Worst Game Reviewers?

[Simonoly]

Can't think of any individual reviewers off the top of my head but I do find Kotaku to produce the most useless reviews I have ever read.

In all honesty though, I think the way video games are reviewed in the majority of publications/websites is terrible. You can be subjective up to a point, but you have to eventually take an objective stance on the product you are reviewing so as to not misinform your readership. If a game is a technical disaster than by all means the reviewer should tear it to shreds, but if it is quite obviously not a disaster but it's simply not to the reviewers tastes or they simply have trouble 'getting' the game, I want them to say. Is it really that hard to be a little bit empathetic towards your audience? I didn't particularly enjoy playing Kingoms of Amalur but I can see how others would enjoy it and could quite happily list all those points for the purpose of a review.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

I find IGN's Greg Miller to be rather annoying. Sometimes he seems like a giant 5-year-old.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

You know what? Even though he's my absolute favourite reviewer and a fantastic wordsmith and all around a top bloke, I'd have to say Jim Sterling.

I don't know, there's something about him voicing his own opinion that causes a caustic, inert rage to bubble up to the surface to most people on the internet. If he scores a game lowly? Well it must be good. If he scores a game high? Well it must be bad! I have no idea what he did to deserve such bile, but it's damn well fun to watch. I personally love him and manage to agree with most everything he says too (even when his opinion is contrary to my own, GASP), but... yeah. Just wow.

 

[lumenadducere]

I think everyone should watch this before this thread goes any further.


Reviews are always going to be subjected to personal opinion. Someone giving Call of Duty a 9 or Journey a 4 does not say anything about their credibility as a critic. It speaks to the kind of games they enjoy.

This does not make them a bad critic. If you use critics to determine what games you are going to buy or not, then it's always a wise decision to see a number of reviews from different people (I like to go with Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, and Angry Joe as my combination) so you can get varying viewpoints and make your decision while being informed.

Critics do not exist to validate what you like and hate. That's not a critic. That's an attention whore.

While this is a very valid point, there are also many reviewers out there that are genuinely bad at writing reviews - as in, if you read the written portion of the review rather than the scores, it's evident that they don't bother to learn certain mechanics of the game or that they completely miss something that other players have to point out. You can make the argument that "it should have been more evident in the game if it was missed" but when things like that happen consistently enough to the same reviewer (or the same company/publishing group/whatever) then I don't think it's a stretch to say that the reviewer or company themselves has some poor writers and reviewers. Either that or they're assigning the wrong person to the games they have to review - why assign someone who only likes shooters to review a puzzler or RPG? And cases like that have happened often enough to where it's not unheard of.

This especially tends to happen with games that aren't publicized as well...which actually leads to the other topic of how incredibly screwed the whole reviewing process is. The fact that gaming news sites are so dependent upon publishers and developers to garner readers (who thus generate hits for ad revenue) makes for a terribly skewed perspective. There are many reasons as to why AAA games get good reviews, and oftentimes it is because they're genuinely good. But sometimes it's also because a publisher has a lot of pressure on the news site to produce a favorable review, lest they suddenly find themselves without an invite to the next press preview of an upcoming game. And if you're the only site without a preview that all other news sites have, then guess where your readers go? And guess where those hits/ad revenue goes as well?

So yeah. There are lots of issues that can lead to genuinely bad reviews beyond the catch-all of "it's all subjective." In many cases you're right and it's simply a matter of subjectivity...but in quite a few others it's not, and those shouldn't be dismissed under the umbrella of subjectivity.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Gameoverthinker- He wants to see things that aren't there. At first I thought he was just trying to be deliberately contrarian but then he set himself up as Bioware's White Knight. And he gets upset at those people who will buy everything George Lucas shits out. Fucking hypocrite.

How is calling out the "Take back Mass Effect" as a gigantic overreaction being a White Knight for Bioware?

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I wouldn't have had an opinion if I had not seen this video:

Wait, are you saying the Kotaku guy is bad or that Chip and Ironicus are bad? Cause you really didn't make yourself clear.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I think everyone should watch this before this thread goes any further.


Reviews are always going to be subjected to personal opinion. Someone giving Call of Duty a 9 or Journey a 4 does not say anything about their credibility as a critic. It speaks to the kind of games they enjoy.

This does not make them a bad critic. If you use critics to determine what games you are going to buy or not, then it's always a wise decision to see a number of reviews from different people (I like to go with Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, and Angry Joe as my combination) so you can get varying viewpoints and make your decision while being informed.

