Bad games that got GOOD reviews

[Susan Arendt]

Bad games don't typically get good reviews, but games you don't personally enjoy very well might. Similarly, games you enjoy might get low scores because they're not really all that good. I think pretty much everyone in this thread can point to both kinds of games - ones that reviewed well that they didn't really enjoy, and ones they played the crap out of that reviewed badly.

 

[Apollo45]

Dragon Age 2, in my mind, is the epitome of 'bad games that got good reviews'. And it's not because it was bad. In fact, the game wasn't horrible. I'd give it a 6.5 at best, but not lower than a 4. I bring it up because it got spectacular reviews from nearly everyone, and most certainly didn't deserve them in any way, shape or form.

 

[RaikuFA]

gears of war

great weapons and solid gameplay(except online but thats another can of worms) but the story and characters were... ugh

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Would you look at this thread? What is this all about now, people liking things you don't like?
Seriously now, good reviews happen because the reviewers like them, and liking something is a Subjective thing. Just because you don't like a game doesn't mean the game is bad, just that you don't like it.
Blah.

Most of the time, reviewers are paid to write good about a game, especially a AAA title. If they don't they likely won't get another game from that specific publisher/developer.

 

[Zykmiester]

Gears of War 3.
Please don't hurt me.

And yes, I know it's subjective whether you like a game or not, but seriously, the story is horribly written (at least by my standards), there's zero to none character development, the aesthetics consist of brown, and slightly different shades of brown, and the gameplay consists of hiding between chest-high walls, popping up to shoot something.
/rant

Well you obviously didnt play much of it because alot of the leves have beautiful moving water and the beautiful foliage.
But a game that I have no idea why it got good reviews was Heavy Rain. The gameplay is horrible with just QTEs and the occaisonal bit of extremly fiddly walking around. And also the story is shit. It may as well be Saw 2 without the injenuity of the traps. And its not even origional. They did it before with Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy) and Dragons Lair has done it since the 80s

 

[flaming_squirrel]

Left 4 dead 2 (dont own the first, so cant comment there), it's just so repetitive, every chapter is essentially identical but in a different location. It seemed to get a lot of love due to valve making it, but it's just not that fun.


Prototype seems to be getting quite a lot of hate, but personally I found it reasonably fun. Sure the protagonist had one of the strangest personalities ever and the writing was terrible, but the action had this entertainingly over the top power trip feel to it, some of the combo's were great fun.

I thought the new Deus Ex was TERRIBLE.

Feel free to expand on the word 'TERRIBLE'.

 

[Westaway]

Call of Duty MW2 and Black Ops. They wer 6.5-7 at best. Also, Bfbc2, which was also a 6.5-7 at best.

 

[Westaway]

Pokemon. It is the SAME game with different colored mice or whatever that make different noises that sound like the noise a Gameboy would make if you dropped it in a bucket of water.


Fallout 3. It takes an established series and for me completely throws huge chunks of the original plot out the window.


And lastly, Dead Island. It has gotten Average-Good reviews, but for me it's a game with bad visuals, clunky combat, an average story, and the company seems to hate people who play single player, because the difficulty when alone is freaking ridiculous.

Complain that Pokemon hasn't changed (it has, just enough) then complain that a series has changed too much. Fallout 3 is an AMAZING game. So are Fallout 1 and 2. Fallout 3 is different then them, but that doesn't mean it's a bad game.

 

[RagTagBand]

Halo 1, 2, 3 and... well, Okey, All Halo games.

This, pretty much just this.

Oh, and Metal Gear solid 4 getting perfect/near perfect reviews from everyone.

 

[Xavier323]

Mass Effect 2: Admittedly I never played the first one. I imagine a major part of it is the story, which for the most part, I ignored.

Agreed. There's especially an issue in that ME2 doesn't even have a plot to speak of.

Um... It has a main character that encounters a conflict and through a series of events reaches a climax. Isn't that the definition of plot?

 

[random_bars]

i feel most people here dont get the idea. its not "i suck at this game or i couldnt get into it, therefore it is bad".

i am terrible at Team Fortress 2, and i couldnt get into Fallout 3, but i know they arent bad.

on topic: i really hated Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. i bought it used, along with CoD2 and 3, because of the lack of games being released at that time. it was truly awful. it was confusing, very difficult to complete objectives, had terrible team AI, and the enemy AI was ridiculously overpowered. the game has about an 85% on both Metacritic and Gamerankings.

speaking of Call of Duty 3, that game was also piss-poor... easily one of the worst games i have ever played in my life. it is beyond me how it has over an 80% on MC and GR. i would give it a 5, at the MOST. but i gotta say. Treyarch showed a massive improvement in WaW and Black Ops. those are both genuinely good games. i suppose they just didnt give much effort into CoD3

Pretty much this. There are games which I didn't enjoy at first, but then tried a different approach and found them a million times more fun - but whenever people mention the game online, they played it the first way, and have all the same complaints I did before I realized I was doing it wrong. Similarly, there are games which I don't enjoy, but am fairly sure I'M playing wrong, because I see other people enjoying them and talking about the game mechanics to a depth I never even realized existed.

