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Which is the single, worst game review ever published?

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
I remember IGN's review for GigaWing or maybe GigaWing 2 being super bizarre, like they didn't understand the concept of an arcade game. Like basically they said since you can just continue when you die that the game had no challenge.
 

SinDelta

Member
Man and 8.8 for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess was a gigantic controversy at the time (in hindsight I agree with the review). These "reviews" make that look like nothing.

That Division 2 one. Holy shit.
 
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S

SpongebobSquaredance

Unconfirmed Member
I mean.. weren't they always full of sh*t?

In the end of the day you get someone's opinion on a product with a review. There is certainly objectivity when reviewing a product for its functionality, but with video games this is a little tricky when it comes to critiquing the gameplay and artistic aspects. What is enjoyable to some may be a snore fest to others. I would have missed countless of games if I just hopped on Metacritic to lock up the average score it got.

Just a few games I wouldn't have played if I would go by reviewers:
- Nier
- Killer is Dead
- Alpha Protocol
- Lollipop Chainsaw
- Deadly Premonition
- Alice: Madness Returns

With music, critics almost became obsolete. When you are interested in a certain artists music, you just.. well, listen to it. Do you really read through a review by some dude first? I don't know anyone who still does that in this day and age. If anything people listen to music critics because they enjoy hearing different takes on the same subject, but does anyone change his opinion because a song/album only got a 4/10 from Rolling Stones magazine? I doubt that. With video games its not as easy, because its a much more time consuming form of art and entertainment, but generally I don't see the obsession over video game critics and this arms race over scores on Metacritic. I enjoy watching reviews here and there, but it doesn't influence my opinion that much if at all.
 
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OutRun88

Member
It's probably easier to ask which is the best review ever published. Most of reviews are shit, tbh.
I find game reviews utterly pointless when they go into the territory of personal opinion. All I need to know is if the game has significant bugs and the general amount of content I’m getting for my money. That’s why sites like GAF are far superior to reviews.

Additionally, wtf does giving a game a 7.1 in Sound even mean? It’s such arbitrary rubbish.
 

bitbydeath

Member
Why stop at one?

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The political shit stuffed into reviews sucks but most these just feel like differences of opinion? I don't mind someone giving a game a "wrong" score so long as they explain why well enough.
 

BaneIsPain

Member
It always been one of the IGN, Kotaku and sometimes Polygon

Not to mention the need to be political or drama all the times.
 

farmerboy

Member
There's been a few, but Edge's 7 for Killzone 2 really struck me as disingenuous. The score itself wasn't the problem (I'd have rated it an 8), but the whole piece was just one long overly critical look at the game. Like, as you read you thought this is going to be a five.

It was clear to me that the author had decided how the game was going to rate prior to playing it. Disappointing at the time. I rarely look or care about review scores now.
 
Probably not the worst, but it is the reason I never go to IGN, now. IGN's review of The Fight for the PS Move. In the review, he complains how it's not intuitive because you should just have to raise your arms to block. Instead the game has you hit the O button to block, plus the controls weren't always accurate. This was a big part of why he gave it such a low score. The kicker? You do just throw up your arms to block. In fact, the O button is the recalibration button. So for one, he obviously didn't bother to learn the controls, and two, the whole time he's complaining about poor controls he's been recalibrating the controls everytime he's trying to block.

Now, that wouldn't be so bad, if IGN reacted accordingly when people started calling him out and correcting him in the comments. Like announce they were taking down the review and having him redo it in the next few days. Instead, they just deleted the part about him hitting O and started deleting the comments that were correcting him. So the review and his score stood.
 

bender

What time is it?
Greg Miller's "I Am Alive" review always triggered me. Its a great, great game and cant understand most of the critiques to gameplay and story on it. https://www.ign.com/articles/2012/03/06/i-am-alive-review

Also, best review ever

And also, yeah, OP is unbeatable with that example lol


I miss Alex.

Speaking of missing people and best reviews ever, Rev David Smith's Gungrave Import Review always made me giggle:


IGN's PS2 editors were pretty great (David Z, Jeremy Dunham). Memories.
 

