Decline Share The Absolute Worst of Game Journalism

[Chuck Norris]

Pretty much the title.

For starters, I begin with the classic "Cuphead" video, where the game journalist spends 26 minutes playing the tutorial, incapable of following the simplest instructions.

 

[pOcHa]

gamers are dead

 

[JamesDixon]

Anything put out by Kotaku, IGN, Gamespot, etc...

 

[Ezekiel]

I followed Last of Us, Part II playthrough by checking some reviews to figure out why they liked it so much. What I found particularly ridiculous in those reviews are the empty statements about how the game handles violence, when Ellie's revenge is so unrealistic. The autistic extent to which she pursued it, the hundred people who had to die to get at one person, all that she risked, because she felt guilty about the last thing she said to him. I'll buy it in something intentionally silly and over the top like Lady Snowblood or Kill Bill, but Last of Us aims for more grimdark realism, and no person would do this for a deceased father figure.

https://www.gameinformer.com/review...he-last-of-us-part-ii-review-a-perfect-circle

"These philosophical considerations can be uncomfortable to wrestle with, but Naughty Dog conveys them with careful nuance and unflinching emotion, creating a narrative masterpiece with a unique power few games have ever achieved."



https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...zombie-fiction-playstation-4-naughty-dog-sony

"Instead, it’s about the motivations for that violence, the endless cycles of retribution that pull individuals or whole populations down into destructive spirals, and what it takes to break those cycles. There were parts of it that I had to endure rather than enjoy, furious or disgusted by what characters were doing – and, by extension, by what I was doing. There will be many players who don’t like where this story takes them, but by God, it’s emotionally effective."

"The Last of Us Part II is defined by its story at every turn, and Naughty Dog masterfully weaves its themes in at every level. It depicts the raw violence that Ellie uses to navigate this harsh world, and that violence feeds into pivotal plot points during her quest for revenge. Yes, you kill many humans and Infected along the way, but the accumulated effect of Ellie’s fury weighs on you over time. Even as you clear an area of hostile guards, you question your own role in the brutality. The people you assassinate have names, and you can overhear them talking about their loved ones as you sneak up on them."

 

[Falksi]

Very noble thread, excellent work.

A few lowlights...



IGN's greatest games ever.
https://www.ign.com/articles/the-best-100-video-games-of-all-time

No Deus Ex, not 1 solitary SHMUP, not 1 solitary Beat Em Up, not one Sonic game, 4 of the top 5 Nintendo games etc. etc. Complete shambles of a list...

I mean FFS, missing two of THE biggest genres off from the list which the gaming industry was built on in the 80's is IGNorant beyond belief. It's literally saying "I've never really looked into anything about gaming before today"




Then we have... IGN's Alien Isolation Review

We didn't get a sequel to this excellent game because of the poor sales which followed this travesty of a review. Bunch of cunts.



And finally... Nintendo Life's Gleylancer Reviews

This one I just find fucking hilarious. When the SEGA Megadrive version of Gleylancer gets reviewed they say "Gley Lancer isn’t the most original blaster you’re likely to experience on Sega’s 16-bit console and there are far better examples out there." and score it a 7/10....

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2008/05/gley_lancer_virtual_console

....fast forward a few years and it gets a Switch release. Suddenly it's a Nintendo game, so obviously has magically become better, despite it being the exact same game and playing exactly the same too (bar a few minor fluff additions to the game options). Instead of it being "not the most original blaster" they say.....HAHAHHA....this is the bit which makes me laugh in contrast to the previous review....."Gleylancer is as fresh and thrilling as it’s ever been"

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/switch-eshop/gleylancer

TL:DR
Game not on Nintendo = Not original
Exactly the same game on Nintendo = Fresh and thrilling

 

[Darth Roxor]

I don’t think that Disco Elysium is the greatest game of them all or something like that. To think that, one would need to place it in the old and tired hierarchy of cRPGs. Doing so would be missing the entire point. DE is not the best; it’s unlike the rest: in its form, attitude, inspirations, aesthetic principles. An alien from the art planetoid that has brought a taste of real disco with it. I’d say it’s a didactic tale more than anything else. It shows that video games can be a vessel for more than various shades of entertainment and outsider art: the lesson is liberating as much as it is traumatic. It’s not very clear how to proceed from this point forward, but god knows, the medium needed this wake-up call.

