Games that are critic proof

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

I don't think there is a game that can be called critic proof made yet...

My guess is that it will come out in twenty years and be developed by Valve.

 

[TheKillerCliche]

OP, if there is a game that gamers will buy no matter the reviewers score, it has to be your avatar.



New Vegas.

 

[Daedalus1942]

So the thought crossed mt mind...what games can you think of that are more or less critic proof? Im not trying to turn this into another StarCraft2 thread, it its the most recent game that I can imagine falls into this topic. The point is can you think of any other games that at announcment you knew everybody would wind up buying no matter what reviewers said about it?

Peggle. You can't fault it.

 

[Jay Cool]

Could people please read what this topic is about!

Mario games are generally guaranteed to sell well.

I believe that the critics should be able to badmouth any game they think is crap, and hate that some guy lost his job over kane and lynch, no it does not deserve capital letters.
If you want your game to sell well, make a good game. If we want a good game, we have to stop buying poorly executed games.
I hope Portal 2 is awesome, because practically every gamer with a Steam account is going to buy it as soon as they can.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Mass Effect II... Fuck knows why. There were so many problems that people ignored and gave it a fucking shining score -.-
-edit- I even bought the collector's edition, and psyched myself up for it, only to find it's probably the worst game I've played all year.

 

[r0mulu5]

for both sales and the potential to be critic proof I'd say Portal 2.
On sales I'd say MW2, starcraft 2 and the next WoW expansion

 

[Plauged1]

Call of duty, halo, and many other franchises will always sell well, despite what anyone says about them. Alot have already said that cod:mw2 is perfect for this category but Im sure there are very many others, such as gtaIV. Also, alot of ea and nintendo games have and probably always will sell alot.

 

[migo]

I think the Final Fantasy series is a good example; the most recent one got middling reviews but still sold 6 million so far.

That's 'cause most of the people doing reviews aren't the target audience of RPGs, so they're just reviewing something they don't really like or have no interest in.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Mass Effect II... Fuck knows why. There were so many problems that people ignored and gave it a fucking shining score

Because it was awesome? It was a proper sequel - it took a brilliant game, and improved on it in almost every way (I say 'almost' because I really could have done without the planet-scanning. I'm commander of this fucking ship, and if I want a planet scanned then I tell a goddamned ensign to do it!). It deserved it's high score for that alone, let alone the excellent quality of the gameplay and writing. Much like Assassin's Creed 2, it was a sequel that adressed and fixed many of the criticisms of the original, and that's guaranteed to please critics.

Red Dead Redemption. The most boring game ever, just GTA with a texture pack and some wild west accents. Yet everyone and his dog raved about it, saying it was the best game ever and stuff. A lot of critics are just afraid to diss the big games, it seems.

Yeah, exactly like GTA but with no cars, a totally different setting, different characters and an original storyline, new weapons and minigames, no stupid friendship missions....but yeah, other than all that totally superficial stuff, RDR was exactly the same as GTA IV.

I don't understand the "critics are scared to diss big games" attitude. If a big-budget game comes out that actually sucks, it gets critically panned. Yet everyone forgets this when a big games comes out to universal acclaim, but they personally dislike it. All of a sudden it's some dark conspiracy between game critics to heap praise on anything because they're afraid not to.

GTA IV was pretty much universally acclaimed.

The actual players vote differs, however.

IIRC, there was a news post here on the Escapist a good while back which claimed that only around 30% of people even finished GTA IV. I'm in the 70%, because that last overly-long mission with the warehouse/boat/helicopter stages is a *****, and dying boots you right back to the start. In the end I lost patience with it, much as I did with the game; towards the end I gave up on the annoying friends and the minigames, and just tried to rush to the end of the story.

The point is can you think of any other games that at announcment you knew everybody would wind up buying no matter what reviewers said about it?

This is how franchise games work. Let's say Halo 4 was announced. Every critic in the world could come out and call it a stinking pile of shit, but it would still shift units. What sucks is when games are roundly praised, but nobody pays attention and they slip into obscurity.