Scotty W

Member


KATAMARI DAMACY
Katamari Damacy
Happiness in a box.
By Ivan Sulic
Updated: 13 Dec 2018 6:30 am
Posted: 16 Sep 2004 9:00 pm


Creativity. Everyone talks about it. But how can you define it? Easy, say Katamari Damacy. That's it. You're done. Katamari is all you need. No verbose explanation, no descriptive imagery, no pronunciation guide, no synonym list, and no sentences using it in practical conversation. Just rip the dictionary in half, whip out the fattest Sharpie you can find, clutch the closest person to you by the collar and scream Katamari Damacyat the top of your lungs while etching its happy name into the poor soul's forehead. It's creativity in two words and happens to be some of the most fun the universe can offer for just $20.

Instead of sitting where you are staring through the saturating glow of your monitor to reach this text with your mind, imagine yourself uncomfortably perched at the head of an oblong conference table King Arthur would be proud of. The room was born from mahogany and stuffiness. Around you sit twelve executive level clones, neatly kempt and grim -- expressionless suits carved from years of dedicated earnings watching and revenue tallying and franchise bolstering and credibility saving. Bam! Some dude falls through the ceiling, looks around blearily, shakes the dust off his knees, and says, "Hey chumps. I got this idea, see
."

More at the link.
 
Almost every low ranking review of NeverDead done by mainstream outlets comes to mind. Most of them didn't even bother to finish the game, were ill-informed about it, or down-right uninsightful. IGN even went on a rant about the female sidekick's appearence and role for some reason, instead of doing a proper analysis of the game, gameplay, and such.

Look, the game might not be for everyone, but anything below 5 is a fucking disgrace of an assessment. They were very likely done by people who absolutely do not belong in the gaming media and tanked the game's chances of fair recognition. I already had some scepticism in regards to the gaming media, but this whole debacle solidified their unreliability to me.
 
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Physiocrat

Member
PC Gamer's 94% rating for Dragon Age 2. The reviewer, Rick McCormack, must have played the game for like 5 hrs. The game is rubbish. Repetitive and poorly designed with one good battle in the entire game.
 

Vaelka

Member
The Eurogamer of Dead or Alive 6, the guy literally can't help himself but to bring up Trump and the same guy who reviewed it is responsible for so much bullcrap drama.
He was the dude who harassed the game devs of Skullgirls because of the sexualized nature of the game and lied about the responses he got from the game director to make him look bad. He's a sneaky fuck.

It's not even truly a review, it's more like a rant labelled a review.
 
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Soodanim

Member
"It’s not a new complaint, but Hoenn is still imbalanced type-wise, heavily favoring water. It’s especially noticeable in Alpha Sapphire, in which Team Aqua (the villains of the piece) use a lot of water types. It feels like there are water Pokémon in nearly every battle, and I have an overleveled Pikachu to show for it. You also have to navigate many bodies of water, since much of the late-game involves the HMs Surf and Dive to get from place to place. Diving was really neat back in 2002 when it was new, but I found it incredibly tedious in Alpha and Omega — an obvious example of how superfluous some HMs are...

...The water itself is absolutely gorgeous with the new graphics and details, though. One of my favorite parts of the entire adventure was splashing through puddles that reflected the starry skies at night, and even diving was made better by seeing a school of Luvdisc swimming by. Building my Super Secret Base on the rainy Route 119 had an extra-comfy, drinking-tea-on-a-rainy-day feel. Everything in Hoenn, water or not, is either delightfully cute or strikingly beautiful, and I enjoyed seeing the entire region anew — despite the tediousness associated with navigating all that pretty water."

Taken from the IGN review. So yeah, too many fights against water types, too much water navigation and tedious diving. In summary too much water. I think they explained themselves well. But yeah, let's just focus on the bullet point which is an accurate description if you bother to get the context from the review.
I wouldn’t worry too much, in this thread also has people who didn’t actually watch the ZP Witcher review commenting on it calling Geralt a misogynist when that’s not what he said. Some people aren’t interested in anything but what they have to say.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
It can be something from a magazine or site. Old or new.

I'm going with the original DOOM review from EDGE magazine.

