Bad Game Reviews - Did you actually play the damn game?

[WULULULULU]

I remember seeing UpperEchelon Gaming play Genshin and claim it's the worst thing to happen to gaming because he couldn't kill anything in a timely manner, but close examination (aka opening your eyes) showed that he never tried to set up elemental combos and made no effort to understanding the games simple but satisfying elemental synergies.

For the unaware, Genshin shoves this mechanic far enough down your throat that it pops out your ass. Characters mention it in dialogue. Every new enemy you encounter will have a little journal entry on what elements work on them. When you enter just about any activity, the game will recommend elements to use. If you try to enter a domain (dungeon) without recommended elemental party members the game will confirm this decision with you.

This guy managed to do something I thought was actually impossible and fuck up playing Genshin.

His fuckup, I mean thats coming from the same nigger that made that Doom Eternal video that made him a laughing stock.

Although to be fair, Genshin's flaw was never the combat system, the flaw is the boring plot and the monetization/generic artstyle but I digress.

 

[KokoroKoroki]

This review of Catherine from a BreadTuber, the thumbnail speaks for itself.

Cries "muh transphobia" and completely misrepresents several parts of the game for the sake of their agenda, including not understanding how several parts of the game weren't translated accurately.

 

[Ruin]

I'll preface this by saying I didn't like Doom Eternal and I mean like at all but here are two reviews of it that were heavily mocked and rightfully so because the reviewers were retards.

 

[The Penultimate Warrior]

On the subject of Doom, esteemed magazine Edge only gave the original a seven, because all you do is "shoot a near endless supply of green lizards" (?) and you can't make friends with them

 

[Danone]

I saw someone posted a "review" (5 hour spergy rant) of Persona 5 earlier in the thread. To be fair, the fact that the voice directors actually tell the actors to pronounce names the way they come out in the game shows how clueless they are with linguistics and translation. Even Spanish, Italian and Portuguese dubs get the pronunciation of "foreign" names right.

But yeah, the thing that makes his video garbage is the fact that he TRIES to hate the game, and he tries really hard.

I have no idea what is it with Atlus and their games that bring a deep seethed tism within whomever plays them. Most reviews of Persona 5 are either this game is one of the worst things to happen because Anime or some other bullshit (Cvit) or "this is the pinacle of storytelling and jrpg's, I wish Makoto were real".

There's something kind of creepy-ish in watching a grown man describe an Anime teenager the way this guy does.

There's also the "response" Mangakamen gave to cvit. Which is at time worse than the original video.

 

[Calandrino]

ngl I think a lot of these are ok

Not so much a review but Dean Takahashi's(some gamejourno) video of cuphead after spending 26 minutes proving he doesn't actually know how to play video games then posts some cope after people went off at him is pretty funny.

Cuphead hands-on: My 26 minutes of shame with an old-time cartoon game

Preview Join gaming leaders, alongside GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming, for their 2nd Annual GamesBeat & Facebook Gaming Summit | GamesBeat: Into the Metaverse 2 this upcoming January 25-27, 2022. Learn more about the event. I suck at Cuphead. Let’s get this out of the way. But in my defense, the...

venturebeat.com

The DeanBeat: Our Cuphead runneth over

Join gaming leaders, alongside GamesBeat and Facebook Gaming, for their 2nd Annual GamesBeat & Facebook Gaming Summit | GamesBeat: Into the Metaverse 2 this upcoming January 25-27, 2022. Learn more about the event. Let’s start with an understatement. You may have heard that I failed miserably...

venturebeat.com

The Cuphead Cometh: 'Unskilled Gaming Is Authentic,' Says Dean Takahashi

Veteran games and tech journalist Dean Takahashi responds to the furor over his Cuphead tutorial with a nuanced, context-driven look at how the footage went viral and what lessons we can derive from the latest Twitter mob.

www.player.one

While my performance on the captured video below is quite shameful, as I never finished the level, I think it shows quite well why Cuphead is fun and why making hard games that depend on skill is like a lost art.

