When criticism kept you from buying a game you REALLY wanted

[FFP2]

Criticism has never kept me from buying a game I really wanted. I can form my own opinions.

Shit, I really wanted FF13. So I got it and guess what?

I enjoyed it. People on the internet acting like it's the worst game ever was never a factor.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

for me it was GTA V, i heard that the story was utter shit so i didn't buy it. FFXIII, for the same reason. any Megaman game, they are too hard. and a few others.

 

[mirage202]

Single pilotable ship.

Like, you perceive the game from a single ship? Because that's how it's been in the other games in the series. You can still own more ships, you just have to "buy software" so that you can automate them. In X3:TC I have a fleet of twenty or so "universal traders" that utilize my extensive satellite network to buy and sell goods automatically.

No, as in you can fly one ship, and only the one ship.

No changing to new fighters, frigates, haulers, capitals etc. Just the one single player pilotable Albion Skunk corvette, that is it.

That holds no interest for me.

 

[OtherSideofSky]

Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor. I would have bought a Steel Battalion game that everyone said was shit, but I draw the line at 'actually does not function.'

 

[MarsProbe]

I remember being really hyped up about Mirrors Edge on the run up to it's release. Pretty much everything I saw or heard about it - screenshots, artwork, the gameplay - got me interested and then I read the review in Edge magazine, where it only got 5/10. That put me off for a while to the extent that I didn't pick up the game until it was on sale for £20.00. In my opinion, there's no way it deserved just 5/10 as a score.

Dragon Age 2 was another. After all, more Dragon Age could only be a good thing, right? Not if you're restricted to a single city and part of the deep roads for the entire game. Hearing how limited the world was in DA2 basically put me off even trying that game for good.

 

[Quadocky]

All that fear around Fable 3 confuses me. For five bucks you are buying a game that has at least 100+ dollars worth of quality and enjoyment. Not to mention that I probably had more fun with it than Borderlands 2 as it just IS more fun overall.

 

[Therumancer]

So by and large a lot of people like to say they aren't swayed by other people's opinions, some people don't read reviews at all, and that's fine. There's many games that you either love or hate that had reviews completely to the contrary of your own opinion of the game. What I want to know though is, have there ever been any games that you really wanted to play, that you were really set on getting and enjoying that overwhelming negative reviews ended up making you second-guess yourself and not buying the game?

For me that was and still is Fable 3. I enjoyed Fable: TLC a lot, probably because I missed all it's hype and by the time I heard of it, TLC was already out (I think I was too busy playing Morrowind at the time). So I never got the sad disappointment of Molyneux's promises and got to enjoy the game objectively for what it was, which is still a very solid good game.

Fable 3 however, despite again not paying attention to the Lionhead Mouth of Propaganda, I found a plethora of very damning reviews online, so I waited a bit. There's been about half a dozen or more times I've considered buying this game, even when it's on sale for a measly 5$ and I go looking for reasons to play it and every single time, no matter what corner of the internet I look, I find condemning horrible reviews. Maybe one day I'll play the game and find out that I'm one of the 0.02% of gamers who enjoys the hell out of it, but so far negative reviews have actually worked on me, someone who generally doesn't care other's opinions, and I've not bought it.


Anyone else had that happen?

I've turned down a lot of games I really wanted due to a lot of negative coverage, though I mostly listen to other gamers than professional review sources nowadays. The reason is simply because I've been burned too many times by the industry basically lying about their game, what it's like, and what is going to happen with it. To be honest after some of the endings I've seen in games nowadays, ME3 being the most noteworthy, I've oftentimes been waiting to hear from people who slog through a game to finish it to know if it wraps up well. I am simply put not going to drop potentially dozens of hours into a game anymore for something like we saw with ME3.

Also for the record, like a lot of people, I am so peeved over ME3's ending still, an "elaboration" that does not change the fundamental problem not being something that satisfied me, I am personally unlikely to get ME4, and certainly not upon release, unless they pretty much fix things with the previous game. That could potentially happen with the way ME4 begins, but I'm not holding my breath.

In a more relevant sense, I'm likely going to pass on the upcoming "Watchdogs" because Ubisoft made it clear that they are primarily involved in sequel potential and spinning it into an "Assasin's Creed" type franchise. I don't mind sequels but I increasingly hate games that do not resolve anything or simply act as an advertisement for the next game. With some of the garbage they pulled in "Assasin's Creed" over the years, if they handle "Watchdogs" the same way I'm not interested. Overall, my purchasing of the game will largely depend on how well the ending goes over as ridiculous
as that might sound to some. In my opinion sequels are fine, but each game must be able to stand on it's own, not a sudden "OMG, they just machine gunned the protagonist" ending, or some kind of ending that doesn't fit the rest of the game or series like we saw with ME3.

 

[Mosesj]

I already know of one off the top of my head. Mass effect 3, from the horrible ending to the fact that it's on origins instead of steam (and I'm never downloading that thing) It's really one of the few games I'm not going to get :/ shame really, mass effect 1 and 2 are so much fun

 

[TehCookie]

I don't bother with reviews, but the general of opinion of Ar Tonelico 3 made me not buy it. I heard the gameplay is absolutely horrid and while it takes the idea of it's predecessor where you protect the rayvetail as she charges up the battles take to long for how often they are and the vanguards only do scratch damage. I can deal with meh gameplay, but if a JRPG has bad gameplay that flings up a warning sign.

