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CRAP games that scraped a seven out of ten

Reviewers thought these titles were okay. They were WRONG

Words: GamesRadar US

Because we’re mischievous bastards, we’ve also combed the archives of our competitors - IGN, 1UP and Gamespot - to find the most average reviewer for each site. And don’t think tallied up how many sevens they crapped out - that would’ve been too easy. Instead, we’ve aggregated the last ten of these reviewers’ scores - just like how the industry would - to see who was closest to the safe seven. If we all turned to aggregators for reviewers instead of reviews, these would be the journalists we’d think were pretty good, but not great. Yeah we’re dicks, but just to prove we’re fair, we found our own ultimate mediocre reviewer on our staff too.
 
Behold: the game journalists that are merely okay!


IGN - 7 - Decent
Ouch IGN. Decent? Tough love, guys. Obviously, they don’t think sevens are worth your time.


Reviewer - Ryan Clements
Average review score - 7.06
Mr. Clements just barely squeaked into mediocrity.


GameSpot - 7 - Good
Now we’re talking. The GS cleanly attributes the classic “Good” to the lazy 7.


Reviewer - Justin Calvert
Average review score - 6.9
Congratulations friend. You are alright.


1UP - B - Good
Metacritic assisted us in converting all the letter-based grades into an easily digestible, more assertive score that reviewers have been using for years. No more ambiguity! 


Reviewer - Jeremy Parish
Average review score - 7.1
Mr. Parish needs to one up those scores (har har).


GamesRadar - 7 - Good
We’re no stranger to playing it safe either. Sue us.


Reviewer - Paul Ryan
Average review score - 7.1
Tough luck, buddy. Next year!

Jul 23, 2008

 
4 Comments
grammartroll - 1 month 26 days ago
Bite me. First of all, all it takes is a search of "Adventure" games on your site to see that you have no clue what an adventrue game is (hints: platformers are not adventure games; action-adventures are not adventure games; side-scrollers are not adventure games).

Second, so WHAT if a game is targeted to a niche market? If it is, it's appropriate to review it with that in mind, which is exactly how we review the excellent HerInteractive Nancy Drew titles at JustAdventure+.

I can't believe you actually say, as a criticism, that we "gave a game targeted to young girls a passing grade" as if the very act of that is immoral. Just because YOU are not a young girl (or ARE you?) doesn't mean young girls don't want good adventure games to play. There are good games besides just the ones that you play and like, as hard as that may be to get your head around.

To paraphrase Orson Welles, I encourage you to celebrate diversity in gaming: "To games! To good games! To every possible kind!"

The next time you attack a site that specializes in a genre, try to be a bit more informed on that genre before you shoot off your mouth.
codzprc - 1 month 17 days ago
Grammartroll, first off - great name. Conjures up visions of catholic school marms toting wide rulers (and I went to public school). Secondly, I can only venture a guess to your true identity (Mr. Ivey, perhaps?), regardless, "Bite me." is quite possibly the greatest opening line ever used to began a less than average "out-raged reader" comment.

In your post, you make mention or at least allude to the fact that you are associated with JustAdventure+, which I'm sure is a fine gaming site in it's own right... though the site itself looks as if I and a few college buddies got drunk one weekend and decided to put together a Html abomination, and upon waking Monday had forgotten all about it....

What was I talking about?? Oh yes, the fact that you reacted so negatively to a joke of an article such as this one. If anything the objective of the article, though it is not directly stated, is to point out that getting your information(reviews in this case) from just one source and relying on that source is asinine.

Gamers should make informed decisions, most don't - and rely solely one source, which in the case of the Nancy Drew games would be bad, say if the gamer went to gamespot.com. Actually, even gamespot has decent reviews of the series, however they are user reviews (probably better that way).

I do agree with you on the matter that maybe young girls would enjoy the ND titles, and possibly even give them an "A". Having read your review of ND: The Haunted Carousel - The game actually sounds like some thing I would get for my 6 year old niece. On that note, what is the ESRB rating and why is it not on your site?

Next point (my fouth maybe?), I'm sure the crew at gamesradar knows what the "Adventure" category is, or at least what is used to be. Though your site still uses the term "Adventure" as it was used in the 70's - late 90's, whenever Colossal Cave Adventure came out. (No, I wasn't alive at the time - but my brother played it) The term now gets plopped behind the term "Action". As you pointed out, Action Adventure games are not Adventure games.

Most mainstream sites don't use the "Adventure" as a sort category, gamespot for instance, lists ND under "compilation" - though in a general search for compilation games, only a Simcity title pops up. Gamespot does offer an "Adventure games" search option -- but again doing a general search returns only a few titles, none of which are Nancy Drew games.

What does it all mean? The general gamer population doesn't care about Adventure games enough for sites to cater to the few (thousand?) gamers who do. However, they do list the games and the user who have played such titles are more than welcome to post their own reviews. If the sites themselves went through and reviewed all the adventure games - whiny developers would, well whine, about the poor review.

So the sites list the adventure games, yet give no review - users are still able to find info on the title and the reviewers can go back to reviewing crappy movie-based titles(HA!)...

Point... um, Fifty. Orson Welles?? Are you serious? I'm not saying it was a bad choice, but really?? Orson Welles? On a gaming site? While it did have the word game in it, I can think of a few better - and more humorous quotes...

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.”
-Albert Einstein, works well with FPS Multiplayer games


This one is just funny because we're talking about a Nancy Drew game - the quote by itself I interrupt as "because women are passionate(love, hate), their lives are better. Without passion, a womans' life is boring"... anyway -

“Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre”
-Friedrich Nietzsche


Final Point(I hope), I'm glad JustAdventure exists... you obviously love your adventure games, and I'm sure the handful of gamers that actually visit your site appreciate it as well. However, like I said - the layout, browse feature and well... all the functional aspects of the site are crap. Developers fresh out of college would gladly fix all that for around $50-65/hr. and maybe a few games under the table. Otherwise, a nice site.

By the way, for readers curious - I am not affiliated with gamesradar.com or gamespot.com in anyway - except I obviously have accounts with them, and visit the sites often. I'm just a writer who had a lot to drink, and was enjoying this article till I read grammartroll's comment... Why get so riled up over a dumb re-review(of sorts), since gamesradar didn't respond - I decided to have fun.

The next time you attack a "just for S's and G's" article, try to be a bit less of a whiner before you shoot you mouth off. (See what I did there??)

Hmm, yet another point. No really, you just drew some attention to yourself - and most of it will probably be negative... Though I'm sure it will be forgotten shortly - if it hasn't already.

Wow, nearly used all 5000 characters on this bad boy. Only 3 left..0
codzprc - 1 month 17 days ago
My quotes got weird... stupid quotes... [Cartman voice, like he's talking to his mom] "Hey, um.. gamesradar moderator guy. Could, could you please fix my quotes for me, pleeeease?"

GR Mod: [Stabbing to fingers into my neck] "TSST!"

.... what you guys didn't see that episode?
TheKitchenSink - 22 days 19 hours ago
What the hell? Rez was NOT a "crap game." Sure, it wasn't GOTY or anything, but it certainly deserved its rating.
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