He's got a point, if you could watch gameplay footage of every 1-star Steam user reviewer whining about artificial difficulty in whatever game it would probably resemble his performance. I'd almost give him some credit for not being a bitch about it, but I suspect if the game weren't a well-known critical darling and his gameplay video hadn't gone viral, he'd have panned it for being too hard.

For context, this relates to an IGN review of Pokemon Alpha Sapphire... a game where half the region is nothing but water, and the legendary is a water type that produces rain all the time.
View attachment 2866861

Well, if the game were set on a desert planet with flaming meteors falling from the sky, he'd be wrong. It seems the reviewer accurately described the game according to his own taste, while giving gamers who are fans of water enough information to know that the game is worth checking out.

View attachment 2867514

Godhand fans: How sad that this masterpiece is so underrated because of the lousy cover art and poor marketing
Also Godhand fans: I'm going to assume that this critically-acclaimed Party Babys game sucks because of the cover

Here's a review from some 90s gaming magazine on Bubsy 3d, a game that many say is one of the worse to ever had been made. View attachment 2867550

He badmouths the 2D games so I'd really like to believe that this is the actual opinion of a weird guy who actually liked the game. But they did (famously) put the Gold X award on the cover art. I hope he got a blowjob out of it.

This legendary GamesRadar review of the Crash N. Sane Trilogy that kick-started the "[Game] is the Dark Souls of [Genre]" review trend that everybody hated.
View attachment 2907252
The review:
https://www.gamesradar.com/crash-bandicoot-n-sane-trilogy-review/
Archive (in case you don't want to to give them clicks):
https://archive.md/42qSv

What's a good word to describe a Crash game....



...just yell out the first one that comes to mind, I'm sure it will be fine. No judgment in brainstorming!

FFXIV Is an MMOVN, skipping all the dialogue defeats the purpose.

Skipping all the dialog in a VN and then reviewing it anyway and then not backing down when everybody says you're wrong might not be the right thing to do, but it's what I'd do

 

[Jaimas]

Skipping all the dialog in a VN and then reviewing it anyway and then not backing down when everybody says you're wrong might not be the right thing to do, but it's what I'd do

In my experience you'd at least be funny when you did it, unlike this shit.

 

[Coolio55]

I don't know if this counts as "bad" but if you've ever been interested in seeing the British equivalent of G4, here it is!

Found this while trawling the UK:Resistance catacombs. This show famously launched Larry Bundy Jr.'s career as he was a "guru" on it.
Ps. UK:Reistance is a great read if you have nothing better to do and want to watch Sega and the games industry at large die in real-time before realizing that the final entry was at a time when gaming was still a million times better than it's current state.
Pps. Just found this and it's even more fucking weird

 

[Gravemind]

On the subject of Doom, esteemed magazine Edge only gave the original a seven, because all you do is "shoot a near endless supply of green lizards" (?) and you can't make friends with them

View attachment 2987442

Let's be honest, they're probably the sort of hoity toity nerds who were raised on point-and-click adventure games, RPGs, sims, and probably MUDs and had some expectation for the game to do even more with less and be something it wasn't intended to be.

Time is a flat circle.

 

[Darksy DePhil]

On the subject of Doom, esteemed magazine Edge only gave the original a seven, because all you do is "shoot a near endless supply of green lizards" (?) and you can't make friends with them

View attachment 2987442

Let's be honest, they're probably the sort of hoity toity nerds who were raised on point-and-click adventure games, RPGs, sims, and probably MUDs and had some expectation for the game to do even more with less and be something it wasn't intended to be.

Time is a flat circle.

I remember that one. With all the comparisons to Ultima Underworld that fag makes i think it's safe to assume he was simply comparing them directly just because they were both in first person.
Also, funny how even back in the 90's, 7/10 was the "average" score.

 

[The Great Citracett]

There was some review of Far Cry 5 where the soy creature writing the review managed to play far enough to encounter Hurk Sr. who is a boomer tea party conservative stereotype played for laughs.

The reviewer managed to stay relatively un-triggered until Hurk used the term "Obama-loving libtards," at which point he melted down and began (in game) angrily running his character in circles around Hurk, and (IRL) screeching about Republicans or something.

