everyone's eyes to what others actually think. An anonymous medium through which you can say what you want and avoid repercussions (mostly). In the arcade era people would argue over games and their wasn't even as many to argue about. Now, with an accessible medium and 100s of games a year on 4 major platforms and countless handheld platforms the level of entitlement has just been ramped up a bit.

The thing with overrated things is that you usually think they are overrated because you set higher expectations because people love them so much. Not always true but, often the case in my experience.

Ps3 Heavy Rain: Doesn't actually achieve what everyone says it does... I saw 8 endings and the differences were mainly just a set of 30 second long cutscenes chosen based on a handful of caveats. The actions you could perform were so controlled that you couldn't really make any decisions that could dramatically change the story. The story was trite too. The quality of a terrible made for TV movie. It always gets compared to game stories but, it shouldn't when it went out of it's way to NOT be a game. There is no lose condition and no win condition so it isn't a game. Judge it based wholly on it's story (on a literary level) and it blows.

360 Gears of War: Awful story, glitchy, awful characters and clunky gameplay. I genuinely think it is not just overrated but one of the worst AAA games I ever made the mistake of buying. So disappointed.

Wii (don't tell my flat mate this) Mario Galaxy: I can understand the 10/10 I guess, I suppose you have to rate it based on how well it does what it set out to do... which was whip the Mario pony some more. They shoved everything on spheres that seriously degrades the complexity of most levels and then put complexity back in by adding an infinite amount of gimmicks that most people consider innovative additions of gameplay. What happened to having a solid gameplay concept and exploring that? Oh wait they have explored Mario's gameplay to death so the only thing left is just to take some mind expanding medication and then say "dude what if mario was a bumble bee?".

Multiplatform Call of Duty: Awful stories with no intelligence or depth, short single player and unbalanced multiplayer. If everyone is so obsessed with real life why not join the army and be done with it? If reality is so great why even make games? LOL

I love how lists like this make the rounds more often than most underrated games... don't want to start a fad though.

As someone else mentioned it isn't entirely unfeasible that the NGP could handle 3d graphics with glasses but, that hasn't been announced or advertised. (Early days I know) From the perspective of anyone pushing 3d a 3d focused device trumps. Also, obviously I was excluding Sony Pictures from the equation... but if you consider that Sony is also a competitor for many film studios is. Double the reason LOL.
I really am very cynical

A thought has crossed my mind recently that has made me worry on two fronts:
1: I think the NGP is doomed.
2: I am becoming terribly cynical in my old age.

The issue isn't one of 3DS vs NGP specs per se but it boils down to features in the end. The problem I refer to is 3D.

It is hard not to notice the proliferation of 3D over the last few years. My cynical outlook on large companies makes me wonder as to the motivation of the push toward 3D. A quick google on stereo-blindness will tell you that experts believe as much as 12% (and as low as 2%) of people cannot even perceive stereo 3D. If the higher number is true that would be more than the percentage of people who are colour-blind. Ok, so that is only 12% that leaves a 78% market, right?

I don't think I am alone in saying this but, even in films that look stunning in 3D I filter out the 3D as I get more immersed in the film. The only exception to this being when the film has constant over the top moments of 'reaching' out of the screen. Like a Disney Land ride for example. So, often the 3D is a gimmick that doesn't usually add to an experience. That's not say it CAN"T just that it doesn't tend to. While a lot of these arguments could be true of HD technology however, HD technology was necessary as screens got bigger. A resolution standard made sure we could get good quality images from large screens. The number chasing ("mine is 720p""mine is 1080") is a natural product of human nature in my opinion. So, surely 3D should be a splash in the pan?? But, the strategies of movie studios, TV manufacturers, games developers and computer hardware manufacturers seem to envision this technology being all encompassing in a few years.

So the more I look at it the more I think that the motivations for pushing 3D might not be the 'obvious' ones. I think the reasons are three-fold:

1: 3D is new, new tends to sell, companies want to sell. The faster market trends shift the more often we part with our cash (obvious)

2: In order to make the money to explore this technology further it needs to be profitable as soon as possible. So they are trying to sell it even in it's more rudimentary forms (obvious)

3: 3D movies are almost impossible to pirate from the back of a cinema. 3D encoding adds another barrier to piracy. Also, for the time being at least, there's a substantial difference between the home and theatre experience of seeing a movie, meaning you can charge more. (less obvious, perhaps)

I think that #3 is (clearly?!?) the most important reason for movie studios/publishers/producers.

How does this relate to NGP? Well, time has told us that one of the easiest ways to kill a platform (e.g. Dreamcast, GameCube, PSP) is a lack of third party software. You need to be able to offer the illusion of choice. A gamer may only play 20 games a year but if you only release 20 games (regardless of appeal or quality) consumers perceive a lack of choice and therefore a lack of value. A quick look at the 3rd party publishers around reveals bilateral and unilateral trading agreements, license contracts, shareholding and on some occasions sister-company relationships with movie studios. If I am right in my belief that the movie industry is very interested in 3D then it is in their interests to put the kibosh on the NGP in favour of the 3DS. After all, in theory, the 3DS could set the entertainment expectations of a generation.

So my fear is this: 3D technology is so important to the movie industry that they will use their considerable power in the games industry to reduce the available 3rd party content for the NGP. This is because they gain more from the 3DS selling well.