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Truly atrocious reviews.
- Thread starter badnewsbeers
- Start date
Recent memory this comes to mind:
Guy didn't even finish the game...
Guy didn't even finish the game...
Slan'ts Sekiro review
www.slantmagazine.com
One of the most awful things ever written. The author's clearly hateful and jealous of the director, he spents more time complaining about him then the actual game, and it seems like he hasn't even gotten past the first level.
Review: The Punishing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Coasts on Borrowed Moves
Its boss fights highlight the contrived lengths that FromSoftware has gone to in order to satisfy players’ thirst for difficulty.
www.slantmagazine.com
One of the most awful things ever written. The author's clearly hateful and jealous of the director, he spents more time complaining about him then the actual game, and it seems like he hasn't even gotten past the first level.
Oh thank goodness, I couldn't get past that either - "non-sarcastic" or "not tongue-in-cheek" would perhaps be more context appropriate. Brad Shoemaker from Giant Bomb misuses "ironic" (in much the same way) all the time.
Please don't perceive that as overt criticism OP btw, I agree with your point at hand - the EGM Colonial Marines review is completely inept, bordering on the naive.
OH and don't forget the time the same reviewer, Pressgrove gave a game a 0/5 because it "insulted his religion" Dude's a fucking joke.Slan'ts Sekiro review
Review: The Punishing Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Coasts on Borrowed Moves
Its boss fights highlight the contrived lengths that FromSoftware has gone to in order to satisfy players’ thirst for difficulty.
One of the most awful things ever written. The author's clearly hateful and jealous of the director, he spents more time complaining about him then the actual game, and it seems like he hasn't even gotten past the first level.
THANK YOU. I've been going on about that review for so long.
God that is an awfully written review.
Ok sorry, that OST comment though...
The game is full of engaging atmosphere and the soundtrack is incredible.
The conclusion is 3 setences long and each one is hilarious.
Edit: oh also this was before the game even went gold and was way before other reviews
I was going to post this. Absolutely reads like a preview piece
"The best RPG of this decade? Nine more years will tell, but for now, yes."
Unless I'm mistaken, he stopped publishing game reviews after the blowback over that.
What game starts with 9.5 then goes to 8 then goes to 4 and finally lands at 6.5?
Polygon's Sim City 2013 review by Russ Pitts.
Oh my god, I remember this. My vote goes to this one for sure, what an embarassment that was.
Reviews that gave a high score + didn't explicitly convey how flawed MGSV & FFXIII are as mainline entries in their respective series.
How was that a different era? What has changed. Other reviews here are clearly from a different time. The MGS5 ones read like reviews from today and people hold the same opinion.
God Hand. IGN.
Nice to see an old coworker of mine (From Zipper Interactive) made the list.
He sounded like a blast to be around... /s...
But yeah, I will still never get over how fucking horrible the review was for God Hand. Like... what? Did they even fucking play it?
I know it comes down to score and bulletpoints, but for some reason, the fact that it's an 8/10 without showing any cons/negatives in the ending score irks the hell out of me. If you read the whole review, there are literally no negatives to speak of (unless I'm really missing something) and it's still an 8/10. What?
No you don't get it, not mentioning any of the game's many negatives and heaping tons of positive hyperbole on it doesn't make it a bad review. /s
The USGamer review of Horizon: Zero Dawn (5/10) remains the worst review I've ever read. It was seemingly reviewed by someone who came into the genre already hating it, and boiled down to "Yes, it's another open world game. You can pick herbs, explore and kill things. Why would a protagonist do side quests anyways? Her main quest seems more important. Yawn. It's pretty though."
Basically anything Jed Whittaker wrote for Destructoid just came across as incredibly douchey and condensending.
Case in point. I don't give a shit about Phantom Dust, never played it, but the tone of the review is fucking insufferable.
Case in point. I don't give a shit about Phantom Dust, never played it, but the tone of the review is fucking insufferable.
Well, after the fallout from his Escapist reboot, it can't be said this review is the worst output of Russ's career.
The Nier review from the late Joystiq was an embarrassment, thanks to whichever McElroy who couldn't figure out how to proceed and tore the game to shreds in his review. Then readers (and even fellow staff, if I remember correctly) pointed out how little attention he must've been paying to the game because the route to progression ended up being fairly obvious. Some kind of fishing mini game, I believe.
KH3 Polygon review, an entire rant about the reviewer wondering if he's too old now to like KH instead of an actual review.
Like I said before big games getting lower scores across the board. More games are getting 70s and less are getting reviews in the high 80s and low 90s. Something like Days Gone back in 2014 would have reviewed really well but now it's getting 7s. I think reviewers are just beginning to mature and be more critical.
Yeah, that was Justin McElroy. He couldn't understand the fishing minigame and ragequit the game. Which is the most absurd reason to quit Nier.
He also ragequit Code Name S.T.E.A.M. when he reviewed that for Polygon, though that was more for the fact that it's a very difficult, slow game and he lost patience with it.
That it was a shitty review will be the only truth to survive the end of times.
Polygon and Sim City sure had a fun journey. I remember Arthur Gies defending the online only requirement really hard.
yes, i guess this would be the greatest of all atrocious reviews. You just can't be more off the point than this reviewer. And I love Football Manager, being clear
The kicker was that EA was very aware of Sim City's late game problems, and so geared all of its preview and review events to ensuring journos didn't have a chance to see what a shitshow the endgame was. Ever notice that there are a lot more unscored review-in-progress write-ups for games like these now? it's cause outlets don't want to fall into that trap again.
