• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Reviews which you NEVER forgave (EGM/Nick Rox - Grrrr)

F

FreedomFrisbee

Member
I'd quote that God Hand post, but everyone else did it and i'd rather not clutter the place with images.

That and the original Smash Bros one where the reviewer said it was a doomed piece of garbage.
 
O

OnPoint

Member
N4Us said:
For anyone wondering, that EGM quote is taken waaaaaaay out of context. I read some interview with that guy who wrote the preview (not review) that the quote came from and his original article was more critical.
Click to expand...

I believe it.

...stunning...original...Bubsy 3D climbs back to the top...check it out!
Click to expand...

could have been pulled from something like

It's stunning how terrible this game plays. If released in the original form we played here, it'll be a cold day in hell before Bubsy 3D climbs back to the top. Much like a trainwreck, you can't help but want to check it out!
Click to expand...

The ellipsis can be a powerful tool.
 
C

Christine

Member
So much nerd rage itt :D

Not that it's unjustified, mind. I haven't read a "pro" game review in years, for good reason. It's not like you really need them to make purchasing decisions you'll be happy with.
 
R

Ravidrath

Member
I will never forget Christian Svensson, now of Capcom, giving Johnny Bazookatone an A- review in Intelligent Gamer. I'll forgive it, though.

I will not, however, forgive myself for giving Xenogears a 9.0 on Gamepot... FAR too high.
 
H

Hylian7

Member
I don't have any particular reviews I have "raged" over, but there have been some out there I've disagreed with. IGN's review of Mirror's Edge for instance, is too high in my opinion. I didn't like the game at all, and found it incredibly clunky at some parts. The gunplay absolutely dragged down the idea of freerunning it was supposed to have. Remember that part where you're coming out of the storm drain? I lost count of how many damn times I had to retry that part. 7.5 (for the console versions) and 8.5 (for the PC version) is definitely too high of a score for a game like this, I think a 5-5.5 is more appropriate. Just so it's clear, the PC version it what I played.

I understand that a lot of people will disagree with me, but this is my opinion.

On a side note, I will never understand the Twilight Princess hate. Almost everywhere you go people shit all over it. I enjoyed the game very much, and thought it was a fantastic Zelda game.

Also I would jump on the IGN God Hand bandwagon myself, but I have never played it, so I do not have a fair opinion there.
 
G

Ganondorfo

Junior Member
Blast Processing said:
27s5px7



I don't remember the game being so hideous. It looks like people made of matchboxes gathering to worship a leaf.
Click to expand...

This game is 12 years old, give it a break man....

Squire Felix said:
I thought ZoE: The Second Runner got 8.6?
Click to expand...

He is talking about METAL GEAR SOLID 3 SNAKE EATER...
 
S

ShockingAlberto

Member
I think my very first published print article was about the Game Informer PM2 review.

Man, that brings back memories. It's still one of the top Google results for it.
 
G

Ganondorfo

Junior Member
BomberMouse said:
Any review lower than 8 for Ultimate Ghost and Goblins, that game deserved much much more love
Click to expand...

Its a hardcore game, these games never get the call of duty review scores, because its a niche game...
 
N

Nessus

Member
Tommy Tallarico's 4 or 5 out of ten for Tetrisphere on Electric Playground years ago. He says up front that he hates puzzle games, then why the hell are you reviewing one?!

That'd be like me reviewing a sports game.

He had a strong bias against almost any N64 game and a strong bias in favor of any game he did the soundtrack for, even if the game was shit it'd receive a good score.
 
O

Ondore

Member
elohel said:
august 2000 EGM pokemon cover(right?)

greg sewart(sp?)

gave chrono cross a 9.5 preventing it from getting a platinum

yeah i know, .5 but

cmon lol
Click to expand...

Yeah, that pissed me off too after I played Chrono Cross. What the fuck were the other three guys thinking?
 
