I was talking to a friend the other day about what games we choose to buy, and why we select those particular titles. Of course, average review scores often come up in these types of conversations. We often reference gamerankings.com and how we're hyped for whatever is the "next big thing."
However, we then started talking about the games that we bought and enjoyed REGARDLESS of them being critical punching bags. I'm talking games with scores of 6 or less that we've still enjoyed. Is it the liscense? Does the game have new ideas that didn't totally come to fruition but are still cool and fun? Or, are reviews in general just a bunch of bullshit and you ALWAYS have to make up your own mind?
Here are a few games I've enjoyed with their bottom feeding terd sucking average from gamerankings:
Astro Boy PS2 -- 56.7%
I really like this game and I'm not ashamed to shout it out loud. It looks just like the new cartoon series, has a ton of upgradable moves and the rocking Astro Boy battle music and theme. Everyone loves to hate Sonic Team -- who does make their fair share of crap -- and never gave this game a chance. The flying controls are also great. Was it basic? Sure. But a hell of a lot of fun if you love the character.
Superman Returns 360 -- 54.3%
Hands down the best Superman game to date with really sharp flying controls. Hold down the R button and you really feel like you're "cooking." The move set is huge, although the mission variety is sorely lacking. Great implementation of large scale battles -- the giant Braniac battle is a blast throwing giant trucks. The game never experiences slowdown too---which is worth noting due to the sheer size of the city and the open-world genre. A downloadable pack via XB Live could make this game incredible. No joke.
Advent Rising XB -- 67.4%
I never had a chance to play the PC version, but still really like this game. The story was original, the character design totally feels like Gatchaman (which is cool) and the flick controls work better than spoke of in reviews. SO many people slammed the elongated character designs in Advent Rising -- even when it was obvious they were going for a highly stylized Japanese manga look. Oh well, its not for everyone. Slowdown is nasty at times (although fixed on the PC from what I hear) but does not hurt the basic gameplay.
Think of a 3rd person action game + Superhero game + Halo + Psi-Ops+ Star Wars with a more interesting story (Orson Scott Card). That's Advent Rising.
At least that's what the developers we're going for. It's just too bad the game is so full of bugs (sound + music glitches abound) as this was too much to get past reviewers. Apparently the dev team was tiny and had an even smaller bugdet while obviously having HUGE dreams for a monster trilogy. With its terrible sales, its just never going to happen.
What are your guys' favorites that have been critically shit on? This could be a bargain hunting weekend...