Rage Here at Bad Game Reviews

Ah, the good ol' Appeal to Obscurity fallacy. Never fails.

Might've been nice to name some of the obscure games. But eh. Review's ancient and the user was banned. My dad saw it and figured "guy just wants to make himself look better."

But aside from those two, I can't really think of any reviews that I thought were particularly awful and I hated.

That Insomnia review of TF 2 was pretty awful, I think.

The worst thing about Insomnia's reviews? Almost none of them were put up with the original writer's consent. And if said writer complains to Icycalm about it, he gets called a retard and the review stays up.

I mean, fuck. Jesus christ.

edited 3rd Feb '10 4:40:00 PM by AkasoRekaso

I think a lot of people take Yahtzee too seriously. He's an entertainer first, and a reviewer second. He's told us in his reviews that people like it better when he insults things, so he purposefully emphasizes the bad points. He's basically an actor playing the role of a grumpy Australian gamer, which is entertaining as long as you realize that. I'm perfectly fine with him insulting my favorite games as long as he's at least marginally funny while doing so.

And I recall this one user review on Gamespot (I'm starting to expect stupidity from that place) of the GBA review of "A Link to the Past, " and he said "This is the worst game ever made. I played ten minutes of it and it was stupid and VERY boring. I am an underground gamer. I play games many of you have never heard of The reviewers on this site would't know a good game if it slapped them in the face. I hate the mainstream games."

Aaaargh. The pretentious "I'm so underground" nonsense is bad enough, but what really puts me over the edge is "I played ten minutes of it." Ten minutes is not enough to review any game, let alone a Zelda title that runs, what? Twenty to thirty hours of gameplay? Yeesh.

I think a lot of people take Yahtzee too seriously. He's an entertainer first, and a reviewer second. He's told us in his reviews that people like it better when he insults things, so he purposefully emphasizes the bad points. He's basically an actor playing the role of a grumpy Australian gamer, which is entertaining as long as you realize that.

That may be true, but that doesn't automatically invalidate any criticisms a person may have against him. But let's not derail this into a Yahtzee debate.

It's a relatively old review, but Gamespot's Granado Espada review was...

Well, it appeared to be about a different game than what I played (slow respawn rate? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? It was too FAST!), and what likely reviewed by someone who had never actually played an MMORPG in their life.

That reminds me of a user review of World of Warcraft where the guy complained "Nothing happens when I level up! I'm stuck in one place fighting weak monsters and if I try to explore the monsters are too strong!"

I also heard about that "stealing reviews" shtick Icycalm did. I thought it was just one instance, though. Wow. What a pretentious weirdo.

edited 4th Feb '10 12:18:26 PM by Pannic

On a different note, and admittedly probably straying off-topic, but I don't know where else to put it without devolving into another whiny bitchfest about Gamespot...

It could just be me exaggerating things, but it kind of feels like the Gamespot reviewers are hesitant to give 9.0's and above (and therefore awarding the game with an Editor's Choice) to anything that is within my very specific example range not M-rated or on the HD twins. Take, for example, New Super Mario Bros Wii, Spirit Tracks, Metroid Prime 3, and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom. All of these games were highly praised within the text of the review, NSMBW and Spirit Tracks in particular were praised as worthy additions to the franchise, Prime 3 was called the best Prime game, and Tatsunoko vs. Capcom was explicitly called one of the best fighting games on the Wii. They all scored 8.5. Meanwhile, games like Mass Effect 2, Modern Warfare 2, and the like all get 9.0's and Editor's Choices.

Not to say those games aren't deserving of those higher scores (well, personally I don't think Modern Warfare 2 deserves it, because really, it innovates less than NSMBW...but that's beside the point), but it's a bit of an odd and disturbing trend when they aren't willing to give Editor's Choice to games that deserve it based on, from what I can tell, no rhyme or reason.

Of course, it's entirely possible I'm talking out of my ass, and if so feel free to ignore me! It's just that, shall we say, it's been bugging me.

To be honest, I've noticed that myself.