G

Ganondorfo

Junior Member
Blast Processing said:
11. I remember being quite taken with it when it came out. I just haven't seen it since, and the years haven't been kind.
Click to expand...

It was the most beautiful game in 1999. You should always judge the game graphics on the year it came out.
 
L

LakeEarth

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
Can't remember any actual reviews but Tommy Tallarico was a TERRIBLE reviewer on that G4 show. I think he marked down Viewtiful Joe because of the name.
Click to expand...
I remember they gave Smash Bros. Melee a 2.5, and the other guy gave it a 3.5. I know opinions, blah blah blah, but what made it ridiculous is that the show's website review (by a third person) was an 8.5.
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
Regarding the Jeff Gerstmann 8.8 score for Twilight Princess, while I was never disappointed that TP failed to get a 9.0 (back then, I had only ever played ALttP and was genuinely surprised just how big the Zelda fanbase was), reading the review, I couldn't help but detect a huge agenda against motion control of any sort.

It read like a reactionary response to any sort of change and for someone who was excited about the possibility that motion control offered, made his opinion null and void in my assessment of whether or not to buy the game. I chalked it up to just an initial resistance and that he'd moderate his views later on. Finding out later on (during the last E3 Giantbomb podcasts, actually) that he remains this way to this day makes me think that he should never have been allocated to review it in the first place as he had already made up his mind about the controls going in.

I don't expect journalistic integrity from product reviews, but I do expect them to come from a neutral source.
 
N

N4Us

Member
Nessus said:
Tommy Tallarico's 4 or 5 out of ten for Tetrisphere on Electric Playground years ago. He says up front that he hates puzzle games, then why the hell are you reviewing one?!

That'd be like me reviewing a sports game.

He had a strong bias against almost any N64 game and a strong bias in favor of any game he did the soundtrack for, even if the game was shit it'd receive a good score.
Click to expand...

Retro styled games really set him off too.

Sorry for the YTMND but it's the only place I've found his infamous Four Swords review from Judgement Day:

http://tommytal.ytmnd.com/
 
S

Shig

Strap on your hooker ...
Hylian7 said:
I don't have any particular reviews I have "raged" over, but there have been some out there I've disagreed with. IGN's review of Mirror's Edge for instance, is too high in my opinion. I didn't like the game at all, and found it incredibly clunky at some parts. The gunplay absolutely dragged down the idea of freerunning it was supposed to have. Remember that part where you're coming out of the storm drain? I lost count of how many damn times I had to retry that part. 7.5 (for the console versions) and 8.5 (for the PC version) is definitely too high of a score for a game like this, I think a 5-5.5 is more appropriate. Just so it's clear, the PC version it what I played.
Click to expand...
Thank you for providing us a nice example of how to do an unforgivable review.

"I was really bad at this game, so I'm going to slap on a score usually reserved for awful shovelware."
 
P

PepsimanVsJoe

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
If I remember right, that EGM quote is the mother of all creative quoting.
Click to expand...

The fact that anyone would greenlight such a horrible game is stunning.... to me.(?)
original....ly I thought this was a bad joke created by the senior editor.(?)
Bubsy climbs back to the top....and crowns himself king of the worst 3D platformer hill(?)
If you hate your life and yourself....check it out!(?)

I could have sworn I read the actual Bubsy 3D EGM review. The scores were..not pretty.

My pick is every 2D shooter review ever. I'll even list the ones written by veterans of the genre because 9 times out of 5 it's elitist wankery that makes me vomit profusely.
 
L

Lone_Prodigy

Member
I don't really care about reviews, but every game can be objectively scored in a certain range. If a (supposedly unbiased) reviewer scores a game outside of it he/she's subjectively wrong.

