Bad games that got GOOD reviews

[Starke]

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?

Only at the most abstract level. By that definition someone masturbating in the bathroom is a plot. Though even under that definition Mass Effect is dodgy at best.

For one thing there is no narrative climax. A plot is more than "random stuff happens, and then a goat giant terminator baby". A plot implies that there is some connective themes, elements, or just goddamn anthropomorphic rabbits, anything. Anything is precisely what we don't get here, every single mission is isolated off into it's own little sub-continuity streams with minimal regard for what has happened elsewhere.

If the only missions in the game were the tutorial mission, the first colony, recruiting Mordin, recruiting Grunt (maybe), the second colony, the collector ship, the derelict, and the endgame, and you might be able to convincingly claim the game has a plot, unfortunately, that represents about 12% of the game, and the remaining 88% has nothing to do with anything, and a bit more than half of the game is mandatory to progress the game triggers.

As a result, this isn't a plot. Hell, ignoring the endgame map, there isn't even a real gameplay climax. Each recruitment and loyalty mission has some combat challenge escalation as it progresses, but, honestly, the missions don't generate a sense of increasing stakes, or difficulty.

Ergo, no plot. No point. No hope. Goodnight.

 

[ZombieMonkey7]

The king of all bad games that got fantastic reviews, ODST, nuff said

 

[the.gill123]

Bioshock 2, it got a 9.1 on IGN, I hate that site. Apparently if a game gets a 7 it means it's average, in what world is 7 average?

 

[HerbertTheHamster]

Pretty much anything this site gives good reviews. DA2 instantly springs to mind

video game reviews are seriously the bottom of the journalism pit. It's more classy to review porn.

 

[nightwolf667]

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?

No, oddly enough for a game it does not.

Spoiler: Freytags definition of Plot

Exposition

The exposition introduces all of the main characters in the story. It shows how they relate to one another, what their goals and motivations are, and the kind of person they are. The audience may have questions about any of these things, which get settled , but if they do have them they are specific and well-focused questions. Most importantly, in the exposition the audience gets to know the main character, and the main character gets to know his goal and what is at stake if he fails to attain his goal.

This phase ends, and the next begins, with the introduction of conflict.
[edit] Rising Action

Rising Action is the second phase in Freytag's five-phase structure. It starts with the introduction of conflict.

'Conflict' in Freytag's discussion must not be confused with 'conflict' in Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch's critical apparatus to categorize plots into types, e.g. man vs. society. The difference is that an entire story can be discussed according to Quiller-Couch's mode of analysis, while Freytag is talking about the second act in a five-act play, at a time when all of the major characters have been introduced, their motives and allegiances have been made clear (at least for the most part), and they now begin to struggle against one another.

Generally, in this phase the protagonist understands his goal and begins to work toward it. Smaller problems thwart his initial success, and in this phase his progress is directed primarily against these secondary obstacles. This phase shows us how he overcomes these obstacles.

Thus, at the end of this phase and at the beginning of the next he is finally in a position to go up against his primary goal. this part begins after the exposition.It consists of a beginnings of a tension or complication that continues with the development of conflict between the characters.
[edit] Climax

The point of climax is the turning point of the story, where the main character makes the single big decision that defines the outcome of their story and who they are as a person. The dramatic phase that Freytag called the 'climax' is the third of the five phases, which occupies the middle of the story, and that contains the point of climax. Thus "the climax" may refer to the point of climax or to the third phase of the drama.

The beginning of this phase is marked by the protagonist finally having cleared away the preliminary barriers and being ready to engage with the adversary. Usually, entering this phase, both the protagonist and the antagonist have a plan to win against the other. Now for the first time we see them going against one another in direct, or nearly direct, conflict.

This struggle results with neither character completely winning, nor losing, against the other. Usually, each character's plan is partially successful, and partially foiled by their adversary. What is unique about this central struggle between the two characters is that the protagonist makes a decision which shows us his moral quality, and ultimately determines his fate. In a tragedy, the protagonist here makes a bad decision, which is his miscalculation and the appearance of his tragic flaw.
[edit] Falling action

Freytag called this phase "falling action" in the sense that the loose ends are being tied up. However, it is often the time of greatest overall tension in the play, because it is the phase in which everything goes most wrong.

