What's the worst game review you've read?

What's the worst or most baffling game review you have read?

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Was reading up on Splinter Cell: Conviction yesterday, and came across IGN's Hilary Goldstein review from 2012. which is completely nonsensical and just, makes you wonder if he even played the other games.

Starting off, he claims he finished it in a single sitting, then going on to make the claim enemies were meant to be avoided in past games.

Aside from games like Splinter Cell 1/3 being longer y at least a few hours, the games were designed around replay, be it the player opting for lethal/pacific play-through or using different routes with different load-outs. In some cases such as Double Agent, alternate story-event and endings are possible. This is objectively false. In actuality, they were easier playing lethal.

He excuses this with "multiplayer", but these games, aside from having longer, replayable content, had all this. And better.

Hilary further goes on to state the AI is smart and won't be fooled for long.

This is false, you just sit at a corner, press X for an overly generous take-down, refill the mark and execute, rinse and repeat. Regardless of difficulty setting.

You can do this practically anywhere in the game because the AI largely doesn't take into account players sound now attempt to circumvent this cheesing in anyway. And that's what it is, cheesing, not a reward for sneaking. With a reward being literally a "win" button.

Because Sam is so sped up and damage isn't comparable to instantaneous death like the last games, you really don't need to be careful. You just sprint 10 feet away and they reset into patrol mod.

The argument of "more enemies than you could every mark" is nonsensical. You can just funnel them all into a spot repeatedly and refill it. Having 2/3 marks becomes null when it's so easily replenished as to become infinite.

One of the more baffling comments is how the weapon load-outs change strategy, citing "it changes your mark count", which is irrelevant.

Splinter Cell is a series about gadgets, toys for the player to engage with. Smoke bombs, listening devices, sticky cameras, tranquilliser darts, hacking tools etc...

All of this is completely absent, it's a gun load-out where some weapons do more damage than others, with the game streamlined to the point, all you are doing is shooting people with absolutely no emphasis on anything else.

The only stealth part of the game "if you are spotted, you fail the mission" is the thing he complains about.

The review summery states it's a Splinter Cell game in name only you may not recognise, then immediately praises it as a great entry - cancelling out all previous entries as antiquated.

Jesus.

Quite a few are just awful, but going at what stook with me and keeping it to English reviews. A standout is GS own Uncharted 4: A Thieves End. It's basically an advert glossing over anything that could be questionable about gameplay. Spends so much time praising Naughty Dog they forgot to be subjective and informative. Two basic principles to a review. Oh, one minor detail about the cover system hasn't changed for five games but that's ok? . .

I was already speculative over the series after U3, which I consider a pretty bad game. May have to do more with Mike Mahardy, I just think he writes bad reviews. He has no actual focus on a reviews intent and doubles down on a narrow field-of-view.

Also whomever reviewed Monster Hunter: World(I don't care to remember reviewers name), claiming to be a long franchise fan of the series and moaned World was too hard. Is very questionable. . . Very, very questionable.

At launch MH:W was arguably the easiest MH game in the franchise. And even with Extreme Behemoth and Arch Tempered Kulve Taroth in the later updates is questionably easier than (many) past games. Double Apex Rajang anyone?

Mario Kart 64 Review

Even with all its bells and whistles, Mario Kart 64 is very likely to disappoint you after about a week.

By Trent Ward on February 6, 1997 at 12:00AM PST

• Super Mario Kart, one of the greatest head-to-head titles ever released for the cartridge systems, is back, this time for the Nintendo 64. There's a whole new set of courses, new racers, slick 3-D graphics, and most surprisingly, a four-player simultaneous play option. This should all be great news to Mario Kart fans, and in fact it is - sort of.
• Don't get me wrong: There's nothing really wrong with the new Mario Kart - the increasingly rotund plumber and his jolly crew have never looked and sounded so good. And from Wario's penguin-like mumblings to the glittering crown on the Princess'- head, it's obvious that the design team was plenty willing to get down and dirty with the presentation aspects of the game. The addition of more detailed sliding techniques and a few new nasty things to distract (read: crash) your opponents are welcome features (the deadly lightning bolt just can't be beat for dispensing raw fear). But once you get past the predictable new additions, you begin to realize that there's really not much depth to Mario Kart 64.

