Worst Game Reviewers?

[The Floating Nose]

Most people from That Guy With The Glasses. Aside from being complete ego-filled assholes from time to time. They are generally pretty awful reviewers (especially Spoony and The Nostalgia Critc when he gets incredibly inconsistent) but DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE to talk bad about them they have an army of dipshits fanboys who will defend them 2 THA DEATH !

Spoony: Never explains why he doesn't like a movie, he just makes fun of it and then claim to be a critic.

Nostalgia critic: Running out of steam, was really funny when he started but now he is reduced to doing only crossover reviews. Makes fun of a movie and pointing out bad stuff for an entire 20 minutes only to say at the last 30 seconds of his videos that the movie is not all that bad.

 

[Burst6]

I don't know about angry joe. I sort of like his reviews. His videos tend to be longer and more detailed and i agree with him most of the time. Even if i don't i generally get enough info about the game to decide for myself. He's also one of the few reviewers out there who makes use of the whole 1-10 scoring system instead of 10 is perfect, 9 is good, 8 is ok, anything lower is crap.

 

[Aerosteam]

IGN immediately pops into my mind. It's a shame how a company so shit at reviews has such a big following.

And don't get me started with official gaming magazines.

 

[Austin Howe]

Noah Antwhiler. Most of the stuff he calls out is truly horrid, but in some cases it's just blind rage and a complete disconnect with the idea that plot holes don't have to ruin something, especially if they have nothing to do with the thematic content of a work. I mean for pete's sake, he basically gave friggin' Blade Runner a negative review. That's a movie with problems, but nothing that he comes up with.

 

[Stabby Joe]

New thread title: Reviewers that gave a game I was hyped for less than a perfect score!

 

[Vausch]

Not quite the reviewer per se, but the controversy surrounding it: Gamespots review of the first Kayne and Lynch. The reviewer basically got fired as Gamespot had the games ads plastered on its website and he gave it a 6/10. Obviously, the publisher wasn't happy about this. It makes me doubt pretty much all of Gamespots professional reviews.

An actual one: Gamesweasel give pretty much every game a 7/10. They basically think all games are slightly better than ok.

Y'know, the numerical style of game reviewing leaves me very confused on a lot of occasions. In gaming, an 8 out of 10 is considered something like "Mixed bag" but if a film had an 8 on IMDB for example it would be incredibly high rated and likely to be very well liked by many. Plus it's rare to see a game get something lower than say a 5 or a 6. I think the lowest reviews I see are from people like Angry Joe, but when he gives a game a score he gives a lot of justification for any faults he sees in it. Then there's Jim Sterling pointing out an 8 is really a great score but it's come to mean the game was hated to some.

What really does a game score represent in the end? If the game is technically functional but the story is absolute tripe, what does that deserve? If the game's story is brilliant but the controls tend to be buggy, does that knock it off or does the story make up for it? Games can be difficult to review because interactivity creates a lot of different experiences.

That said, I'd have to say I'm not a big fan of Gamespot. See the Kayne and Lynch fiasco.

 

[Vausch]

Edit: Damn double post, sorry all.

 

[hazabaza1]

Spoony: Never explains why he doesn't like a movie, he just makes fun of it and then claim to be a critic.

-Worst game reviews.
"Spoony reviews movies badly."
lolwut

If you go through his Ultima series he actually does quite well explaining why he loves the old games and why the new ones have been getting progressively worse.

OT: Can't spell ignorance witho-okay, you know the joke.
But seriously, their God Hand review was done by someone who admitted they gave up on the first level (I think) because it was too hard and they said it was bad because. The shit.

 

[Simonoly]

Can't think of any individual reviewers off the top of my head but I do find Kotaku to produce the most useless reviews I have ever read.

In all honesty though, I think the way video games are reviewed in the majority of publications/websites is terrible. You can be subjective up to a point, but you have to eventually take an objective stance on the product you are reviewing so as to not misinform your readership. If a game is a technical disaster than by all means the reviewer should tear it to shreds, but if it is quite obviously not a disaster but it's simply not to the reviewers tastes or they simply have trouble 'getting' the game, I want them to say. Is it really that hard to be a little bit empathetic towards your audience? I didn't particularly enjoy playing Kingoms of Amalur but I can see how others would enjoy it and could quite happily list all those points for the purpose of a review.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

I find IGN's Greg Miller to be rather annoying. Sometimes he seems like a giant 5-year-old.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

You know what? Even though he's my absolute favourite reviewer and a fantastic wordsmith and all around a top bloke, I'd have to say Jim Sterling.

I don't know, there's something about him voicing his own opinion that causes a caustic, inert rage to bubble up to the surface to most people on the internet. If he scores a game lowly? Well it must be good. If he scores a game high? Well it must be bad! I have no idea what he did to deserve such bile, but it's damn well fun to watch. I personally love him and manage to agree with most everything he says too (even when his opinion is contrary to my own, GASP), but... yeah. Just wow.