Frankly I have a hard time thinking of Gamespot (or really any review site) as being trustworthy when it comes to rating games. A combination of different tastes, cluelessness, and pants-on-head stupidity seem to be pretty common amongst game review sites.

edited 4th Feb '10 2:04:33 PM by Miijhal

Personally, Gamestop is on life support, although nobody knows it. The reviews they do are sometimes heavily biased, which make me sick. Then again, I'm a {{Game FA Qs} person, so I might have a point.

my personal pic would have to be X-play... when they actually review games. they always seem so unfair to most anime games, and never give them a true chance before slapping a 1 out of 5 on them.

I don't read review sites any more. I've been a lot calmer since.

Yeah, I stopped taking Gamespot and anything on G4 seriously a long time ago. I'll read/watch a Gamespot review if it's particularly amusing (Big Rigs), but I basically don't trust their opinions on mediocre-to-good games as far as I can fold them into paper airplanes and throw them through a waterfall.

My opinions these days come from renting.

edited 4th Feb '10 6:04:09 PM by Pykrete

^No better way to form an opinion of a game then by actually playing it, indeed.

Too bad renting is not an option for me, as videogame rentals went out of style around the Netherlands for some reason.

Do you guys have a Gamefly service at all?

^Not that I've heard of, and I've roamed Amsterdam in search of interesting services many times.

At least I found a shop that carried Muramasa The Demon Blade, and another shop that sells manga.

NAViGaTR is truly perfect. If you do not listen to this amazing new generation of game review madness, you are stupid. Yes, I know it's insulting, but that's also the truth. If you're a true video game fan, you will not hesitate in the slightest bit to listen to this freaking weirdo with horrible taste review games he's barely played.

NAViGaTR just uploads the reviews, he has nothing to do with the actual content. The actual narrator is a man named James Wood.

He's dead.

Obligatory insomnia.ac link.

Check out the forums. The guy who runs this website legitimately thinks everyone who disagrees with him is retarded.

Does this guy work for the American Nihilist Underground Society (probably NSFW due to the name of the URL)? The writing style and the harebrained "nihilist" Nietzsche Wannabe "philosophy" is pretty much identical, only he worships obscure Touhou clones with anime girls instead of black metal.

And I thought he was bad already...

IGN. Lego Indiana Jones 2. I felt the game improved upon the formula a bit, yeah, the levels were short, yeah, the new system for finding the power bricks is different, but still, it shows that the people making the games want to make progress, yes, the levels were shorter, but they tried to change the formula up a bit, instead of repeating the same pattern from the previous games. Sure, the levels could've been longer, but I actually felt the game was pretty good.

Accidentally spelt "We" instead of "He".

edited 5th Feb '10 5:32:58 PM by Etheru

When it comes to user reviews, Stupidity Is the Only Option.

I am rapidly coming to the same conclusion about all online reviews. And video game forums. Thank god I don't hang out in those circles anymore.

The problems with reviewing really do stem from the fact that reviewers are expected to attempt to be an unbiased authority figure, which really, simple cannot be the case.

Even leaving out huge issues like potential pay-offs and brand issues, there's just too much inherent bias concerned in a medium where interaction is the key point of consumption. Of course someone who never plays sports games isn't going to enjoy the newest Madden as much as someone who's followed the series from its inception. Nor will the FPS buff with a bent towards WW 2 games appreciate the newest Mario Brothers game as much as someone who holds platforming to the paramount.

The sad thing is that, in terms of an actual rating system, there's really almost no way to remove the bias. Sure, a game can be judged on its technical merits, but that only takes you so far. Really, when you read reviews, what you should be looking for is someone with similar tastes to your own, and even then, anything they say - good or bad - should be taken only as advisement, not the be all and end all as to whether you should spend your money on something purely for your enjoyment.

I guess the short version of what I'm trying to say is that being a critic is sometimes a really shitty job, even if you're competent or even outstanding at doing said job. And this is coming from a guy that wants to be a video game journalist.

A good review describes the relevant points (graphics, story, gameplay mechanics, etc) in enough detail for the reader to decide on their own if it's worth a purchase or not. Reviews that mindlessly praise things are just as bad as the opposite.

Are we allowed Viewer Reviews? If so this is an abomination

Also IGN:

Imagine: Party Babyz = 7.5

God Hand = 3.0

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

edited 5th Feb '10 12:12:31 AM by PippingFool