 

[NecroLord]

Everything from Kotaku.

 

[HansDampf]

If the intent here is to follow a Soulsian "hard is good" philosophy and apply it to the survival genre, this is misplaced. Souls games are about reaction, movement, and practice. You can't practice finding a piece of bread.

(...)

Put all this together with the samey character models and the clumsy combat, and Pathologic 2 starts to feel less like an interesting failure and more like a budget Skyrim.

- Rock Paper Shotgun

 

[pOcHa]

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

italian journos from a very specific magazine gave us some precious gems.
on the top of my head i can recall vampire bloodlines "the game is awesome but we're lowering its score because it's not translated", victoria "the game is too complex for me, so it must be bad", guild wars eye of the north [two pages of nothing and pics from the official website], or the often used explanation "our review code is flawless, if you encounter bugs it's because you download warez which is purposedly tampered with".
now that i think of it, the absolute first place crown goes to the editor in chief himself: "those who don't appreciate mass effect 3 ending deserve all the evil in this world".

 

[James_xeno]

gamers are dead

 

[Fedora Master]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/search/...]=1&c[nodes][0]=10&c[users]=Infinitron&o=date

 

[Jarpie]

The infamous Football Manager 09 review by IGN, they gave it 2/10, I couldn't find the review because it's been removed but I did find an article with some choice quotes:
“Yes, the depth of management in this game is impressive. But, it’s not impressive enough to make up for the fact that you aren’t actually playing soccer.”
“There is no traditional gameplay to speak of. I couldn’t imagine why anybody would prefer Worldwide Soccer Manager to FIFA 09 or Pro Evolution Soccer 2009.”
“As far as traditional gameplay goes, there really isn’t any in Worldwide Soccer Manager 2009. Apart from managing your roster and coaching your team, there really isn’t anything to do at all.”

 

[Alex]

I don’t think that Disco Elysium is the greatest game of them all or something like that. To think that, one would need to place it in the old and tired hierarchy of cRPGs. Doing so would be missing the entire point. DE is not the best; it’s unlike the rest: in its form, attitude, inspirations, aesthetic principles. An alien from the art planetoid that has brought a taste of real disco with it. I’d say it’s a didactic tale more than anything else. It shows that video games can be a vessel for more than various shades of entertainment and outsider art: the lesson is liberating as much as it is traumatic. It’s not very clear how to proceed from this point forward, but god knows, the medium needed this wake-up call.

To be fair, the reviewer is right that DE isn't an RPG.

 

[NecroLord]

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/search/...]=1&c[nodes][0]=10&c[users]=Infinitron&o=date

Infinitron, the game journalist.
Should Kotaku hire him?

 

[pOcHa]

It's just a shame that the number of enemies is fairly limited. After a while, the multiple pump-action, blood-spraying demise of yet another pink monster is only marginally satisfying. lf whenever you turned a corner you could be met by some new, more grotesque|y deformed creature than the last, then at least Doom could boast that it had replaced gameplay with real horror.

As it is, once the power of Doom's graphics has worn off (they're amazing, so give that at least a week or two), you’lI be longing for something new in this game.

lf only you could talk to these creatures, then perhaps you could try and make friends with them, form alliances... Now, that would be interesting.

strife

was awesome, i know - but it was still pointless talking to the enemies

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm gonna dig a little deeper in the past than most (by citing examples I've mentioned previously).