Which we only know because he decided to write the whole "incident" and his reaction into the review as if it made him cool or something.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

This review of Catherine from a BreadTuber, the thumbnail speaks for itself.

Cries "muh transphobia" and completely misrepresents several parts of the game for the sake of their agenda, including not understanding how several parts of the game weren't translated accurately.

I remember when the game came out and trannies praised it as showing trannies as normal people. Even though that tranny technically raped someone.

 

[Elysian]

Can't have a thread about bad game reviews without including at least one reference to Gaming In The Clinton Years:

 

[Mega Black]

I'll preface this by saying I didn't like Doom Eternal and I mean like at all but here are two reviews of it that were heavily mocked and rightfully so because the reviewers were retards.

Synthetic Man comes up all the time and he's just a /v/ tier contrarian faggot riding his takes for the sake of the grift. Nothing about him seems genuine, his opinions are entirely predictable based around what the current cultural zeitgeist is for a game.

I remember when the game came out and trannies praised it as showing trannies as normal people. Even though that tranny technically raped someone.

It's an accurate portrayal if nothing else. Trannies love to rape.

 

[Power Glove]

Way back in the day I used to have a side-gig as a game reviewer for websites local to my country. The one thing I quickly learned as a reviewer is that nobody gives a good damn about how you "feel" about the game, or whatever sperg reaction you want to give regarding some of the content, systems or learning curves in the game. Certainly not in a 5 hour reaction video or a 10,000 word article. People wanna know "game good, explain why it works" or '"game bad, why it doesn't work". That's the bottom-line. Not why you "feel" the systems or mechanics of a game work or don't work just because said mechanics or systems go against how you enjoy them. So many game reviews I see on the good ol YT seem to fall in that trap, constantly. There are always gonna be games that do not click with you, doesn't make a game bad, or just because you like something, doesn't make it game of the year.

Example: So many people love doing dungeons and raids in FFXIV. If I do more then one dungeon, or half-way during a raid I get a headache because there are so many spells, buffs and such going on that it becomes sensory overload for me. Does that mean the dungeons are terrible? No, the encounters are for the most part insanely well made and very enjoyable compared to WoW-dungeons or SWTOR-Flashpoints. If I were to review FFXIV, and had to discuss endgame things, that is how I would formulate it for the most part. Great content, not my style but it doesn't warrant anymore divulging into why because it's not relevant to the consumer of the review.

 

[Bennytehsmeghead]

I have no fucking idea why I was subscribed to that lunatic. For me, another one that deserves it is Postal 4 by the same guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slLDEwW5ltU

"People don't play Postal 2 because of shooting mechanics, people play it because you can do over the top, edgy shit!"

...
...
...
...IT'S POSTAL, BITCH.
Postal is NOT a game about doing edgy shit! Postal is a game where you GO POSTAL. It can be top down, or it can be first-person or even third-person. It can be playfully twisted/edgy or completely OTT and ridiculous. You can dedicate the entire game to killing as much people as possible or you can have it be an option that you find yourself forced into more often than not. Do you see where I'm getting at with a game formula that's literally described by its title? In fact, the next Postal game will approach it as a boomer shooter throwback! That's how broad the concept of Postal is!
Synthetic Man and every other Postal 4 hater do not get Postal. AT ALL. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only ones who GET Postal are the developers, Running With Scissors. This reminds me a lot of negative Doom 3 reviews...

 

[Slav Power]

I have no fucking idea why I was subscribed to that lunatic. For me, another one that deserves it is Postal 4 by the same guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slLDEwW5ltU

"People don't play Postal 2 because of shooting mechanics, people play it because you can do over the top, edgy shit!"

