Worst review ever?

Recommended Videos

BiggyShackleton

New member
Nov 15, 2008
272
0
0
Zappanale said:
George Wood's infamous review of Tomb Raider 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3JUrhh9VC8
Just... just listen to it.

If that's not enough, look for his review of Goldeneye.

This guy ended up faking his death online to escape his haters.
His Goldeneye review is one of the funniest fucking things I've ever heard. It has to be sarcasm, just for the sake of humanity.

"IS THIS SOME NEW FUNKY DIRECTING STYLE OR WHAT?!"
 

DYin01

New member
Oct 18, 2008
644
0
0
Mettking said:
lacktheknack said:
Our own Yahtzee's Mirror's Edge review!

...I found every one of his complaints to be irrelevant/wrong! Mirror's Edge is my number one game period, so clearly I'm very biased here, but come on. "The game forces you into fights"? Did he even TRY to get away from them?
You do realize he said at times it forces you to fight, not all the time. And it did, I played it too and there were a few spots you were required to fight.
False. In fact, there's an achievement for not engaging in any fighting. Regardless, I agree with Yahtzee because sometimes you inevitably get shot if you run away which kinda breaks up the flow of the game. It really would've been better without gunplay.
 

Manji187

New member
Jan 29, 2009
1,443
0
0
nikki191 said:
Manji187 said:
Gametrailer's review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-s-t-a-l-k-e-r/18294

It just makes the reviewer sound lazy, expecting the game to hold his hand. Stalker SoC is not one of those games. Put in some real effort, you lazy bum.
that was a really bad review.. its annoying to have to save the game.. seriously?
Apparently for some people the effort that goes into pressing the quicksave button is too much. Spoiled by automatic saving and/ or checkpoints.

I bet these people would totally flip if they had to play a game with savepoints.

Where I took offense with the review is enemy AI (apparently good AI is bad) and "questionable gunplay" (In the words of Geoff Keighly: either the guns are incredibly inaccurate or the hit detection is bogus). Yeah no Geoff, you just didn't bother playing long enough so you ran around with the standard Makarov pistol and possibly the crappy AK versions.
 

Soviet Heavy

New member
Jan 22, 2010
12,210
0
0
BiggyShackleton said:
Zappanale said:
George Wood's infamous review of Tomb Raider 2.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3JUrhh9VC8
Just... just listen to it.

If that's not enough, look for his review of Goldeneye.

This guy ended up faking his death online to escape his haters.
His Goldeneye review is one of the funniest fucking things I've ever heard. It has to be sarcasm, just for the sake of humanity.

"IS THIS SOME NEW FUNKY DIRECTING STYLE OR WHAT?!"
"We couldn't review the multiplayer, because we only have one controller!"
 

Ragsnstitches

New member
Dec 2, 2009
1,871
0
0
Savagezion said:
The problem is you can't view reviews like "How much should I buy this game, on a scale from 1-10?" It should be read as a persons take on the game. You should cross reference different reviews to get something little less bias. Then you need to consider that some game reviewers like Harvest Moon, TES:Oblivion, and other titles you may not like.

The Captain America game got bashed scoring in around a 6 I think. I think the game is fun. I went in wanting a comic-bookey game and that is what I got, I was pleased. I think for what it was trying to do, it deserves an 8-9. It wasn't trying to be anything more than the fun super hero games I grew up playing borrowing some mechanics from Arkham Asylum. That is what I found out from all the reviews and developer releases and that is what I wanted from it.

Personally, I find game reviewers pretty accurate. I don't care about the numbers or the "this is why this sucks" lines. All I need to know is the facts. Reading a review, I am always trying to take out the bias lines.
This is what should be done. Reviewers are gamers like me and you, though they get paid to do these reviews. Subjective standpoints are inevitable and unavoidable. They are just people with likes and dislikes similar, and dissimilar, to your own.

Reviews offer a SINGLE perspective on a game. It is not a definitive rating. Accepting one review as objective facts about a game is a bogus use of them. Even when rating seemingly objective aspects to a game like graphical fidelity, gameplay mechanics and audio, there are a plethora of subjective nuances that will sway the reviewers opinion. For example, Aesthetically pleasing vistas for one reviewer may trump shoddy textures while for another the textures might be unbearable despite the overall effect OR where one person lambastes the Classic Resident evil for it's sluggish and brutal control scheme but laud Resident Evil 4 for it's refinement of the interactivity in the game, another Reviewer may see that improvement as crippling to the Survival Horror aspects in the series, where the classic tank controls added tension and "almost nightmare like" quality to the horror.