Critics do not exist to validate what you like and hate. That's not a critic. That's an attention whore.

Just because a review is biased opinion doesn't mean we can't dislike them for their opinions.

I hate Gamespot and IGN reviews, they've always been poorly written and I've caught both damning one game for a feature/problem then shrugging off the same feature/problem later for other games. Gamespot in particular seems so unenthusiastic I start getting tired watching/reading them.

 

[Cat of Doom]

I love Moviebob, but hate the game other-thinker.

He seems to have no idea what a good game is, and once his decided he doesn't like something (Halo) he will go to extream lengths to dig up shit and 'Over-think' minor details turning them into huge problems, whilst refusing to search for problems in games he has decided he likes (Anything Nintendo). Fortunately his movie reviews are less bias and I agree with him on most things.

I hate most of the TGWTG cast, and find them SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO unfunny (Bar NC, angry joe and formally spoony). I relate most to angry joe, we're very like-minded gamer's and I will often buy a game on his opinion alone. Spoony to me isn't a real reviewer, to fanboyish, but funny as hell.

Though most say his not a 'real critic' and I often disagree with him (especially over Valve games) I do trust Yahtzee as a critic, and often buy games he speaks of highly. If he is reviewing a so so, dull shooter or similar, he usually just makes jokes, but when he is more passionate about a game, he gives a good rundown of the games mechanics and story devises in both his written and video articles.

Also I hate ign.

Especially that guy who critizied indie game E.Y.E, for not being as good as Triple A powerhouse's gears of war 3 and Deus ex

EDIT: also want to give Jim sterling and most of the destructoid staff a mention; good honest reviews.

 

[thesilentman]

IGN has to win some award for this. Their actual reviews (no scores; I never base purchases on them, just see them to get an idea) are bland, COD-biased, and often just make no sense. Seriously, how is a high difficulty curve always a bad thing? And being as different as possible is a crime too, bunch of IGNorent fucks. I found Metro 2033's and Gravity Rush's reviews as biased as possible. Metro 2033 had good things with small things bad, but...

IGN-"It's not like COD! 6.9!"

I don't mind the score, but the review made all the small things sound like annoyances. I thought 'reviewers's opinions,' but hoo boy did Gravity Rush prove infuriate me. Seriously? 10 for Uncharted Vita and 7.5 for Gravity Rush!? Cause it was gimmicky? Bull. Fucking. Shit.

 

[Signa]

I wouldn't have had an opinion if I had not seen this video:

Wait, are you saying the Kotaku guy is bad or that Chip and Ironicus are bad? Cause you really didn't make yourself clear.

I would have thought it was obvious.

I didn't even know who these Chip and Ironicus guys were, someone just linked me a video showing what a sham Kotaku is.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I wouldn't have had an opinion if I had not seen this video:

Wait, are you saying the Kotaku guy is bad or that Chip and Ironicus are bad? Cause you really didn't make yourself clear.

I would have thought it was obvious.

I didn't even know who these Chip and Ironicus guys were, someone just linked me a video showing what a sham Kotaku is.

A lot of people have their anuses set aflame when Retsupurae gets involved with anything. Who's to know you're not a regular Kotaku-thing who got all pissy when Chip and Ironicus Retsu'd this guy?

 

[lithiumvocals]

User reviews(the kind found on Metacritic and similar sites).

Fuck user reviews. Hyperbole-laden, mostly uninformative, and often contain many spelling/grammar errors that make them unreadable. There is honestly nothing I trust less than user reviews.

 

[Mirroga]

Spoony: Never explains why he doesn't like a movie, he just makes fun of it and then claim to be a critic.

-Worst game reviews.
"Spoony reviews movies badly."
lolwut

If you go through his Ultima series he actually does quite well explaining why he loves the old games and why the new ones have been getting progressively worse.

OT: Can't spell ignorance witho-okay, you know the joke.
But seriously, their God Hand review was done by someone who admitted they gave up on the first level (I think) because it was too hard and they said it was bad because. The shit.

I think it's just that they think Spoony would make every review as specific or as analyzed as his beloved Ultima Retrospective.

Let's just say some people have a hard time knowing the "comedy critics" to actual "serious reviewers." Let's just say I don't even bother with serious reviews and just have fun watching people hate on something that's either fan-trolling or hate-bandwagon.

