You can't please all of the people all of the time, no matter how hard you try. And on the UK GamesRadar team, we've got a lot of hate to go around. As journalists, we're trained to be cynical. As British people, we're genetically predisposed to it.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that sometimes even the finest, most well-received games just aren't good enough for us, and that even when the site as a whole gives something a collective thumbs-up, there's often one curmudgeonly old bastard sitting in the corner of the office, grimacing in derision as the bile seeps through his gums. This friends, is the story of those curmudgeons and the games they hate.

GamesRadar score: 9 Metacritic score: 82

Notable review quotes:

“A fantastic racer and the best online Nintendo game ever.” - Official Nintendo Magazine UK

“…this is proper Mario Kart, and it's Mario Kart done right. It's fast, it's fun and still one of the best party games ever created.” - IGN UK

Hated by: David Houghton, Content Editor

Mario Kart Wii isn’t just disappointing. It misses the whole point of the series by a full 180 degrees. And with motion controlled steering to throw into a mix already perfected on the DS, that’s like missing a dayglow mountain with a red dot sniper-rifle and rock-seeking bullets.

Where Mario Kart DS made sure that masterful driving would still prevail over rubber band AI and weapon spam, MKW seems to have a disregard for the player’s input which borders on the contemptuous. Maybe it’s an over-zealous swing toward anarchic, silly, casual-friendly party play or maybe it’s just sloppy design, but however well you learn to play the game – and trust me, I’m bloody good at Mario Kart - it has barely any consistent effect on the outcome. It’s almost like watching an FMV while being poked in the ribs with a sharp stick, such is the dearth of control and abundance of irritation. That’s hardly an incentive to stick with a game, and it’s one big reason why I’ve all but lost interest in MKW just two months after its release.

The other big reason? Gimped offline multiplayer. In their efforts to showboat their newly adequate online service – as if it's something we should be grateful for at this stage - Nintendo have criminally neglected the real way to play Mario Kart with friends. There’s no multiplayer grand prix. The balloon fight has been castrated of fun and forced into a newly sanitised, team-based, score-oriented game, with infinite respawns so that no-one gets upset when they lose an inflatable. The tracks have become so horribly bloated through Ninty’s need to show off a 12 player online mode that living room play now loses all sense of speed along with the fun of jostling for the best racing line.

In short, the tight, accessible depth and gleeful social aspects which make Mario Kart sing have been replaced with flaccid, accessible idiocy and an approach to party gaming which strips it of its very soul. And that last part is particularly ironic, given Nintendo’s current manifesto.