Lance Uppercut
Guest
With my recent outrage at the Arkham City scores, I thought this was interesting. Well, not really, but it might kill a couple of minutes for you.
CVG
I have only played AC and LA Noire and I agree with both. ESPECIALLY the latter. What the feck is number 5?
Anyway, let's argue about reviewers and review scores.
For every genuinely brilliant game there are about fifty rubbish ones.
Every once in a while a troublesome rogue sneaks through the net; a game that gets a great score but it in actual fact a flaming turd that you've been tricked into stepping in. Kind of like that scene in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler puts a flaming brown bag of poop on an old man's doorstep and rings the bell.
It's not uncommon for gamers to buy a game after seeing critics rave about it, only to finally play it and think "what was all the fuss about?" Most of that can be chalked up to difference of opinions, after all reviews are just one person's opinion. But occasionally there's the odd game that is undoubtedly as cancerous as...err, cancer that somehow manages to get a decent or even above average score.
Here is our list of games that we think might not be entirely deserving of the scores they were awarded.
TUROK 2
Despite what you heard about it, Turok 2 wasn't good.
Issue 21 of Official N64 Magazine reviewed Turok 2: Seeds of Evil and awarded it 95%. In the review, they described Turok 2 as "one of the best things to happen to the N64 since its launch."
"Turok 2 is, without a doubt, the best looking console game you'll ever see," said the dirty liars. Our point of contention with this isn't necessarily that the reviewer somehow mistook the muddy colors, blurry textures and the blanket of fog used to replace actual environments for work of art. It's with the moment of utter madness in which the reviewer predicts it is "the best looking console game we'll EVER see".
This means that Official N64 Magazine thinks Turok 2 looks better than Uncharted 3, Crysis and Battlefield 3. We also heard that the reviewer said Nathan Drake's mum is a promiscuous hussy. We may have just made that bit up - in for a penny in for a pound, right?
The review goes on to boast that Turok 2's sampled speech adds up to a whopping total of eight whole minutes. "We kid you not," the review shouts excitedly. We're wondering if dinosaur banter contributed to any of that astounding eight minutes of chit chat.
Then, the review just gets downright offensive by placing it on equal ground with Rare's GoldenEye: "The question everyone will be asking is, is it better than GoldenEye? Well, yes...and no". Get to explaining philistines...
"Because GoldenEye is still an awesome game in its own right and, really and truthfully, such a different game to this." What a copout.
Although it is fun to read this review nowadays and poke fun at it, it was written in 1998 so criticising it retrospectively is a tad unfair, especially given the wondrous gaming age we live in today.
"Turok 2 is the new Doom." *Snigger*
ASSASSIN'S CREED
We love the Assassin's Creed series, but it wasn't always as good as it is today. The first Assassin's Creed was a bit of a stumble for Ubisoft.
It had overly-long, unskippable cutscenes and mind-numbingly repetitive gameplay. Some critics even said it was just one level repeated for 12 hours. This, coupled with the small selection of weapons and shamelessly recycled gameplay mechanics, is why we think this game was a bit over-scored.
To its credit AC was very ambitious, offering gamers a unique, massive 12th century setting to clamber about in, and it was one of the first examples of large, dynamic crowds to interact with.
It's also important to remember that much of it still serves as the blueprint for Ubisoft's masterful sequel and the fantastic follow-ups released since. So it's not all bad.
The problem was the monotonous investigation missions that required completion before any meaningful tasks could be taken on. We got sick of sitting on a bench eavesdropping or collecting flags by about the third or fourth target in the game. Even if we looked like total bad ass while doing it.
Assassin's Creed was a great base to build upon, which Ubisoft did for the sequels, but we reckon the first game alone was closer to 7/10 than the 10/10s that some reviewers awarded it.
We understand that reviews are subjective, but we wouldn't say it deserves the perfect score, or to be ranked among the best games ever made.
L.A. NOIRE
L.A. Noire was good, don't get us wrong, but it got old. Fast.
The majority of the game is spent investigating crime-scenes, but since they all play out nearly identically each time, it gets repetitive.
Another thing was that the game's climax was a bit of a let-down. There was one particular case we loved during the middle of the game which saw Cole Phelps solving riddles left by a killer, which would lead him to a new location. But apart from this a lot of the cases play out in the same way: investigate crime scene, interview people, interrogate suspects, shootout/chase (either on foot or by vehicle), end of case.
In the end, the game just ended up being too restrictive and linear for its own good. You would always solve the case no matter how awful you were at finding clues or interrogating suspects.
If you failed an interrogations your superior would shout at you to go back inside and repeat the interrogation until you get it right. We're pretty sure there's no do-overs in real interrogations.
There was just a distinct lack of freedom in the way we played it. We would have liked to beat a confession out of a suspect at some point too. Though whether that fits with Cole's character is another question.
