Planet Sillicon

Terrible reviews

By blog on May. 12, 2009.

There is something very powerful about the terrible review. It can crush your interest in a game, disappointing you severely, or give you a hearty belly laugh at just how crap some game is that you had never heard of. The latter just makes my day.

Reviewers have to earn your trust, you don’t just believe what one reviewer has to say about any movie or game until it is either verified by the consensus of a great many reviewers, or you have followed their work long enough to actually know whether their tastes coincide with yours.

The reviewer on the TV guide website I use is pathetic, I know that. He gives top ratings to really bad TV shows and movies, and I can’t figure out why. Sometimes the top scores of the day go to a film or program that is actually good, so that one is confusing and I put no stock in his reviews. I put a bit of faith in the reviewers over on Rotten Tomatoes, if a movie gets a really bad score on there I will know it is crap, but there is a middle-ground where movies don’t get good scores, but they are nonetheless fun to watch. You don’t expect much from these movies so it is okay.

If there is a movie that I am not particularly interested in, and it receives a terrible score, I get a little chuckle from that, but nothing in comparison with really terrible reviews over at IGN. I know that IGN gives pretty accurate scores most of the time, and if there is a divergence, it is usually only by a few points. IGN AU seems to have the most accurate scores though.

Last week I noticed two games which received absolutely terrible scores. Laugh inducingly bad scores. The first was a Wii games titled Ninjabread Man… I wasn’t expecting much after seeing the title but it actually received a 1.5, abysmal. IGN actually wished it had of been good because the little Ninjabread man was apparently pretty awesome. I see it as an homage to Gingie from Shrek.

Ninjabread Man
Gingie

The other game that was so bad it earned a chuckle from me was Stalin VS Martians. Again, with a name like that, how could you not fail! This game earned itself a 2.0, terrible. I couldn’t believe anyone had produced this game, honestly, it looks awful, the premise is ridiculous, and unlike Zombies Ate My Neighbours that was on the SNES, Stalin VS Martians didn’t pull it off.

So yes, sometimes when I am not feelings great, it can be a little uplifting to take a look over the really bad reviews on IGN and have a quiet chuckle.