History has shown us plenty of titles that featured the very best sound and graphics money could buy which still somehow ended up being not much fun to play - Killer Instinct, Rebel Assault, and Tomb Raider all come to mind. While Mario Kart 64 is certainly better than most of these titles, it still shows a lack of solid play design that really hurts its long-term play value. First off, and perhaps most importantly, single-play mode is just too easy. This is due in part to the game's extra wide tracks, and in part to the poor AI routines - which deliver opponents who seem more like they're on their way to the local convenience store than in an all-out race for the finish line. This same lack of play consideration also infects the super-large battle courses. The result is that players can (and do) drive around for minutes without even spotting an opponent - much less getting a chance to score a hit. None of these problems ever really destroys the game entirely, but they do make it more difficult to get excited about picking up the controller for more than a handful of races. This is a big surprise considering Nintendo has built its empire on solid control and design in its games.

If you own a Nintendo 64, you're probably going to buy this game whether or not you read and heed this review - after all, there aren't really a lot of N64 games to choose from, and it IS a Mario title. Fair enough. The thing is, even with all its bells and whistles, Mario Kart 64 is very likely to disappoint you after about a week. I wouldn't feel right about not giving you that warning. That said, I'm off to Mario Kart on my SNES to reminisce about the good old days, and dream of what this cartridge could have been.

Any review that gave COD4 over a 8 most overrated MP game ever.

There was a reviewer on this site who regularly reviewed games and brought up political correctness and social issues more than the actual game. Kevin or something I think his name was? Terrible reviewer.

Kevin Vanord.

I don't remember that at all tbh, but it was years back.

Having read his Conviction review, I disagree with that, but at least he took into account the PC port quality and inflated game price, which is basically something that never happens now, which I've been complaining about for a while (see MK11).

Alien Resurrection Review for the Playstation was genuinely funny. Who would have known that the highly criticized dual analog control scheme would become the norm?

Yeah that one is absoluteluy hilarious, I periodically go back and read it for a good laugh.

"The game's control setup is its most terrifying element. The left analog stick moves you forward, back, and strafes right and left, while the right analog stick turns you and can be used to look up and down. [...] You'll be wondering how Sony let this get by without requesting a few different control configuration options."

@l3igl3oss: wow lol, I guess he never played a PC fps ever

What an amazing question.

Feels like I've complained a thousand times about places like IGN, Polygon, GI, etc. and countless posts about their hypocrisy.

The Shadow of the Tomb Raider reviews were pretty shitty. I think it was Game Spot who had some freelance person do it, and gave it a 6, and it was the dumbest shit I've ever read. In fact, the lowest scored reviews on best games are often a gold mine for ignorance.

I have a few games that I think is very poorly reviewed like IGN's infamous Godhand review which to this day baffled me or Gamespot's GTAV review (The negative point was about feminist politics)

I remember when IGN gave it 9/10, and all the Sony fanboys went after the reviewer saying she didn't know what she was talking about blah blah... it was pretty pathetic.

There's no way in hell that game is a 10/10.

@hrt_rulz01: Full heatedly agree. Some people are just too immature and drown in zeitgeist mentality.

Here is the thing I really like my Playstations, always have. . But uh. . Fanbois, I hate 'em. Even removed my Uncharted 3 review because of the overwhelming backlash it got. Got a lot of angry posts and PMs over one game, that wasn't even worth the effort. Gave it a hard 5/10 and felt I justly rated it fairly on the complaints to positives.

I thought Kevin VanOrd's review were pretty good, and I don't remember anything like you've described. I actually considered him one of the best reviewers GS had - basically stopped reading GS reviews after he left.

I think you are thinking of someone else - maybe Carolyn Petit. To be fair I think that was all overblown (as usually happens with anything on the internet relating to SJW, especially in gaming). People would rather read a thing and be outraged than just ignore something that will trigger them. Anyway I think she left over something like that.

And after those 2 left Gamespot became 8Spot and the forums were purged.

I dunno maybe my head timeline is off.

Gamespot's review of Gauntlet Legends on the N64. They panned the game for some of the dumbest things. Like the Elven Archer being a female. When did we look to Gauntlet for deep characters? That and they outright lied about being able to beat the game by just pushing the analog stick when that attack is slow and would get you killed against bigger enemies.

Agreed, his reviews seemed well structured. Actually told Gamers what they wanted to read/hear. Sometimes outspoken when on the panels for events, but as far as reviews go, don't recall him doing a bad job. A dying breed.