Not to mention my love for the music is negated for the obvious fanservice in the game. Innuendos are funny, but that purge seen isn't even trying to be witty or hide it anymore.

 

[Seracen]

Only happened to me in cases where I was looking for reasons to NOT buy anyway.

Even so, I'd eventually give it a rental, even if the game got universal 1's.

Case in point: Damnation. I wanted so badly for this to be another Darkwatch. I saw the terribad reviews and videos. I rented the darn thing anyway...much to my chagrin.

Sad thing is that I almost beat the game anyway, hoping it would grow on me.

 

[xerzewatt]

Ride to Hell: Retribution. I would have played an average biker game because there aren't any (other than Lost and Damned) but it turns out the game is really terrible.

 

[Hunter Hyena]

Probably The Warz/Infestation: Survival Stories. Though, the criticism was justified. The game lied about it's features, the creators were horrible to their customers, the game itself was a poor ripoff of DayZ (a game that I also despised), ect.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

I was really excited for Lord of the Rings: Conquest but then... well yeah. I still downloaded the demo and I saw what all the hate was about for myself. It was all true.

 

[Ghostface2206]

Sonic Lost World, I was actually looking forward to it, I really like Sonic games and I had a go with the Wii U version at Eurogamer. I was going to get the Deadly Six edition at launch, but then the reviews dropped and whilst I was expecting maybe 7/10 scores at the worst, I wasn't prepared for the complete onslaught that most reviewers gave the game. The thing is though, there was a lot of negative backlash at the reviews from most people that bought the game, and I did notice that Sonic Colours didn't exactly get the most amazing scores, yet I quite enjoyed that game. So the reviews for Lost World have only really made me delay my purchase if anything. Now I just need to decide if I want the 3DS or Wii U version, though I might go for both handheld and console versions like I did with Sonic Generations.

 

[kasperbbs]

The latest Hitman game. The trailers before it's launch were awesome, i liked most of the things i read about it and i was longing for a good stealth game. And then the reviews came and i ignored it ever since.

And i'm glad that i didn't read the reviews for Kane & Lynch, sure it had many flaws, but i still enjoyed it, some parts did me make hit alt + F4 and flip off the screen, but overall it was OK.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I cannot remember ever not buying a game I was really interested in b/c of a bad review.

 

[llubtoille]

Simcity for me,
I found myself really wanting to play it in the lead up,
then it came out with a shitstorm which made me glad I wasn't around for the first week of it,
then the desire faded so I never bothered buying it.

 

[Frezzato]

Interestingly enough, it was Yahtzee's praise of Saints Row 2 that kept me from playing it. He kept going on and on about Saints 2--in his video about Saints 3! Problem is that his only "evidence" as to why Saints 2 was a better game was "story" and being able to wear a hat at a tilt. And shooting sewage.

Since I had (and always will) a huge backlog of games to play, I put off Saints 2. Until I got it for free that is. I don't remember how I came across it, but I managed to play it for only an hour. I hated the muted look of it compared to Saints 3 and the character models were terrible. Unfortunately for me, I didn't revisit Saints 2 until much later, and it was only after about maybe 8 hours or so that the game really started to pick up for me. Everything was better in Saints 2 compared to 3, except for the shine. There are more cars, more details on vehicles (if your attack helicopter loses it's stub wings, you can no longer shoot rockets), fairly decent facial models that can be created, everything. It's such a huge world, an ambitious world, which was created as a competitor to Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, which was equally huge and ambitious. And not to mention the actual storyline, which is heavy handed and absolutely glorious.

I no longer watch reviews, or at least I don't give them much weight. Usually I'll mix and match several reviews of a game, and then combine those with user opinions (sparingly). I've purposely given thought to games if somebody asks me for a recommendation, relying on a game's merits versus how it does or doesn't stack up to a previous iteration if it's part of a series. And it's not about the cost with me (besides, I buy everything on sale) but rather it's about the investment of time. It still turns out the be about 50/50 when it comes to finding games that I actually love.

 

[aozgolo]

While I understand many people don't give gaming reviews any credence, I guess I should have made it more implicitly clear in the original topic that I meant ANY criticism, not just professional journalism. I generally consider most people to read reviews to be more discerning than "this game got a high score, instant buy". Personally I do read reviews but more for the sake of the description of the gaming experience. I mean I can read a JRPG review by someone who hates JRPGs and find them lampooning the hell out of Turn Based Battles, Anime inspired characters, and Impossibly Huge Swords but still end up wanting to buy it because I do enjoy all those things. Likewise I've been turned off several indie games lately that are described as super fast paced frenzied action with unforgiving difficulty as hallmarks of it, but I know I'm not into Nintendo-Hard Twitch-based gameplay so I skip on those.

So for those not understanding why anyone would listen to a review, it's not about the review score, it's about the details of how the game plays that translates to what kind of gamer you are. Some games are only "bad" to people who don't like the specific genre it's in, where-as others are just plain unlikable to anyone period.