 

[Baldry]

No game is critic proof, everything has a flaw, if the perfect game was invented God would descend from the pearly gates and bless it as the chosen one, who would lead us to salvation. Or something like that

 

[Daedalus1942]

Mass Effect II... Fuck knows why. There were so many problems that people ignored and gave it a fucking shining score

Because it was awesome? It was a proper sequel - it took a brilliant game, and improved on it in almost every way (I say 'almost' because I really could have done without the planet-scanning. I'm commander of this fucking ship, and if I want a planet scanned then I tell a goddamned ensign to do it!). It deserved it's high score for that alone, let alone the excellent quality of the gameplay and writing. Much like Assassin's Creed 2, it was a sequel that adressed and fixed many of the criticisms of the original, and that's guaranteed to please critics.

If by improved you mean gutted every possible RPG element, altered the plot detrimentally and turned it into what was pretty much another short, generic third person shooter.. then yes, they improved on it immensely.

 

[Dr. Awesome Face]

snip

Read what this guy wrote. I agree with almost everything he said. Except on the subject of a Halo 4 being announced. Halo 3 came out to universal acclaim as did its predecessors. Halo gets a pretty bad rap on the interwebs, but a lot of these people are included in the 98% of the internet that are idiots, just conforming because someone else said halo was bad. I presume that Halo Reach will do pretty well, both critically and in sales. Feel free to disagree but I really doubt that a "Halo 4" would be panned by critics.

 

[GamingAwesome1]

I don't think any game is really critic proof.

Tetris

Shit.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Read what this guy wrote. I agree with almost everything he said. Except on the subject of a Halo 4 being announced. Halo 3 came out to universal acclaim as did its predecessors. Halo gets a pretty bad rap on the interwebs, but a lot of these people are included in the 98% of the internet that are idiots, just conforming because someone else said halo was bad. I presume that Halo Reach will do pretty well, both critically and in sales. Feel free to disagree but I really doubt that a "Halo 4" would be panned by critics.

That was my point, actually. Even if Halo 4 was panned by critics, people would still buy it by the truckload. I wasn't trying to bash on Halo, just saying that this is how franchises tend to work; they sell on the strength of previous popular games as much as they do on any innovations that may have been made.

If by improved you mean gutted every possible RPG element, altered the plot detrimentally and turned it into what was pretty much another short, generic third person shooter.. then yes, they improved on it immensely.

If by gutted you mean streamlined...I wasn't a fan of the RPG elements being toned down, but you can hardly argue that they've been gutted. You get, what, a few less skills? Oh, the horror. Other than that, the RPG factor is the same; you build a character, make decisions that clearly define your character, build relationships with other characters, and make decisions which have an effect on the plot. Sounds a lot like an RPG to me.

I'm replaying the original ME currently, and you really have time to reflect on how crappy the action sequences are once you've played ME2. The combat overhaul was necessary to prevent the stale combat from the first game - don't get me wrong, I love ME, but the combat from the second game pisses all over the first. Being able to tactically place squad members makes a ton of difference when you combine doing so with the right weapon choices, and the improvement (yes, improvement, ME was a cover-based shooter too if you were smart) of the cover system helped a lot. Was it reminiscent of other shooters? Yes. Did that make it any less of a game? No.

 

[Necrofudge]

I think you need to go retro. Nobody's about to say that Tetris isn't a great game.

Honestly I think this is probably going to be the best answer. Not the Tetris part (although I love Tetris), but the retro part. The older games have lower standards so critics have less to work with. What bad thing can you say about Mario Kart? Or Pacman?

Nothing thats what.

 

[Exia91]

The point is can you think of any other games that at announcment you knew everybody would wind up buying no matter what reviewers said about it?

Cataclysm?

OT:
My vote goes for Blizzards games. They usually are pretty damn good and highly popular across the entire globe.

 

[Infernai]

Portal