Bias in any medium is expected. But it shouldn't be damnable. You don't (or shouldn't) chastise a friend for liking/loving a game you found boring/abhorrent, likewise you shouldn't slam all reviewers who don't share an opinion to your own. There ARE bad reviewers for sure, usually they are amateurs who completely avoid critical thinking and instead see themselves as Critics, without a proper understanding of what a "critic" is in reviews. But these reviewers are the same as you... again, they shouldn't be flamed for an opinion.

Of course tossing my two cents into this. The internet is so full of blowhards and egotists, that expecting humble and rational approaches to anything with an opinion is liable to get me flamed too.

The key to efficient utilisation of Reviews is, as Savagezion said, to cross reference multiple reviews. Even if you trust your go to reviewer, alternative perspectives will only enrich your knowledge of what makes good gaming and make you more tolerant to the vastly opinionated interwebs.

Finally, a good way to gauge the Objecitve quality of a game is to use mass review sites like Metacritic and other of the same vein. But be careful of User reviews, they are good for alternative and "unprofessional" takes on games (films/music etc) which add perspective, but they aren't held accountable for blasting a game that competes with their favourite game (see whichever side of the BF3 and MW3 debate) or for adding cynical and jaded remarks that are heavily weighted in the negative, but not always based on the qualities of the actual product.(not to mention they are generally worse at putting a score to their reviews, usually landing on extremes with little beyond a "IT'S THE SHIT" or "IT'S SHIT" remarks in place of a review.

EDIT: Also, look up youtube vids that demonstrate the actual game (outside of official demos). I find that a good way to gauge whether a game is worth the dosh or if I need to let the price drop again (or ignore it altogether).
 

Erttheking

Member
Legacy
Oct 5, 2011
10,845
1
3
Country
United States
Personally I don't really care that much what people put up for reviews and frankly I don't see why people get so worked up over them (WHY DON'T YOU LIKE WHAT I LIKE! WHY DO YOU LIKE WHAT I DON'T LIKE) seriously, people used to get on my case all the time when I used to criticize Yahtzee's reviews people jumped down my throat saying "IT'S HIS OPINION!" How is this any different? IGN and Gamespot are giving us their opinions! You don't have to agree with them, they're not infallable, they don't stop you from enjoying your game, what's the bid deal?
 

Marcus Kehoe

New member
Mar 18, 2011
757
0
0
Uncharted 3 10/10 on IGN, it's not a bad game, it's actually a really good game, but such a un-original game with nothing new brought to the table doesn't deserve the score.
 

Anti Nudist Cupcake

New member
Mar 23, 2010
1,054
0
0
I may be hated for this and I may be biased but ANY review that gave ANY dragon age game more than a 5.5/10 seems...eh really people?

The story was okay, nothing special from the other bioware games such as kotor and mass effect.

The rest of it was ugly, greasy, meh, copypasted and the combat was NO FUN WHATSOEVER, also it was slow.

I will admit that it had it's moments where it set a very good mood and got me immersed but those were far too few, a mere handful of moments to be honest that mostly involved having the lighting and aesthetics just right...
 

Treblaine

New member
Jul 25, 2008
8,682
0
0
look at this colour commentary for this review. Get to 1:10 and you will hear the worst thing I've ever heard suggested in any video game review.


Yes, that guy (George Wood) actually suggested it would be a good idea if in Tomb Raider 3 Lara Croft got breast cancer. And I can't tell if he is serious or this is the worst joke ever.
 

Chairman Miaow

CBA to change avatar
Nov 18, 2009
2,091
0
0
Tiswas said:
Like somebody else said. Nier scores are abysmal and seem to miss the point entirely. (Have still yet to meet anyone who played it and actually disliked it.
I bought Nier and almost immediately returned it. I don't care how good the story or anything was, the gameplay was downright painful, I couldn't trudge my way through it.
 

Woodsey

New member
Aug 9, 2009
14,548
0
0
Although probably not the worst review I've ever read, I am still annoyed by The Escapist's review of The Witcher 2. However many lines devoted to the interface, and not a single word on the fact that the entire second act is different depending on what choice you make? And the third act is extremely elastic too. And there's a fair amount malleability in the first act also.

