Four Hated Game Reviews That Were Actually Completely Fair

With the controversy surrounding certain Halo 4 reviews continuing to attract attention, Mark Butler looks at four infamous instances where video game critics came under fire for their opinions – and explains why the vitriol was unwarranted in every case.

[SpiralTear]

Yes, we all get shocked when a game with vast critical acclaim gets a surprisingly low score, but everyone has their opinion. While I don't support reviews that base that opinion on facts and/or specs that are inaccurate, I do believe that reviewers are entitled to their own evaluation of a game.

I think Catherine's great, but I also think Jeff Gerstmann's great.

[wallis]

There's a bit of paradox to anyone who has a job that's basically talking. While social etiquette generally keeps the rest of us from flying off inside our own arses and basing our opinions off little more than stupid and incorrect representations of reality there's nothing stopping critics from doing this. They don't have to justify their opinions and they spend so long crying that they don't have to justify their opinions that what you end up with is a bunch of gamers talking about what they like, and nothing else.

You see this in how critics and audiences are often divided. The entertainment value of a critic will never be lost, i.e. yahtzee, but I think it would go a long way if most critics remembered the purpose of their job - which is to save the audience money and time - or else we end up with a) review scores that simply reflect what audiences want (basically fanboys will turn the scoring systems into a rating of 9+ perfect, anything less and you're getting death threats) or b) reviews that are elitist trite and are completely irrelevant as actual reviews, existing as little more than the arbitrary prioritization of one gamer's opinions over another.

[insomnium2]

Well said.

[MaxXAttaxX]

Article didn't mention when fans lost their minds when Halo 3 and Reach received 8s from a few sites and Gears 2 a (gasp!) 4/5.

[TheRealSpy]

i notice you only decided to mention 360 exclusives when the VERY same thing happened with Killzone, Uncharted, and Resistance.

[Old McGroin]

Well said man. I think where reviewers are going wrong these days is that they are writing their reviews based on their own personal preferences when in actual fact their job is to provide a completely unbiased opinion for a very broad audience. The most recent example of this was the reviewer who struck Halo 4 down for not having iron sight aiming for every weapon (amongst other things) and he ended that review by saying people would be disappointed because the game wasn't "keeping up with the Jonses". This was a perfect example of a reviewer rating a game based on it not containing mechanics in his own personal wish-list. In other words a biased review. Reviewers should rate games on what they actually contain, not what they don't contain, otherwise he/she will come off as completely biased. If left unchecked, what's next? Is this reviewer going to take marks off the next Grand Theft Auto game because it doesn't have the same car selection as Gran Tourismo? GTA fans would love that.

My point is, reviewers should always keep in mind their audience. The audience for Halo wanted to hear his opinion on Halo, not what he likes about other FPS games. And they should also remember that this is their job. They are being paid to provide unbiased opinions and so should act professionally. Stoking fanboy fires is not professional and stinks of hit-seeking.

So in a nutshell, I'm not saying reviewers aren't allowed to have an opinion. The opposite in fact. But because they are paid to offer their opinion they should offer it in a proffessional manner. If a mechanic in a game doesn't work then by all means mark the game down but be able to explain why. Don't mark a game down because you want it to be a different game.

[MaxXAttaxX]

Because the article mentioned PS3 exclusives and no 360 ones.
The same thing happens with every game. That was the point.

[Sketchy_Galore]

For me it was the IGN review of the first Assassin's creed game, which labelled it something like 'the first major disappointment of this gaming generation' if I remember correctly. I have to admit I got a little butthurt over that one because I was looking forward to it so much and wanted to believe then finally I played the game and discovered that the review was completely correct.

[SilentNegotiator]

The first one definitely disappointed. Between the miles of travel time between missions, horse speed limits, and repetitive gameplay...just not a great game.

[Nicaragua]

If you get butthurt over a review for a game that you havent even played then you are a total fucking idiot.

[Eyeco]

Assassins Creed 1 was a horrible game, i can't remember much from it either than holding down X/A the majority of the time it got old real quick. Assassins Creed 2 was awesome tho

[smashcrashbash]

Yeah I don't see how the person's absolutely wrong opinion about Kratos being unsympathetic personality should justify a lower score at all. Kratos has suffered for a whole chunk of his life and it's like people still don't get it. You sympathize his situation because he was royally screwed by people who were ten time worse then him. If people would read the Greek and Roman stories half the Gods' offspring were treated like dirt and Kratos's situation was no different. his anger and rage were justified ten time over and people always simply put it as Kratos simply being a jerk or an @$$hole which I constantly respond to by asking 'How would you behave if you went through what he did?' If you are going to start dragging out GOW for lack of innovation as opposed to it's predecessors, unsympathetic characters and same old formula then I have a list of games that need all their scores lowered immediately

[Rupee]

Wait so this is a review... of a review?