Mild spoilers for L.A. Noire
Which brings us to our next point: the game's reckless charactarisation of Cole Phelps. One minute he's a noble, decorated war hero with the winds of truth and justice propelling him to fight crime in LA. The next he's a reviled womaniser that spends a bit too much time in jazz dive bars and acts like a sleazy dirtbag.
The schizophernic personality switch left us feeling like we'd missed out on a massive chunk of the game.
On the other hand the MotionScan technology is incredible, and there are a lot of other good points to L.A. Noire, but we're not so sure it's a nine or ten out of ten game.
KANE & LYNCH 2
You wouldn't expect to find this game on an over-scored list, would you?
Let us just say that we didn't think Kane & Lynch 2 was a bad game. It was a competent shooter, did some interesting things in the way it presented the game and had the occasional cool set-piece. Probably a 7/10 game, maybe an 8 if we're feeling generous.
Official Xbox Magazine on the other hand decided to award the game a 9/10.
"The audio here surpasses Dead Space in its craftsmanship," says the review.
"Finishing a mission in Dog Days makes you want to take a breather for all the right reasons. Like you're exhausted, twitchy with adrenaline and badly need to wipe the sweat from your palms before the pad shoots out of your hands like soap."
Admittedly, the audio is extremely good, the game is very fast-paced and pretty damn intense on the higher difficulty settings, and it features great scenes such as the level in which the duo have to escape through the rain-slicked streets, naked, after being tortured. But we think the overall repetitiveness and less-than-stellar animation hold it back from attaining the high marks.
It definitely didn't deserve the 1/10 scores it got from some places in any case. The game should be praised for its not-perfect-but-competent cover and shooting mechanics, unique multiplayer offering dark story with an interesting character dynamic.
BIG RIGS: OVER THE ROAD RACING
You may or may not have heard of Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, but we can absolutely assure you 100 percent that the game was over-scored. But what exactly did reviewers score the game? Most awarded the game a massive... 1 out of 10.
But it doesn't even deserve that one point, it implies it has a redeeming quality. It doesn't.
So just why is this game so bad? Well let's start off with the packaging. The description on the back of the box outright lies about the game by saying "...you'll be hauling loads and trying to stay one step ahead of the law". There are no police in this game.
"Keep the tank full and the pedal to the metal as you rackup points and OWN the road!!!" There is no points system.
"1000s of miles of highways and byways across America". Not even close.
"A variety of wicked challenges including the ultimate traffic stopper... a police roadblock." Again, no police, or roadblocks.
So, it's pretty much fallen at the first hurdle, it didn't even get its own box right. Let's move on to the gameplay, or the lack thereof...
When you attempt to load up the game it will either crash or, if you're successful, you'll be greeted with a god-awful menu screen. Choosing to race will present you with a few 'Big Rigs' to drive and a map select screen.
You have a choice of five maps, but one of them almost always crashes the game, so really you only have a choice of four. Although the developer released a patch, it just replaced the game-breaking map with a reversed version of one the existing maps.
If at this point you haven't given yourself irreversible head trauma from repeatedly headbutting your desk you deserve some sort of medal. However, brace yourself for the impending gash that waits on the other side of the loading screen.
The race starts with a signle opposing racer. We're being generous by calling him an opposing, he doesn't actually put up might of a fight, he just sits there... and waits for you to win.
When you do eventually win you're treated to an image of a trophy and the bright and cheery words "YOU'RE WINNER!". The post-release patch did actually make the other driver move, but there still wasn't a threat of losing as he almost always comes to a grinding halt just short of the finish line and waits for you to win.
Big Rigs doesn't have any collision detection either. At all. If you can see it, you can drive through or over it. See a building? Drive through it! See your opponent? Drive through his truck! See a bridge? Attempt to drive over it and sink through it! The wheels are permanently bound to the floor in this game and there is absolutely no physics system, meaning that you can drive absolutely anywhere without slowing down at all. You can freely drive over mountains and climb 90 degree, vertical cliffs, with no loss of speed. You can even drive out of the map if you wish and into the infinite grey void.
Reversing is also faster than driving forward. In fact, there is no speed limit for reversing whatsoever. Your truck will continue to accelerate for as long as you hold the button down. In theory, it's actually possible to reverse faster than the speed of light if you held the button long enough.
There is no sound in the game until you patch it, and then you get a rubbish engine sound and the sound of a car drifting every time you hit the handbrake button. Though, hilariously, when you reverse at super fast speeds, it sounds like an alien craft is powering up for lift off.
This game should not even have been released.
CVG
I have only played AC and LA Noire and I agree with both. ESPECIALLY the latter. What the feck is number 5?
Anyway, let's argue about reviewers and review scores.