In this phase, the villain has the upper hand. It seems that evil will triumph. The protagonist has never been further from accomplishing the goal. For Freytag, this is true both in tragedies and comedies, because both of these types of play classically show good winning over evil. The question is which side the protagonist has put himself on, and this may not be immediately clear to the audience.
[edit] Resolution

5th -In the final phase of Freytag's five phase structure, there is a final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonist, where one or the other decisively wins. This phase is the story of that confrontation, of what leads up to it, of why it happens the way it happens, what it means, and what its long-term consequences are.

The side portions of Mass Effect 2 have plots, the companion collection quests and the loyalty quests, but each plays out more like it's own short episode in a television series rather than part of the cohesive whole. There's a plot there,a beginning, middle, end, climax and denouement where they reflect on their actions and wind down. These are actually very good.

However, Shephard's story, the main plot of the game is virtually non-existent. To have a plot, or even a character arc, the character is required to end up in a place that is different from where they started. What was the point of stopping the Collectors? Yes, they were puppets of the Reapers and yes, they were creating a "Human Baby whatever". Why? Who cares. It doesn't actually matter. It's a mcguffin, but it means nothing to Shepherd's overall story. The Horizon mission the Collector's ship/the Derelict Reaper, and the Collector's Base. There's nothing connecting these threads together except the Illusive Man. These are events, not plot points.

A plot requires that a character have a journey, that they learn something, that they end up in a place at the end of the story that is different than where they began. I could argue that Shepherd's death at the hands of the Collectors at the beginning is meaningless, and it is. Shepherd gains nothing from it and learns nothing from it. We have Cerberus as a stand in for the Alliance, but there is literally difference between them. Shepherd could have been working for Alliance and it would have been the same game. Shepherd gains nothing and learns nothing (except for the shiny ship and the leather, but that's not plot or character growth now is it?). In fact, if one wiped out the events in the game that act as the main plot...we'd still have the exact same game.

 

[Starke]

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

The plot, or the world building? I mean, my perception was always that it was this fan game, where "let's bring in the Enclave because they're awesome" and the GECK as some magical terraforming device were just tossed around in spite of the setting's established history. And the less said about Vault 87 the better...

I mean, I enjoyed Fallout 3, but, this is not the setting that had previously been laid out.

 

[Tanis]

Even though I sound like a 'hipster' for saying so...
FF7

Lame/stupid characters.
Poor story.
Bad (in a OMG, LOOSER!) villains.
Mediocre OST - the best songs are the ones 'covered' by The Black Mages
& 'LETS MAKE EVERYONE THE SAME' + broken-ness battle system.

Yeah, when it first came out I was confused as to WHY reviews loved it so much and as the years have gone by I only get MORE confused.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Pretty much any game that made it big on the Xbox 360, mostly exclusives but other multi plats like Bioshock 1+2 and Cod.

 

[MGlBlaze]

After I really enjoyed Call of Duty 4, Call of Duty: Black Ops was game sludge. Forgettable characters and the same problem of enemies killing you far too easily on higher difficulty levels, but for all of the game's shortcomings, the biggest fault I found was the pacing. All the levels blend together under the massive wave-after-wave of guys to shoot. Call of Duty 4 had moments where you could look around, or just take in the atmosphere while taking a break from the usual shooting. I remember no such moments in Black Ops, which caused serious fatigue and make the game far less enjoyable for me than it already was.

Haven't played World at War though I might; I am still determined to not touch Modern Warfare 2 even with a barge pole long enough to stretch across the English Channel.

 

[DSK-]

I'd have to say the likes of Dragon Age 2, Spore and a few others I can't think of at the moment.

 

[Robert Ewing]

Dragon age 2. I was ultimately disappointed with that game. I hated every aspect of it. It had run of the mill graphics, story was bad, dialogue was bad, voice acting was bad, the bugs where horrible, music was shocking.

I got it, played it. 4 days later, I sold it. And I regret nothing.

 

[Monkey_Warfare]

Dragon age 2 got higher than it deserved I feel, it felt like they realised towards the end it was a bit bit short and jammed that ashirok subplot in. GTAIV, played on just after Saints Row 2 and was bored, didn't even last 2 hours before I abandoned it. CODMW2 on PC, if you were paying attention when it came out I'm sure you understand. WoW and final fantasy 13, maybe the late game content is good but if I give up before getting there it doesn't matter.

 

[Andothul]

All Halo games after CE.