Essentially, people don't generally enjoy games unless they're good in some way. If there are people who enjoy a game you don't, it's unlikely that their brain is just wired up wrong, and more likely that they're either playing the game differently or are simply in a different mindset to you when playing.

 

[floppylobster]

Rise of the Robots receive a highly controversial 90% score from Computer and Video Games magazine.

Play it and you will be on the floor laughing. (unless you paid for it)
Rise of the Robots[/youtube]

I worked for a game distributor at the time. The marketing manager had bought thousands of copies. He hyped it up for months. When it arrived we all gathered around to see it. He played it for about 5 minutes then walked off bored. There are two buttons, a jump, no special moves, and no way to jump over your opponent - and took about 8 minutes to complete the entire game. And this at a time when StreetFighter II was around. It retailed for around $120 and I felt so bad for the people who bought it.

 

[ShotgunZombie]

Call of Duty 4 through 7.

Aww, and here I was thinking it was gonna be something earth-shattering like Portal or Ocarina of Time. But no, it's a game series that will not get you flamed - too many people on here share that exact opinion (except maybe about CoD 4...)

Wish granted! My choice goes to Portal 2, which at the moment holds an ungodly 95% on Metacritic. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Portal 2 but I'm not entirely convinced that it's the holy grail of gaming that most think it is. Those exposition moments drag on forever.
My runner up is Assassin's Creed 2. Good gameplay, but god that ending, ugh...

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Pokemon Black & White (from the perspective of a long time fan).

It's not a "bad" game, but it certainly isn't the best (or not as good as people have made it to be). Pokemon have been in motion since Pokemon Stadium and could have had this feature since the GBA versions. The Experience system is different and adds a higher degree of difficulty (all good things), but forces you to move on to other areas instead of just one place to grind. The new Pokemon...you either hate them or love them and I'll leave it at that. Team Plasma (?) is essentially is essentially PETA (if PETA employed animals to do their bidding), and N is pretty bad as a villain (I actually felt sorry at how bad his character was). You don't get the titular legendary until the very, very end of the game, and the whole experience is simply not the best in the franchise.

Flame Shield...ON!

 

[MattRooney06]

Not quite sure about the Escapist user's oppinon of Halo so i may be setting myself up for a royal flaming but pffft

yeah Halo.... always found it Dull, had bad controls, no originality and pretty bad level design

on top of that I allays found it cripplingly stupid that you were supposed to be this awesome, bad ass super soldier with near impenetrable power armor, but if you so much as got a burst of fire in your direction you had to run and hide T_T

 

[Warforger]

only had 4 factions,

So did the original, it was just Orks, Space Marines,Chaos and Eldar.

and a quite short campaign.

Most RTS campaigns aren't that long since it's the only genre in which the multiplayer undisputed-ly shits on the singleplayer.

I have never understod it. DoW I was much better by miles. Myabe the expansions were better, but i just didnt want to waste money on them if they were similar to DoW II.

It's whether or not like you smaller battles with less units vs. bigger battles with more units. Personally I can't stand RTS's like DoW I or Starcraft anymore since I've gotten pretty used to RUSE, and so panic that my camera doesn't zoom out enough, then get bored with the lack of the recon system that RUSE has.

But yah, DoW II "innovative" in the same way Battlefield 3 is innovating i.e. by taking features of old games in this case Ground Control but in BF3's case older BF games along with Flashpoint games.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

Rise of the Robots got pretty good reviews (at least on the amiga) but was just kind of shit.

Aww, man. I bought that game on my Sega Mega Drive (Genesis)when i was a kid and i agree.It was kinda shitty (the graphics weren´t bad thought).

 

[Snotnarok]

Yeah OP you beat me to it, Metroid Other M was awful and the fact that there's Metroid fans, no let me correct myself Metroid Fanboys that liked it, is really scary.

The bad: Stupid control scheme, story lifted from Fusion and made dumber, voice acting, forgettable characters, the Ridley Scene, the music, the STUPID RIDLEY SCENE

The Good: Well I got 34bucks when I sold it.

 

[duchaked]

Call of Duty 4 through 7.

Aww, and here I was thinking it was gonna be something earth-shattering like Portal or Ocarina of Time. But no, it's a game series that will not get you flamed - too many people on here share that exact opinion (except maybe about CoD 4...)

LOL yeah...I can't say I'm going to argue FOR the CoD series, but I have to say CoD4 was pretty legit

 

[Spawny0908]

L.A Noir, everyone seems to like it, but i absolutely hated it. It got absolutely great reviews by alot of game reviewers, but for me personally, its one of the most dull games i have ever played.

The crime scenes were basically move till you feel your controller shake, and the interogations were awful. but this is just my opinion i guess.

I agree. I played it and finished it. Started a playthrough and for the life for me I didn't want to play it anymore and quit. Good game but it's so damn repetitive!