# Atari World's Porno Shocker. Atari World was a gaming magazine that focused on the Atari ST and was launched in 1995, well after the heyday of the platform. Though well received at first, the mag committed a massive blunder by featuring an article on online porn in issue #3, including an uncensored photo of bestiality. Copies already on the newsstands had to be recalled, and then put back out with the guilty page removed and a legal disclaimer stickied on the front cover! The mag didn't last a year before going bankrupt.

# The journalist who slagged off games that triggered his phobias... in 1992. Meet Paul Presley. He wrote reviews for outlets such as PC Review (formerly known as PC Leisure) and much later at EuroGamer. He has issues with things that are too big. Like video games. Video games that are too big are not to his liking, so he purposefully downrates them. His best-known example is his July '92-review of Ultima 7, which clearly was done using a very early build of the game, because he only rates it 4/10 mainly due to bugs (which Ultima 7 did suffer from in the early days). But bugs aside, he cites reasons such as these:

Ultima 7 suffers from another problem, the same one that [Ultima] Underworld suffered from. It is very very big, almost to the point where it puts you off.

It has all the trappings of a good Ultima-game, well-crafted storylines, easy to use interfaces and bags of excitement, even if it isn't as accessible as Savage Empire.

Ultima 7 not as accessible as Savage Empire?!?

Much later he did a review of Microsoft Flight which is still available online. The first paragraph alone tells all.

 

[Anonymous Ranger]

Lol if ultima 7 was too big for this guy I can only imagine what he would think of games like Skyrim or BG3 which are way bigger.

 

[Iucounu]

Everything from Kotaku.

https://www.kotaku.com.au/2020/11/the-political-donations-of-top-video-game-execs/

 

[Baron Dupek]

From most popular gaming mag in Potato

Spoiler

it's one thing to shit out this abomination (thanks, Eld, you illiterate divorced-leave-behind-ass)
it's another to approve it (thanks Smuggler, you're really not that smart as you imagine)

 

[markec]

Rock Paper Shotgun review of New Vegas stating that its a bad game and far worse then Fallout 3.

Reviewer for Gamespot gave a bad score to Kane & Lynch and got fired for it.

I remember when SimCity 2013 got released and one big gaming site (Eurogamer, IGN or PCGamer) gave it a great score only to retract it day later and give it a bad one since everyone was shitting on the game.

 

[Frank Capicoli]

'member when jason the rat schrier wrote like a paragraph about how the witch from Dragon's Crown was lolicon bait despite having tits bigger than her head?

yeah that was pretty retarded.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

And then he tried to damage control saying that he though lolicon meant liking mature women, when clearly he took a look at the archer (flatchested elf) and thought she was the sorceress.

https://themalesofgames.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-dragons-crown-controversy.html

https://medium.com/@Jasperge107/whe...gate-censorship-and-blacklisting-48dbe94cbe71

 

[Silverfish]

Beaten to death, but still good for a laugh:

 

[Chanel Oberlin]

And finally... Nintendo Life's Gleylancer Reviews

This one I just find fucking hilarious. When the SEGA Megadrive version of Gleylancer gets reviewed they say "Gley Lancer isn’t the most original blaster you’re likely to experience on Sega’s 16-bit console and there are far better examples out there." and score it a 7/10....

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/2008/05/gley_lancer_virtual_console

....fast forward a few years and it gets a Switch release. Suddenly it's a Nintendo game, so obviously has magically become better, despite it being the exact same game and playing exactly the same too (bar a few minor fluff additions to the game options). Instead of it being "not the most original blaster" they say.....HAHAHHA....this is the bit which makes me laugh in contrast to the previous review....."Gleylancer is as fresh and thrilling as it’s ever been"

https://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/switch-eshop/gleylancer

TL:DR
Game not on Nintendo = Not original
Exactly the same game on Nintendo = Fresh and thrilling

Nintendo bonus has always been a thing

'member when jason the rat schrier wrote like a paragraph about how the witch from Dragon's Crown was lolicon bait despite having tits bigger than her head?

yeah that was pretty retarded.

His school of thought has become very popular lately:

not journalism