I personally hate just about every rockstar game simple because of their crappy driving controls.

 

[kortin]

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.

So sad that someone who speaks so much sense would apparently be ignored (only read the first page, though.)

I have to agree with Radoh.

Just because you don't like a game, doesn't mean its bad. It means you don't like it.

Expanding a little:
I didn't like Mass Effect (as a series and games). I thought the games were just plain boring and unattractive. Does that mean they were bad games? Not at all!

I didn't like the Halo games either. That doesn't mean they are bad in any way. That just means that they didn't appeal to me.

 

[LilithSlave]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

It's an awful game. The controls are so bad, I'm having nightmares after trying the game. The gameplay below average, the aesthetics are nothing special. All in all, it's a below average game. I don't get why it gets so good review scores.

Yes. Yes! I'm not alone!

 

[Treblaine]

I recently looked at Metroid:The Other M's reception and it was positive to mixed, which dumbfounded me so I thought. There always good games that got bad reviews posts, why not bad games that got good to mixed reviews. Thoughts?

In before Halo, Gears, Half Life bashing

The closest I can think is Killzone 2, I think is highly over-rated but still a solid game. I rented it specifically TRYING to hate it and I couldn't I couldn't help but admit it was fundamentally right. But not a 9.1 right. There just wasn't enough to it yet it was not at the other nd of extremely pure kind of gameplay, it was lumpy but brisk.

I suppose the only BAD game I have played that was highly rated, and I mean so bad I regret playing even an hour of let alone TWENTY HOURS of: Final Fantasy X. FUUUUUCK, I gave that game so many chances to begin to get good and it. never. did.

Ah well, maybe there is some aspect of that schlock someone else likes but I didn't find a single redeeming feature for playing it.

The combat was unengaging, the leveling was uninspiring, the characters were terribly presented and the main plot meandering along like a side-quest. CGI was good... for year 2000.

It's not that there was anything to hate, just nothing to like.

BioShock 2 comes to mind.

But that game was so under rated, clearly only by comparison to the original Bioshock. In comparison to all the other games on the market it did so much right.

Did you play it on PC or console? Everyone who hated it played it on console, I'm telling you games like that do not work on console.

Where did bioshock 2 fall short? What aspects did you hate? What aspects do you think were missing or fell critically short?

 

[Warboss Robgutz]

every fifa game that has ever existed. they should have reviewed the first one. and then kept the score for every subsequent peice of vagina-gas that EA has spewed out.

 

[MegaManOfNumbers]

*Shrugs* The Uncharted games. seriously, they bored me to tears; repetitive combat, unrelatable characters, arbitrary and linear settings.

Really, you'd think a game series that has more colour than Gears of war 1 and 2 would be more fun, no, not really. GoW (the 360 one, not the PS3 one) is a much more enjoyable franchise.

 

[Treblaine]

Bioshock 2, it got a 9.1 on IGN, I hate that site. Apparently if a game gets a 7 it means it's average, in what world is 7 average?

Well it is the sum total scores added together and divided by the number of titles.

Or at least that is what an average is SUPPOSED to be! Average being the most commonly used type, the "mean" other system make adjustments for outliers but the mean is right on 95% of the time.

The problem is IGN arbitrarily says "7 is average" when really the have to just let critics sore games what they like IN COMPARISON TO OTHER CRITICS! The system will feed back on itself and will dynamically adapt. In actuality 7.5 is closer to the average.

But IGN still has the problem of composite scoring, they do the separate out-of-10 scores for graphics, sound and story which is utterly dogmatic and out of place considering:

-some games deliberately have basic graphics (minecraft, many 2D games) and you have relativism problems of home console and handheld games graphics.
-Sound is far more dependant on the speakers/headset you are using than and if a game doesn't have a stirring soundtrack does it really deserve to lose in a 25% category?
-Some games purposely have zero story like racing and arcade style shooters, does that make them bad games?

Ultimately: ignore IGN

 

[BiggyShackleton]

Doom 3. I played it in the dark with headphones on, the whole thing, hoping it would scare the shit out of me. Boring, samey corridor hell, the guns look and sound like shit and the whole flashlight or gun mechanic may have looked good on paper but inevitably is fucking annoying. The only thing I liked about it was the enemies looked good. It got 8.9 on IGN and 8.7 on Gamespot.