Reviews hate it, you love it

[Pumpkin]

So I was checking some metacritic scores for funsies and noticed that some of the games are rated pretty low (well, for games that is where 60 is low) even though I loved them. Just goes to show you can't always base your opinions on reviews

What are some games you've read negative reviews about that you really liked? Or maybe a game friends told you to stay away from but it was great anyway?

[Vyk]

I'll have to mull on this one, but I mostly go to metacritic for user-scores rather than review scores. Not their intended use, but I find it generally a better representation. It's about the ONLY thing I trust at IGN's website as well

Though Metacritic (and probably others) are notorious for people to troll giving 1's and 0's just for games that offend them, rather than for bad games

Edit: Okay the first game I randomly decided to go search out on there (Lord of the Rings: War in the North since I just recommended it to someone, in fact I frequently recommend it to people) and it was given an aggregate score of 61, and user reviews put it at 75. Pretty severe difference

[Pumpkin]

Yeah, Suikoden V got a 76 but a 92 from users


I'm more in line with the 92. That game was friggin awesome

[Rez09]

Amusingly enough, I was going to mention Suikoden V. The game had been out for a while before I had the opportunity to pick it up, and Suikoden III (I liked it. :( )and IV weren't the best received (IV especially), but I had some store credit from previous transactions and picked the game up online one day with fair hopes. Then, I popped over to GameFAQs to open a random 'middle ground' reader review to see what I should be expecting.

Said review is still up. (http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps2/929668-suikoden-v/reviews/review-120535)

I was immediately sad with my purchase after reading that. :(
Fortunately, however, it was already in the mail, because once I got it and started playing the game it was great. And the people I've shared it with also thought it was great. It just speaks to differences in taste, I suppose.

[Bolivar]

Man, so many games. Just this year, Destiny and Drive Club. It's hard to say though since the games receiving the most vitriol often get 6s and 7s which really should be positive scores. Game journalism is weird. I remember the amounts of hate Killzone 2 got from most mainstream outlets but somehow it's sitting at a 91 on metacritic. O_o

The biggest one recently is probably Call of Duty Ghosts. It went back to short but sweet campaigns, large maps and de-emphasized killstreaks, things which really delivered on what I was looking for but everyone decided that they hated.

[Pumpkin]

See? Don't put the game down just because it has bad reviews! And yeah game ratings are weird. Like I said, a 6 being low is pretty silly.

Also sometimes don't trust what other people say. People hate Star Ocean The Last Hope and I'm playing it now (I'd played part of the way through before but I'm much further now) and I love it. Sometimes you just gotta give them a try on your own

[Shauna]

I don't care about review scores, really. There have been many instances of media out there that have been completely slated by people and I when I've given it a go, I have thoroughly enjoyed.

I will have a look at the game in question, look at some gameplay and whatnot, and decide if I think I'm interested.

[Old Manus]

People always hated on Star Wars Episode 1 back in the day but I tell you what, that game was the shit. It was so bad that it was good. I still love it.

[Freya]

This happens with me movies a whole heck of a lot. I remember the hate for Dragon Age 2 though, I liked the game a lot. Whatever. Different strokes for different folks. Just don't nuke down rate/vote/whatever because of a part you don't like. It could be a beautiful game, there was some glitchy combat/story/etc occasionally but as a whole whatever was awesome. But people can never look past that. They just see the one thing they don't like negative vote it.

Same thing with movies, a movies dialogue may kinda suck but the cinematography and music score could be amazing! But it is dubbed as horrible cause of one actor or whatever.

[Vyk]

See? Don't put the game down just because it has bad reviews! And yeah game ratings are weird. Like I said, a 6 being low is pretty silly.

Also sometimes don't trust what other people say. People hate Star Ocean The Last Hope and I'm playing it now (I'd played part of the way through before but I'm much further now) and I love it. Sometimes you just gotta give them a try on your own
This amuses me because I'm about to make a post in Bolivar's thread about games I didn't like and putting a lot of time into them, and Star Ocean: The Last Hope is at the top of that list. But at least I gave it a shot. A really long and drawn out shot xD

[Skyblade]

What's "low"? I mean, Chrono Trigger is only at a 92. When the greatest game of all time can't break 95, how bad is a score of 75 (lowest game I like that I've checked, Evil Genius)?

[Fynn]

While not necessarily having bad reviews, Shin Megami Tensei received quite mixed reviews with a lot of people complaining it's not like Persona. I am now playing the game and having a blast. I love the world, the story, the characters, the battle system - it's one of my favorite 3DS games now.

[Quindiana Jones]

I was very new to gaming, and was buying some new games for maybe the fourth or so time, and I had a look at something called Final Fantasy IX. My more experienced gamer friend told me Final Fantasy games were rubbish, but I liked the sound of it and bought it anyway (Platinum, £9.99, no manual).

Not buying that game would've have changed my life quite substantially.

[Ayen]

People always hated on Star Wars Episode 1 back in the day but I tell you what, that game was the trout. It was so bad that it was good. I still love it.

Agreed with this. I could play the first stage over and over again. I love how long the game delays to give you a game over when you start killing innocent people and you can attack almost anyone while running around.

As for the OP's question, everyone and their mother told me to stay away from DmC, and I ended up liking it. I don't see too many good things about Dragon Age 2 either, but I enjoyed the story in that. The criticism of the maps and such were pretty sound though.

[Polnareff]

Gotcha Force for Gamecube.

I know Game Informer panned the hell out of it, at least. And they compared it to Pokemon, which couldn't be further from the truth.

Basically, Gotcha Force is a robot fighting game where you collect toy robots called Borgs. There are over 200. The fighting itself is a lot like the Virtual-On games, or, more recently, Bakugan: Defenders of the Core, but much faster. It's easily my favorite Gamecube game.

[Wolf Kanno]

Anything associated with Breath of Fire and Suikoden tend to fall into this camp as fans adore these games but official reviews tend to fall into the "Good, but not FF good" which I always felt was kind of bullshit. The Last Story is another title I felt never got the real appreciation it deserved, the game is certainly flawed but I felt it brought enough cool new elements to to stand on it's own merits.

The mainline MegaTen games also tend to be weird as The White Wizard of Fynn points out that the story heavy Persona and Devil Survivor series tend to overshadow the better constructed mainline games like Strange Journey and SMTIV.