 

[lumenadducere]

I think everyone should watch this before this thread goes any further.


Reviews are always going to be subjected to personal opinion. Someone giving Call of Duty a 9 or Journey a 4 does not say anything about their credibility as a critic. It speaks to the kind of games they enjoy.

This does not make them a bad critic. If you use critics to determine what games you are going to buy or not, then it's always a wise decision to see a number of reviews from different people (I like to go with Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, and Angry Joe as my combination) so you can get varying viewpoints and make your decision while being informed.

Critics do not exist to validate what you like and hate. That's not a critic. That's an attention whore.

While this is a very valid point, there are also many reviewers out there that are genuinely bad at writing reviews - as in, if you read the written portion of the review rather than the scores, it's evident that they don't bother to learn certain mechanics of the game or that they completely miss something that other players have to point out. You can make the argument that "it should have been more evident in the game if it was missed" but when things like that happen consistently enough to the same reviewer (or the same company/publishing group/whatever) then I don't think it's a stretch to say that the reviewer or company themselves has some poor writers and reviewers. Either that or they're assigning the wrong person to the games they have to review - why assign someone who only likes shooters to review a puzzler or RPG? And cases like that have happened often enough to where it's not unheard of.

This especially tends to happen with games that aren't publicized as well...which actually leads to the other topic of how incredibly screwed the whole reviewing process is. The fact that gaming news sites are so dependent upon publishers and developers to garner readers (who thus generate hits for ad revenue) makes for a terribly skewed perspective. There are many reasons as to why AAA games get good reviews, and oftentimes it is because they're genuinely good. But sometimes it's also because a publisher has a lot of pressure on the news site to produce a favorable review, lest they suddenly find themselves without an invite to the next press preview of an upcoming game. And if you're the only site without a preview that all other news sites have, then guess where your readers go? And guess where those hits/ad revenue goes as well?

So yeah. There are lots of issues that can lead to genuinely bad reviews beyond the catch-all of "it's all subjective." In many cases you're right and it's simply a matter of subjectivity...but in quite a few others it's not, and those shouldn't be dismissed under the umbrella of subjectivity.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

Gameoverthinker- He wants to see things that aren't there. At first I thought he was just trying to be deliberately contrarian but then he set himself up as Bioware's White Knight. And he gets upset at those people who will buy everything George Lucas shits out. Fucking hypocrite.

How is calling out the "Take back Mass Effect" as a gigantic overreaction being a White Knight for Bioware?

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I wouldn't have had an opinion if I had not seen this video:

Wait, are you saying the Kotaku guy is bad or that Chip and Ironicus are bad? Cause you really didn't make yourself clear.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

I think everyone should watch this before this thread goes any further.


Reviews are always going to be subjected to personal opinion. Someone giving Call of Duty a 9 or Journey a 4 does not say anything about their credibility as a critic. It speaks to the kind of games they enjoy.

This does not make them a bad critic. If you use critics to determine what games you are going to buy or not, then it's always a wise decision to see a number of reviews from different people (I like to go with Yahtzee, Jim Sterling, and Angry Joe as my combination) so you can get varying viewpoints and make your decision while being informed.

Critics do not exist to validate what you like and hate. That's not a critic. That's an attention whore.

Just because a review is biased opinion doesn't mean we can't dislike them for their opinions.

I hate Gamespot and IGN reviews, they've always been poorly written and I've caught both damning one game for a feature/problem then shrugging off the same feature/problem later for other games. Gamespot in particular seems so unenthusiastic I start getting tired watching/reading them.

 

[Cat of Doom]

I love Moviebob, but hate the game other-thinker.

He seems to have no idea what a good game is, and once his decided he doesn't like something (Halo) he will go to extream lengths to dig up shit and 'Over-think' minor details turning them into huge problems, whilst refusing to search for problems in games he has decided he likes (Anything Nintendo). Fortunately his movie reviews are less bias and I agree with him on most things.

I hate most of the TGWTG cast, and find them SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO unfunny (Bar NC, angry joe and formally spoony). I relate most to angry joe, we're very like-minded gamer's and I will often buy a game on his opinion alone. Spoony to me isn't a real reviewer, to fanboyish, but funny as hell.

Though most say his not a 'real critic' and I often disagree with him (especially over Valve games) I do trust Yahtzee as a critic, and often buy games he speaks of highly. If he is reviewing a so so, dull shooter or similar, he usually just makes jokes, but when he is more passionate about a game, he gives a good rundown of the games mechanics and story devises in both his written and video articles.

Also I hate ign.

Especially that guy who critizied indie game E.Y.E, for not being as good as Triple A powerhouse's gears of war 3 and Deus ex

EDIT: also want to give Jim sterling and most of the destructoid staff a mention; good honest reviews.