Of course, the fact that a game can be scored objectively is a subjective viewpoint. ;)
 
S

SoulPlaya

more money than God
OK, I just thought of some reviews that used to piss me off. Anything by IGN Dreamcast, as they used to over rate practically anything that came out for Dreamcast. A 9.6 for Crazy Taxi? A 9.4 for Sonic Adventure 2? They were desperate Sega fanboys, and it was clear.
 
O

Oli

Registered User
PepsimanVsJoe said:
Scores are the dumbest thing.
Hell videogame criticism blows in general.
Click to expand...

Scores are a fine way to sum up an opinion into a range of recommendation. The issue I have is when it's broken down into such small fractions that the minor differences are meaningless. The 10 point scale is already too big, and when you add a ten point scale behind each of those points it's just insane. How is an 8.7 different from an 8.6? It's far too messy to be used in any logical way.
 
S

SirPenguin

Member
viciouskillersquirrel said:
Regarding the Jeff Gerstmann 8.8 score for Twilight Princess, while I was never disappointed that TP failed to get a 9.0 (back then, I had only ever played ALttP and was genuinely surprised just how big the Zelda fanbase was), reading the review, I couldn't help but detect a huge agenda against motion control of any sort.

It read like a reactionary response to any sort of change and for someone who was excited about the possibility that motion control offered, made his opinion null and void in my assessment of whether or not to buy the game. I chalked it up to just an initial resistance and that he'd moderate his views later on. Finding out later on (during the last E3 Giantbomb podcasts, actually) that he remains this way to this day makes me think that he should never have been allocated to review it in the first place as he had already made up his mind about the controls going in.

I don't expect journalistic integrity from product reviews, but I do expect them to come from a neutral source.
Click to expand...
Jeff is weird about motion control. And by weird, I mean he's really bias for the 360 like he always has been. Despite Kinect requiring you to move the most out of any system and having absolutely no force feedback whatsoever (his two biggest complaints in regards to motion control), it's the only one he actually likes, downright dismissing the other two options.

It's all very silly and incredibly transparent.

He's also the only one of the GB gang who had anything bad to say about Skyward Sword.
 
D

DyslexicAlucard

Member
Oli said:
Scores are a fine way to sum up an opinion into a range of recommendation. The issue I have is when it's broken down into such small fractions that the minor differences are meaningless. The 10 point scale is already too big, and when you add a ten point scale behind each of those points it's just insane. How is an 8.7 different from an 8.6? It's far too messy to be used in any logical way.
Click to expand...

This is my exact opinion about review scores as well. They're handy for separating what I should and shouldn't consider as a possible purchase/read, but they shouldn't be so superfluously large that it becomes pointless. A five-point scale is the perfect size, in my opinion.

If anything, scores are handy for aggregation, even on a single site. Say I just bought a new PS3 and I want a good idea of what games to get for it. The most sensible way to do so quickly would be to sort reviews by score and read the reviews of the higher variety, as long as they're in my wheelhouse in terms of genre/developer etc..

What's the alternative in this situation? Read 400 reviews to find games worth looking at?
 
Z

ZealousD

Makes world leading predictions like "The sun will rise tomorrow"
There's no particular review that gets me angry but there is a GOTY award.

GameTrailers specifically denied Crysis even a nomination for the "Best Graphics" award. They specifically said they weren't comfortable with judging a game based on "theoretical" performance. Which is bullshit, because even on medium settings, the game still looks better than basically everything else on the market. Certainly better than CoD4, which is the game that ultimately got that award.
 
S

SirPenguin

Member
Son of Godzilla said:
So what exactly is it that you are peeking at through his membrane?
Click to expand...
He has a heavy slant towards Microsoft. I'm fine with people having a favorite console or company - I certainly do as well - but it's annoying when it seeps through professional outlets.