I think we all know GTA4, MGS4, and Uncharted 3 did not deserved all the 10/10s.
Not awful, but just obvious fanboy, graphics hype culture at play here.
Not awful, but just obvious fanboy, graphics hype culture at play here.
Oh...huh.
While I didn't have any complaints about Lost Winds' length, I didn't really care for the PC version's controls.
My final score ended up being a 4.
(I think the sequel is pretty good though)
In terms of reviews I didn't care much for, I guess the IGN ORAS review would be it for me, but not because it was about too much water (a very legit complaint that the pokemon community unfortunately didn't take well), but because it had SO many problems regarding on how badly the game was dumbed down compared to the original and overall just a not fun game, which hardly any reviews mentioned, and if they did, it was dismissed with a very insulting note along the lines of how "The original games were probably just as dull so this is better as it looks pretty". That sort of stuff in remakes can really be damaging since it can make the originals seem like they were just as dumbed down or insultingly easy even though most of the times it wasn't the case.
But I feel that if any reviewer did make note of those problems, the pokemon community would have gone insane since they don't seem to like whenever the games get low scores even if they have perfectly legitimate reasons. After all, people getting really mad at the too much watercomplaint despite it being a legitimate problem (until you get a Sharpedo to speed across the routes, which isn't something the game makes too obvious as it's one pokemon out of 700+ that can do that) was a depressing thing to see, so I don't blame the most critical reviewers for being careful with their wording. Heck, I don't even think that review is really atrocious (pretty strong word used there), just not fully aware of the context of the original games, which to be frank newcomers to the series/Hoenn would lack as well.
Besides that though, I don't really consider any professional reviews to be "atrocious" since they mostly come down to differing opinions even if I don't agree on stuff regarding games I love (Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is my favorite game in history but others find it OK and I respect that) or can't stand. (Everyone loved Xenoblade but I was like "how the heck did anyone think this was a good idea to have auto attack?")
I mean, obviously stuff from awful hate group supporters like certain far-right youtube channels or websites that back a certain 5 year old hate group that cram their "reviews" with racial slurs and petty insults are easily the worst reviews out there, (coming off as a sad attempt to be edgy and serious even though it's just offensive and annoying and i'm not gonna take it seriously) but there's a reason they aren't professionals and thus I'm not gonna count those assholes even if they're an easy answer. (despite how sad it is to see some of them get a big following)
But I feel that if any reviewer did make note of those problems, the pokemon community would have gone insane since they don't seem to like whenever the games get low scores even if they have perfectly legitimate reasons. After all, people getting really mad at the too much watercomplaint despite it being a legitimate problem (until you get a Sharpedo to speed across the routes, which isn't something the game makes too obvious as it's one pokemon out of 700+ that can do that) was a depressing thing to see, so I don't blame the most critical reviewers for being careful with their wording. Heck, I don't even think that review is really atrocious (pretty strong word used there), just not fully aware of the context of the original games, which to be frank newcomers to the series/Hoenn would lack as well.
Besides that though, I don't really consider any professional reviews to be "atrocious" since they mostly come down to differing opinions even if I don't agree on stuff regarding games I love (Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon is my favorite game in history but others find it OK and I respect that) or can't stand. (Everyone loved Xenoblade but I was like "how the heck did anyone think this was a good idea to have auto attack?")
I mean, obviously stuff from awful hate group supporters like certain far-right youtube channels or websites that back a certain 5 year old hate group that cram their "reviews" with racial slurs and petty insults are easily the worst reviews out there, (coming off as a sad attempt to be edgy and serious even though it's just offensive and annoying and i'm not gonna take it seriously) but there's a reason they aren't professionals and thus I'm not gonna count those assholes even if they're an easy answer. (despite how sad it is to see some of them get a big following)
Always worth remembering the "too much water" thing is a bullet point in the ORAS review, not in the actual text. The reviewer didn't write that even. And it's a valid point as well, even though I love Hoenn (not an ORAS fan tho).
Its' definitely a smart move after events like that. That whole SImCity incident was slapstick comedy in review form.
I know others have already said this, but without the text (and, more importantly, the reviewers so we can know which were reviewed by the same people, if any) to go along with things, this list is a little meaningless. That said, I don't actually see most of those scores as all that unagreeable from a cursory glance.
My favourite part is how their justification is completely backwards. Whatever score you give a game is YOUR score...not what you think the mass market will think of it.
Uncharted 3 didn't get 10s which is why people were so mad then.
IGN's Metroid Other M review was atrocious.
Quote:
"Its focus on story and action makes Metroid: Other M one hell of a ride and a wholly recommended experience: it's an emotional tale and a fun adventure wrapped up in a surprisingly ambitious package."
They gave it an 8.5 for fuck's sakes.
https://m.ign.com/articles/2010/08/27/metroid-other-m-review
Quote:
"Its focus on story and action makes Metroid: Other M one hell of a ride and a wholly recommended experience: it's an emotional tale and a fun adventure wrapped up in a surprisingly ambitious package."
They gave it an 8.5 for fuck's sakes.
https://m.ign.com/articles/2010/08/27/metroid-other-m-review
Trying to find the text(I still own the magazine I think) but here's the scores from EGM
True Crime: Streets of L.A. - 6.5, 9.5, 5.5
True Crime: Streets of L.A. - 6.5, 9.5, 5.5