[Perjoss]

You sound surprised. We already have patches to fix patches and announcements for announcements.

[vickers500]

Yo dawg

[knifefight]

This sub-conversation is the best thing ever on N4G.

[Pilda]

Give yourself a break. Revies are just a subject opinion of one person. Every person is different. The only right opinion about a game yours after you try it.

[Hicken]

A review is NOT supposed to be a personal opinion. It's supposed to be an objective critique of a game, movie, music, or other... thing.

Sure, no review can be completely without personal bias, but it should be kept to a minimum; that's been horribly done this generation, which is why we even have this sort of article pop up in the first place.

[BozoLoco]

Que?

If it's objective -- stating the facts -- then it's not a critique. If it's not a critique, it's not a review.

What chu talkin' bout!?

[MRMagoo123]

I think you are confused hicken, noone can review anything without it being their own opinion unless they somehow use the collective thoughts of all humankind telepathically to do so.

[vickers500]

How are we supposed to review something then, being that fun is 100% SUBJECTIVE and all?

Do we judge a game by its technical aspects? "This game has no glitches, yet is no fun to play. PERFECT SCORE!".

There are only a handful of objective aspects of games, most of the elements are subjective.

Graphics are subjective (a game with a great art style can look far better than a game with a better resolution)
Value for what you get is subjective
Replayability is subjective (some people can play multiple playthroughs and multiplayer much longer than most people)
Sound is subjective (some people might hate the soundtrack, others might love it, some people might prefer guns that sound like they're from an action movie, others might prefer realistic gun sounds)
Story quality is subjective

There's just TOO LITTLE to actually be able to be objective about.

The thing about reviews, is that you can't just pick out the good ones, or the ones you like. You have to put up with the horribly written ones. It's up to you to move on and not bring so much attention to the reviews you hate when they pop up. Stop replying to those awful reviews in an uproar, because that only makes them last longer in the "news".

[dennett316]

There's no such thing as objective when it comes to good or bad Hicken. How else can you call a game good when there's no objective standard for what constitutes a good game?

The only objective criteria would be does the game function as intended - as in you put the disc in the drive, the game loads up and you can play it. Everything else after that is ALL opinion. You can back that opinion up with solid reasons based on what you experience, to make it more solid and not just "this game sucks" with nothing to back it up.

[BozoLoco]

Reviewers imo need to make sure their review is the end of what they have to say. Critics, especially game reviewers, get sucked into trying to justify their reviews and what they've said in the review. If the review was any good and it actually made a coherent argument as to the author's criticism then there wouldn't be any issues.

IMO reviewers too often put themselves on a pedestal like as if they know the ins and outs of game development, and think they have the capacity to lecture the reader on morality and the worth of a narrative. Yes, that's their job, but I think the title of critic brings with it power that some people either embrace, which allows them to brush criticism of their work off the shoulder, or high-and-mighty-ness, in which they feel like they have to respond to every single person that disagrees with them, like as if they will find some middle ground and come to a mutual agreement, which never happens.

The act of game reviewing is broken.

[dennett316]

Not in all cases. I'd argue that the majority of the time, it's the fragile egos of the gamers reading the review that are broken, their ability to provide counter argument to perceived criticism without resorting to insults or childish claims of "BIAS!" without knowing what the word actually means, their inability to handle opinions that don't match their own. That is what is more broken than ever. The review process has remained the same for decades, warts and all.

[BozoLoco]

No. The reader is NEVER at fault. They did not initiate the commentary.

[memots]

IS this still going on ?

[MeatAbstract]

Metacritic sucks and stirs up the fanboys to a horrible and verbally violent degree.

Review scores are pointless as the system is flawed. Too much is judged on a number rather than the words.

Reviewers are scared to lower scores in fear of fan backlash - again, pointless.

The review system needs to be totally changed.

Oh I remember the God of War 3 reviews. I saw fans whining over a 9. A 9! If you care about numbers and if these things dictate what games you do and do not play then you're a fool.

[Digimortal]

They need to get rid of that scoring system and grade system. Just have a written review and let gamers decide that way. Numbers and letters is what is making gamers believe a game is good but this is not the case. A critic review is no different then my own opinion, yours and everyone elses but there is one glaring problem, I'm playing the games you guy's ignore cause you think its a bad game cause of what a critic opinion has stated. Yet strictly going by what they say to convince you to buy or ignore a game is making that said gamer look bad in a way. Think about it, when you see a game get a score of 75 or below the gamer thinks right of the bat, that game sucks. When in reality that game could be a GOTY in there mind if they spent the time to try it out for themselves. This is how I've always approached gaming over the last 23 years since i started gaming. I can tell ya right now, the amount of games I've played over the years and including this generation mostly. I've discovered some of the best games I've played that got ignored, poor sales and other key elements. Shame on you gamers out there for taking numbers and grades to heart. Sorry If i happen to upset some of you but I'm just speaking my opinion on the matter.