I would consider that a bad review in that, whilst I can see what their problem was (even if I didn't particularly have it myself), it spends far too much time waffling on about certain aspects whilst ignoring far larger ones.

Really, the issue comes down to whether they're writing something akin to a critique, or something closer to a product review (95% of well-known gaming sites).

(Although anyone calling out reviews for being bad because they don't agree with the points being made is bad at reviewing reviews.)
 

Thoric485

New member
Aug 17, 2008
632
0
0
Worst one? I don't know, but there are far [http://www.destructoid.com/review-call-of-duty-modern-warfare-3-215404.phtml] too [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8701-Dragon-Age-II-Review] many [http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1156497p1.html] bad [http://www.pcgamer.com/review/star-wars-the-old-republic-review/] ones [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNnJqJ9hO4w].

I feel like nowadays RPS and Sessler's column are the only places on which i can rely for an honest analysis.
 

StriderShinryu

New member
Dec 8, 2009
4,987
0
0
Ragsnstitches said:
Insert Excellent Post Here
This is pretty much dead on. While I won't argue that there are lazy or poor reviews out there, the vast majority of examples people like to point out as "bad reviews" are not bad at all, they are simply differing in opinion from what the reader wanted to read. See The Escapists DA2 review for a perfect example of this.

If you're honestly looking for a review of a game, never look at just one review even if you usually agree with the writer. Always read several reviews from sources you personally trust and collate the presented information yourself.

If you're looking at the general quality of a game overall, going somewhere like Metacritic or Gamerankings is not the terrible idea that some make it out to be. If a game gets an average of 90%, it's probably a pretty good game. It may not be to your tastes, of course, but it's a quality title. If a game gets an average of 20%, it's likely to be terrible. If it scores in the 60 to 70 range, it might be something that is good for certain players with certain interests, or it might be a love it/hate it title that ends up at 65% as an average. It's really not that complicated.

And yes, watch videos. There are so many previews, post views, footage dumps, let's plays, etc. out there these days for pretty much any title you might be interested in. No, it's not as good as actually playing the game yourself but, barring some weird compatibility issues on the PC side of things, there's very little excuse for going into a game purchase these days without having a pretty good idea of what you're getting before you get it.
 

Tohuvabohu

Not entirely serious, maybe.
Mar 24, 2011
1,001
0
0
Manji187 said:
nikki191 said:
Manji187 said:
Gametrailer's review of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/review-s-t-a-l-k-e-r/18294

It just makes the reviewer sound lazy, expecting the game to hold his hand. Stalker SoC is not one of those games. Put in some real effort, you lazy bum.
that was a really bad review.. its annoying to have to save the game.. seriously?
Apparently for some people the effort that goes into pressing the quicksave button is too much. Spoiled by automatic saving and/ or checkpoints.

I bet these people would totally flip if they had to play a game with savepoints.

Where I took offense with the review is enemy AI (apparently good AI is bad) and "questionable gunplay" (In the words of Geoff Keighly: either the guns are incredibly inaccurate or the hit detection is bogus). Yeah no Geoff, you just didn't bother playing long enough so you ran around with the standard Makarov pistol and possibly the crappy AK versions.
The comment about saving was odd. How hard is it to press one button?

If you make the effort to seek out good weapons, with good attachments, with good ammunition, it evens out the field much better than being stuck with some piece of shit weapon that's falling apart. (Funny how the crap weapons with crap ammunition actually handle like crap.)

I think the general idea of STALKER is, if you go into something unprepared; you WILL get fucked.
I did a mostly fair job of preparing myself for every mission. Until the last one. Once I got the brain scorcher off, I pretty much rushed into Pripyat. Getting through Pripyat, and the external NPP area, was one of the most grueling things I've ever endured. And I'm quite sure it's my own fault for not adequately preparing for it.
By then, every single enemy was wearing Exoskeletons and shooting rail guns. Oh, and rocketshooting attack helicopters and tanks. Jesus jumping shitballs.

OT: I can't think of any review in particular. But what really pisses me off are when reviewers flat out get something wrong about a game, and then complain about it as if it's a valid point.

It's one thing to misconstrue something. And it's another to spread misinformation.
 