I call it transparent because of how obvious he makes it, while seemingly not admitting to it. People like Gerstmann (though certainly not him in particular - I can't think of many reviews of his I've even read) are the reason I don't read reviews anymore
 
C

ColdSoup

Neo Member
CecilRousso said:
Here in Sweden we had a reviewer that gave some fighting game, one in the Tekken series I think, 0/5 because you could kick opponents while they were lying down on the ground.
Click to expand...
You've got to be kidding. :lol
 
K

kylej

Banned
SirPenguin said:
Jeff is weird about motion control. And by weird, I mean he's really bias for the 360 like he always has been. Despite Kinect requiring you to move the most out of any system and having absolutely no force feedback whatsoever (his two biggest complaints in regards to motion control), it's the only one he actually likes, downright dismissing the other two options.

It's all very silly and incredibly transparent.

He's also the only one of the GB gang who had anything bad to say about Skyward Sword.
Click to expand...

Jeff Gerstmann is a Microsoft PR plant! The illuminati is real! Wake up, sheep!
 
V

viciouskillersquirrel

Member
SirPenguin said:
He has a heavy slant towards Microsoft. I'm fine with people having a favorite console or company - I certainly do as well - but it's annoying when it seeps through professional outlets.

I call it transparent because of how obvious he makes it, while seemingly not admitting to it. People like Gerstmann (though certainly not him in particular - I can't think of many reviews of his I've even read) are the reason I don't read reviews anymore
Click to expand...
The thing with reviews is that they're just consumer products. You shouldn't go into them with an axe to grind or to make a quasi-political or pseudo-philosophical statement.

If I were tasked with reviewing (say) a fighting game and I wasn't really a fan of them, I'd try to review this fighting game in the context of other fighting games and not how it stacked on my own preference scale or how I believed games ought to be designed. Already the review's audience is slanted toward people who like fighting games, so I would try to serve that audience.

Anything else is just not doing your job. If you want to editorialise, write an editorial. Leave that stuff out of your product reviews.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
Forgave? I don't really care that much about reviews.

Forget? Tommy Tallerico's review of SSBM (2.5/10) on EP (or whatever they were calling it at the time) :lol.
 
A

Astery

Member
not sure if posted.
G-Zone (A video game mag in Hong Kong)'s MGS4 review. score 0 /10. Right It's a zero.
there are a few more, but this is what popped right into my mind.
 
H

Htown

STOP SHITTING ON MY MOTHER'S HEADSTONE
SirPenguin said:
Jeff is weird about motion control. And by weird, I mean he's really bias for the 360 like he always has been. Despite Kinect requiring you to move the most out of any system and having absolutely no force feedback whatsoever (his two biggest complaints in regards to motion control), it's the only one he actually likes, downright dismissing the other two options.

It's all very silly and incredibly transparent.

He's also the only one of the GB gang who had anything bad to say about Skyward Sword.
Click to expand...
Yeah I find it's not useful for me to listen to Jeff's opinion on Wii games. Our opinions just don't seem to match up. At all. I can't say that it's about bias or anything like that. I think he likes what he likes, and that generally is not what's on the Wii.
 
S

SonOfABeep

Banned
I think the paper mario 2 one is the only one that's really ever gotten me angry. That's such a stupid way to approach reviewing games.

I really disagree with arthur gies' hydro thunder review but i also feel like with a playable demo on the game people can make their own opinions and see how wrong he is. I just hope he hasn't convinced anyone not to even try the game with that score. That would be a real shame.

Of course all the people caught with their hands in the cookie jar of publisher dollars will get anyone angry.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Metacritic lists the 20 best Xbox games of the year
Opinion Community
38
3K
FinalBossWithTheMostPower replied
Homeworld 3 | Review Thread
Analysis Review
22
2K
amigastar replied
Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door Remake | Review Thread
Analysis Review 2 3 4 5
203
9K
Sleepwalker replied
EDGE #393 reviews and GOTY AWARDS
Opinion News Hype 2
77
6K
DenchDeckard replied
Capcom was Metacritic’s highest-rated publisher in 2023
News Game Dev
0
304
Lunatic_Gamer replied
Top Bottom