...
...
...
...IT'S POSTAL, BITCH.
Postal is NOT a game about doing edgy shit! Postal is a game where you GO POSTAL. It can be top down, or it can be first-person or even third-person. It can be playfully twisted/edgy or completely OTT and ridiculous. You can dedicate the entire game to killing as much people as possible or you can have it be an option that you find yourself forced into more often than not. Do you see where I'm getting at with a game formula that's literally described by its title? In fact, the next Postal game will approach it as a boomer shooter throwback! That's how broad the concept of Postal is!
Synthetic Man and every other Postal 4 hater do not get Postal. AT ALL. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only ones who GET Postal are the developers, Running With Scissors. This reminds me a lot of negative Doom 3 reviews...

Though valid critiques for Postal 4 are:

-Dumbed down humor, less political mockery compared to Postal 2, but a lot more toilet humor which is off-putting, almost as if RWS was trying to appease to the tranny crowd with this game. And that edgy humor was what made Postal 2 Postal 2, the over-the-top violence wasn't the only important part. And there is no way that RWS will be able to fix an entire storyline of the game.

-Unfinished, the game is unfinished even in it's 1.0 release. Get exploring and you'll find a lot of unfinished buildings, areas and whatnot. Plus, it's buggy, the game got pushed out in a unfinished state which will be forgiven by the RWS fanbase because "Postal games are jank LOL". A massive fuckup is not including the unstuck feature even though there's still a ton of places in Postal 4 where you can get stuck.

Also I don't know if this dude was playing an older version or if he had his settings turned down, but in my case a pirated 1.0 version of Postal 4 does have the charred skin texture. I remember that the development versions didn't have that, but it seems that RWS managed to put that in anyways. Same with performance, I don't know if it's my CPU upgrade or if RWS managed to do some optimization, but the game runs at stable FPS for me on an i5-12400, on that 1.0 version. The development versions on an i5-4460 lagged badly even on the lowest settings, so I have no idea if it's RWS fixing their shit or me upgrading my shit, or both.

Basically Postal 4 is just Postal 2 watered down with better graphics. Get Postal 2, plus Paradise Lost, install xPatch 2.0, or better yet, wait for xPatch 2.0 Extended to come out, as that adds plenty of content on top of all the bug fixing and play that.

 

[Bennytehsmeghead]

Though valid critiques for Postal 4 are:

-Dumbed down humor, less political mockery compared to Postal 2, but a lot more toilet humor which is off-putting, almost as if RWS was trying to appease to the tranny crowd with this game. And that edgy humor was what made Postal 2 Postal 2, the over-the-top violence wasn't the only important part. And there is no way that RWS will be able to fix an entire storyline of the game.

-Unfinished, the game is unfinished even in it's 1.0 release. Get exploring and you'll find a lot of unfinished buildings, areas and whatnot. Plus, it's buggy, the game got pushed out in a unfinished state which will be forgiven by the RWS fanbase because "Postal games are jank LOL". A massive fuckup is not including the unstuck feature even though there's still a ton of places in Postal 4 where you can get stuck.

Also I don't know if this dude was playing an older version or if he had his settings turned down, but in my case a pirated 1.0 version of Postal 4 does have the charred skin texture. I remember that the development versions didn't have that, but it seems that RWS managed to put that in anyways. Same with performance, I don't know if it's my CPU upgrade or if RWS managed to do some optimization, but the game runs at stable FPS for me on an i5-12400, on that 1.0 version. The development versions on an i5-4460 lagged badly even on the lowest settings, so I have no idea if it's RWS fixing their shit or me upgrading my shit, or both.

Basically Postal 4 is just Postal 2 watered down with better graphics. Get Postal 2, plus Paradise Lost, install xPatch 2.0, or better yet, wait for xPatch 2.0 Extended to come out, as that adds plenty of content on top of all the bug fixing and play that.

Then how do you explain that it has positive reception amongst fans?

 

[Ruin]

Then how do you explain that it has positive reception amongst fans?

Because taste is almost entirely subjective?

 

[Bennytehsmeghead]

Because taste is almost entirely subjective?

Oh, yeah. But still, my point still stands: The critique shouldn't be on the humour change, it should be on how it feels to GO POSTAL.

Basically, this is a massive problem with bad game reviews: When it comes to gameplay-driven properties, they focus on the superficial aspects, rather than the core gameplay.