Manji187

New member
Jan 29, 2009
1,443
0
0
Tohuvabohu said:
I think the general idea of STALKER is, if you go into something unprepared; you WILL get fucked.
I did a mostly fair job of preparing myself for every mission. Until the last one. Once I got the brain scorcher off, I pretty much rushed into Pripyat. Getting through Pripyat, and the external NPP area, was one of the most grueling things I've ever endured. And I'm quite sure it's my own fault for not adequately preparing for it.
By then, every single enemy was wearing Exoskeletons and shooting rail guns. Oh, and rocketshooting attack helicopters and tanks. Jesus jumping shitballs.
Yeah, everything from the gates of Chernobyl NPP onwards is hell, even if you are well-prepared. I still remember the final "portal" section. Bastard Monolith soldiers with their Exoskeletons and G36 assault rifles (best rifle in the game IMO) with AP ammo and of course some had to have rocketlaunchers. But worst of all, the terrain. Lots of industrial tubes, lots of cover. Easy to miss an enemy, easy for them to get the drop on you. All in all, very intense and often frustrating, especially on higher difficulty.

The problem with games like STALKER is, they can't be properly reviewed by someone who plays them for 3-4 hours and decides that's enough. The first 1-2 hours are incredibly unforgiving if you don't know what you are doing (we've all been there the first time around). I would say the game only starts properly when you're close to/ in "The Bar" area.
 

DarkRyter

New member
Dec 15, 2008
3,076
0
0
All reviews are opinions.

There can't be a "best" or "worst" if they're all equally meaningless.
 

Gylukios

The Red Comet
Dec 3, 2008
64
0
11
Eh, as long as the review is long enough, I can get a good sense of what the game is like regardless of the reviewer's opinion, which is all I want. What I do despise is when reviewers compare games that don't have to be compared, especially when the reviewer states a preference for the game not being reviewed (IGN's review of Tales of Vesperia compared it to Eternal Sonata, a game by the same company but otherwise completely different). I can understand a comparison between Portal 2 and Portal 1, but I hate when Shooter X is compared to Shooter Y, because it can't be guaranteed that the reader has played either.
 

major_chaos

Ruining videogames
Feb 3, 2011
1,313
0
0
Xanthious said:
Allow me to quote the following.

Greg Tito said:
Bottom Line: A pinnacle of role-playing games with well-designed mechanics and excellent story-telling, Dragon Age II is what videogames are meant to be.
A pinnacle of role-playing games?!?! Really Greg? Really?

This very site's Dragon Age 2 review has to be hands down the absolutely least informed and inaccurate review of a game I've ever read/watched/listened to. The 5/5 score it was given is absolutely laughable.

Shortly after that review was posted a sound like a jet engine could be heard. Rumor is that it was actually any credibility Greg Tito had as a reviewer flying out the nearest window at a high rate of speed never to be seen again.

A more cynical person would notice the copious amount of advertising Dragon Age 2 was doing on this site around that time and start drawing lines. A less cynical person would simply think that the reviewer in question either has horrible taste in games or didn't log enough time playing to write a properly informed review.

The bottom line is I can not believe that any professional game critic worth their salary could have played enough of Dragon Age 2 to do a proper review then write a review like that and actually believe it.
so what you are saying is that because the reviewer had a different opinion of the game then you he is bad and wrong and should feel bad? I honestly feel bad for game reviewers.
OT: any review is going to have a certain bias so instead of looking at the arbitrary score I look at what seems to be the pros and cons of the game and decide if it sounds like something I would like, so the only reviews I see as "bad" are ones that do not present any actual information about the game, therefor mostly what I hate is the user reviews on Metacritic which are either super short or nonsense rants, my favorite being the overly common "I actually think this game deserves a X but i'm going to give it a 0/10 to lower/raise the average"
 

Hyper-space

New member
Nov 25, 2008
1,361
0
0
I HATE EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT AGREE WITH MY OPINION, I WILL ACCUSE THEM OF BIAS AND BEING FACTUALLY WRONG WHEN IN TRUTH THEY JUST HAD A DIFFERENT OPINION.

I LACK PERSPECTIVE.
 

DJ_DEnM

My brother answers too!
Dec 22, 2010
1,869
0
0
I read one that said Space Marine was a copy of Gears of War. /fail

And if you don't realize why, it's because Space Marine came out first.