Also if someone doesn't have interest in that said game but doesn't care for what it scored. Then that's perfectly fine. Ignoring a game you had interest in but you change your mind due to what a score that game has reserved is just disgusting.

[Jadedz]

Since when is a "1/5" for a AAA game (Halo 4 in this case, or any AAA game in general, rather) an honest review? If the game suffers from major glitches, has a bad framerate, terrible sound track, or incompleted level design, then I may agree with the reviewer. Only games that aren't playable or lack an considerable amount of content, deserve that type of score.

Sites like "Metacritic, and Gamerankings," have become gaming journalism's national weapons of defence system.

[dennett316]

I agree with this. People often mistake staleness of a series or lack of innovation for a game being bad. Games need to be reviewed on their own merits first, then with a mind to comparisons to other games in the genre/in the same series.

I think the best thing for reviews would be the elimination of scores altogether, with a thumbs up, down or in the middle as a quick guide for those who can't be bothered to read the review, while everyone else can make an informed decision based on the text.

[admiralvic]

It's actually not that simple. While I haven't played Halo 4 (so I obviously can't comment on that), it's really a 2 way street.

On one hand we have Skyrim (or anything by Beth), which runs quite poorly on the PS3. This means the game should have scored far lower from anyone using a PS3, though the game recieved universal praise like Fallout 3 and New Vegas (both of which worked poorly on the PS3). This game was saved 100% by gameplay / story, up to the point where it started scoring 9 / 10's (disagree or not, that is what happened).

On the other hand, I've played plenty of games that ran seemingly perfect, but were not that fun or had a poor story. These can easily bring a game from a 10 to a 5 if they make enough errors / short enough.

In the end, we all see these elements at different levels. Ideally only games with serious issues would score poorly, but there is plenty more to it than just "it has to feature serious issues to deserve such a score".

[e-p-ayeaH]

Here´s the thing - dont take the gaming media reviews seriously its not worth it you're better playing the games than reading their garbage.

[OooHJohnny]

troll article

[J86blum]

Dead Space I like the series so far and both the first and 2nd titles keep me entertained to this day. its one of the few titles I can hand the controller over to a friend while everyone sits in the dark and jumps still happen.

God of War 3 is right under perfect for me. it was AMAZING for a one time play through but after that didn't have much of a desire to do it again.

Never played Catherine but looks interesting.

Have not played HALO 4 and have no hate twords it. infact HALO Reach is one of my top FPS shooters (like the game/story/ sad tone.) and this coming from a PS3 owner.

[Gamesgbkiller]

Where is IGN on Ragnarok Odyssey ?!

[OmniSlashPT]

Yeah, remember when they gave 8/10 to Uncharted 2? me neither lmao

[EditorAtGNG]

Interesting how 2/4 games on that list are PS3 exclusives. Just saying, don't flame meh!

In all honesty, gamers these days are way too butt hurt anytime something doesn't match their taste. I believe it has something to do with gaming and gamers in general - we've developed into smug, all knowing entities that know better than anyone and if confronted with constructive criticism, we tend to snap and lash out without offering any real incentive as to why we think that other side is wrong.

Thing is, in games like in movies and books, personal involvement plays a huge role whether we will like something or not. Sure there are general directions and rules that have to be observed, as well as standards when it comes to reviewing, but still, the personal affiliation and opinion cannot be easily denied. For instance, I've never played Assassin's Creed as series, since I find them... boring. I can't seem to get pass the first few hours of the game... The story, the setting, the combat and the graphics are all decent and somewhat unique, but I just can't get hooked on the experience. On the other hand, I can't seem to stop playing Diablo 3, although the game is a shadow of its former (vastly superior) predecessor. See my point?

It is difficult to agree on the internet. Though it is healthy to observe discussions that offer opinions and conclusions DIFFERENT to our own. Variety can spark something new, homogenization in turn, just won't.

[kevnb]

i find god of war to be a series with good gameplay, but annoying story shoved down your throat. Kratos keeps yelling everything to everyone in a boring plot. Id rather just go from battle to battle and skip all the bs.

[The_Nameless_One]

Doesn't your claim holds true for almost every video game, especially action natured games. As a matter of fact; the only action based game that had an enjoyable story was Uncharted 2 and that's mostly due to the strengths of the characters. I've been gaming ever since my dad bought an Atari 2600 and I can count with one hand how many games games I've played that had a meaningful story.

[Norrison]

The Half-life series got a much more enjoyable story. Not hating on Uncharted though.

[cleft5]

The real problem is that hardcore gamers no longer trust reviewers on a whole. And even those few that we do like, gamers still view there reviews with a good deal of skepticism. Ultimately, game reviewers brought this on themselves by using reviews to get attention. The fact that a great deal of us think that most of the reviewers are paid off in one fashion or another doesn't help their credibility either.