 

[Bocaj2000]

All of them. A better question is "are there any GOOD game reviewers?" Most of these reviews are plot summaries and gameplay summaries- that's it.

Angry Joe is the only one that comes to mind as a good one: he is the ONLY reviewer I have seen that gave valid criticism for Brink (I will get into this upon request. I'm not going to waste my time if no one cares), and for that he is cemented in my mind as a good reviewer.

 

[Something Amyss]

Not quite the reviewer per se, but the controversy surrounding it: Gamespots review of the first Kayne and Lynch. The reviewer basically got fired as Gamespot had the games ads plastered on its website and he gave it a 6/10. Obviously, the publisher wasn't happy about this. It makes me doubt pretty much all of Gamespots professional reviews.

To be fair, most game mags won't piss off their advertisers. most media is subject to this, but gaming moreso because gaming mags tend to advertise almost exclusively to gamers. The Times can afford to piss of Pringles, because they are not a snack food paper with a niche with the snack food market. MTV can afford to lose, I don't know, Jiffy Lube, because they are not an auto channel with advertisements only aimed at auto concerns.

This tips the balance of power in the gaming media well in the favour of the advertisers to begin with. Gerstmann may be the most obvious case, but he's not the exception.

 

[Something Amyss]

You can't spell ignorant without IGN. All the scores they throw out don't seem to have anything holding them up. You're saying every game in the COD series was perfect IGN? Bah.

Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare for the xbox360 9.4 IGN
Call of Duty:World at War for the xbox360 9.2 IGN
Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 for the xbox360 9.5 IGN
Call of Duty:Black Ops for the xbox360 8.5 IGN
Call of Duty:Modern Warfare for the xbox360 9.0 IGN

OH MY GOD LOOK AT ALL THOSE PERFECT REVIEW SCORES IGN GAVE TO ALL THE CALL OF DUTY GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!

To be fair, he just spouted the ridiculous "You can't spell ignorant without IGN" meme, so....

 

[RaikuFA]

Lessee:

Tommy Tallarico: "I hate every game made from Japan and if I didn't work on it or it dosen't have blood and guts then it starts at 6. Did I mention SSB games deserve a 3 cause Kirbys in it. also, I'm 100% right cause my cousions Steven Tyler."

Kotaku: "Durr, I'm gonna give Xenoblade a lower score cause entitled brats wanted it to be localized, meanwhile if you ever looked at a Famitsu review, you're an idiot cause they don't count cause they're from Japan. Oh and we're gonna tell people that BULLIES NEVER THROW THE FIRST PUNCH!!! Jurnsm."

X-Play: "JRPGS ARE FOR LOSERS!!! COD IS WHERE IS AT BRO!!! LOOK WE HAVE ATTRACTIVE WOMEN WITH NO PERSONALITY ON OUR SHOW CAUSE ALL GAMERS ARE 13 YEAR OLDS!!!"

Though the last one can be applied to all other magazine reviewers nowadays.

 

[The Scotsman72]

You can't spell ignorant without IGN. All the scores they throw out don't seem to have anything holding them up. You're saying every game in the COD series was perfect IGN? Bah.

Call of Duty 4:Modern Warfare for the xbox360 9.4 IGN
Call of Duty:World at War for the xbox360 9.2 IGN
Call of Duty:Modern Warfare 2 for the xbox360 9.5 IGN
Call of Duty:Black Ops for the xbox360 8.5 IGN
Call of Duty:Modern Warfare for the xbox360 9.0 IGN

OH MY GOD LOOK AT ALL THOSE PERFECT REVIEW SCORES IGN GAVE TO ALL THE CALL OF DUTY GAMES!!!!!!!!!!!

Those are still very good scores for games that, in my opinion, don't deserve them for being mindless shooters with no depth. IGN enjoys jumping on the bandwagon to please all it's suscribers and viewers instead of giving a game the score it deserves. Also, keep an eye on your caps lock next time.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I wouldn't call Bob Chipman as the "Game overthinker" a "reviewer", but more of a commentator. Although, he has an opinion and just says it regardless if it creates controversy. Although, I really wish that he stopped using that "the 90s sucked" picture in The Big picture. He hates the 90s and the only explanation he had was " I was a teenager and I hated my teenage years WAAAAAH T_T". .. Seriously. He could do better than that.


My personnal anti-reviewer beef would be screwattack since I really hate the "self-declared authority" types.

 

[Newby_Newb]

That reviewer on The Escapist who gave Dragon Age 2 a 10/10.