They gave it a 7/10, which isn't completely terrible but the reviewer was literally complaining DOOM isn't a different game. He thought it would be a better game if you could... talk to the monsters?. Basically he wanted an RPG or something so he criticized it for being an action game. That's like taking off points from, dunno, Super Mario Bros because you would prefer if Mario could hop into a car and compete in a rally tournament. Or whatever else you can think off, there are infinite analogies.

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This review made me lose all respect i had for the mag.

Could there be a worse one?

This is not really a "worse" example just really more of the same in the modern age.


82/100 for iceborne not bad right? Might I however draw your attention to this paragraph.

"There's always been an unease for me in playing these games where I'm asked to go out, invade the habitats of these species and kill them to make the next set of armour and weapons. With World the discomfort was extreme at times, beating monsters till they limped then being asked to lop off their tails to hear whines and squeals. You don't just kill the monsters in these games—you make them suffer. Engaging as its loop is, as enthralling as its fights are, I've always been disappointed that they've created such a rich ecosystem and the only thing they can ask me to do in it is murder everything."

Also when given access to a character creator this is what the reviewer made her character look like.

Ub2eQYc2g5RoTrsTStjvTE-970-80.jpg.webp


Now I dont want to draw any conclusions but based on how this person writes and her character I suspect they might have a very specific agenda when reviewing games that makes them rage about hunting monsters in a game called MONSTER HUNTER!

The writer has now gone on to write almost exclusively about the all important issue of Trans right within video games and beg for money on Patreon. Ironic in an effort to break down walls and destroy stereotypes they became one themselves, called a talentless hack.
 
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SCB3

Member
I'm trying to find it but some reviews of Destiny that didn't even get to the Endgame were pretty bad in 2014, I mean I almost listened to it and ended up getting a PS4 bundled with the game anyway
 

nkarafo

Member
To be fair, that sort of control scheme was in it's infancy on consoles those days and thus was rather "Alien" to players *Chortle* ;-)
N64 shooters had it since Turok 1 but with the Dpad + analog instead of 2 analogs (Goldeneye even had a twin analog setup). You also had to look for it in the options since it wasn't the default in some of these games.

Though it was the olny way to control Turok in 1997 and i remember some reviews mentioning its similarity to keyboard and mouse controls and how great it feels after some practice.

If the reviewer had any experience with N64 shooters, Alien's controls would become second nature in seconds.
 
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Black_Stride

do not tempt fate do not contrain Wonder Woman's thighs do not do not
Taken from the IGN review. So yeah, too many fights against water types, too much water navigation and tedious diving. In summary too much water. I think they explained themselves well. But yeah, let's just focus on the bullet point which is an accurate description if you bother to get the context from the review.

Mate.
As I said.
The critique "Too much Water" isnt valid because by itself its isnt a logical critique.

A bullet point isnt meant to be a "dont look at me read above" statement, its meant to summarize your statements in the main body.

So saying "Horrible Graphics" thats valid I know what you are talking about and will read the review to get context as to why the graphics are horrible.
IF you just say "Too much Playstation 2" I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about which means that bulletpoint by itself is actually completely useless I cant understand what the critique is so the point itself becomes invalid.
For reference thats my bulletpoint review of Gran Turismo 5 having too many Playstation 2 quality models in the car library.

I dunno why you are trying to defend this when everyone involved and anyone who has ever written a report agrees that a bullet point contextless that also doesnt aid anyone understand where you are going is utterly dogshit.

Think of the bulletpoints and score as a preamble to what you are actually going to say.
 
From my recollection of magazine scores of the past, I think one of the worst was a magazine called Power Unlimited in the Netherlands, giving Star Ocean 2, one of the best Jrpgs of the system, a 4.5 or a 5.5 where the reviewer asked: "why do these Japanese even bring this trash over to the West". Absolute dogshit.

The other one was a Playstation mag that gave Klonoa 2 for the PS2 a 5 or a 6 because they thought it was: "a bad Mario clone". Yes okay, you clearly haven't played the fucking game for more than 1 minute.

I'm glad these days we got user scores and whatnot on a lot of sites so stuff like that isn't as lethal as it used to be, but my god has this profession given us some dogshit and it still continues to this day.
 
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