We are just starting to see the backlash from people who no longer trust game reviewers and it is only going to get worse. It's funny because what really lead to this is reviewers moving away from the score method, where the reviewer analyzes certain major segments of a game (like graphics and gameplay) and more towards the opinion method, where reviewers talk about how they felt and what they liked when they played a game.

What we are left with is well written reviews that don't reflect the game at all, but rather the opinions of the writer. Quite frankly, I have my own opinion so I don't need someone else telling me their opinion about a game. I am sure you could argue that game reviews have always been opinions, but they really weren't in the past. In the past, game reviews where a reflection of that one game that was being play based on it's merits and not the merits of other games in the series. For example, RE6 got a lot of bad reviews because it wasn't like RE4 when those same reviewers gave RE5 high scores despite it not being like RE4 either.

In the end, gamers aren't stupid and we know whats going on in the game industry as well as the top level professionals. Even the fanboys know how things really are, they choose to ignore reality but they do know how things are. So when these game reviewers start selling us a load of crap we know what they are doing and they lose credibility over it.

[Captain Qwark 9]

i actually agree with all of those reviews. dead space has amazign gameplay and environments but its story is forgettable and often times i had to try to find a reason to keep playing as it all seem to blend into the same level on repeat.

i only played the demo of catherine so i cant really say anything about that on second thought

god of war 3 was a good game but nothing more, 8 is good. it didnt add much to the game and the story was weak compared to the previous two. the boss fights were amazing and the graphics top notch but as a whole, it changed less from 2 to 3 than call of duty does year to year.

and heavy rain.....absolutely brilliant and engaging story, just like the walking dead in fact. but the gameplay itself is rather boring, if it had a mediocre story as well people would trash it for being the most boring game ever

[Lvl_up_gamer]

I have to disagree about Dead Space.

Dead Space is rich with lore and the game's story line made absolute sense. There was nothing forgettable about Dead Space's story unless you didn't understand it and couldn't follow it, I really do see how anyone could say it was forgettable.

[Captain Qwark 9]

i assume you meant "don't see how"....

and idk, i could follow it and its there but i guess i just didnt like how it was presented. i had the same issue with bioshock and even borderlands. i would prefer more cutscenes just to make it easier to follow. but thats just my opinion. i still think deadspcae is a very good game dont get me wrong, i just wish the story was more engaging. i still bought deadspace 2 ( which i did find improved in almost every way ) and will get 3 because the gameplay is just so nice and i will really enjoy more variety in the environment

[The_Nameless_One]

Nice piece. It pretty much shows one of the biggest flews with game reviews these days. Of course I'm talking about scores. Most gamers these days seem to not care about reading the actual review and only glance at the score.

Surprised the article didn't mention Eurogamer's Uncharted 3 review.

As far as Jim Sterling then I just tend to ignore anything coming from him and Destroctoid. Jim's MO is basically this: Do most people like this (insert game name here)? Then I hate it. Do most dislike (insert game name here) Then I love it. The guy's an attention whore of the highest degree.

[AO1JMM]

Tom Chick is just a troll out for website hits.

[Tontus]

God of War III is as near perfect as any game I've ever played. It's easily a 10/10 game and any critic giving it less than a 9/10 is a troll, thankfully hardly any critics did as the game got mostly 10's and a lot of 9.5 - 9.9's and then some 9.0 - 9.4's with a almost non existent amount of scores less than 9.0.

The graphics, sound, story, pacing, boss fights, set-pieces, level design and gameplay is all just so incredibly brilliant, why else would it be the highest rated, most beloved and best selling game in the genre of all time. It was easily the GOTY in 2010 like God of War: Ascension will be in 2013.

And to those idiots saying the story wasn't great, you obviously lack the adequate analytically skills to even consider what the message of the story is. It's amazing and a lot of internet dwelling nerds have no idea what it's even about. I have seen some idiots say they didn't like the story and when I spoke to them about it they didn't even know why Kratos was angry... I mean come on. Some people still don't understand why Kratos killed himself and what Athena's motives were.

You know, if God of War III had a narrator throughout the story I bet more people would've appreciated its brilliance like the first 2 GoW games, I think the problem some people had with GoW 3's story is that they just couldn't fully understand the moral of it and the motives and history of the characters and setting. It's truly one of the best stories in gaming once you can completely comprehend it.

[PooEgg]

I used to have subscriptions to every video game magazine out there, but over the past couple of years I have ended up cancelling every single one. These days I hold off on buying games, and spend time actually listening to what other gamers are saying, before I buy the game. Sure that means I sometimes have to dig through a mountain of fake reviews to get the real story, but it still works better then trusting the professional reviews that rarely bother to mention things like bugs and game length, two things that can really make of break a game for me.