What games did you buy despite bad reviews?

[elvis]

Last Hope on Dreamcast.

I pre-ordered it, and then witnessed a sea of criticism. I thought I'd do the right thing and support indi devs bringing out titles on Dreamcast. What a mistake. The game is trash, and I regret wasting the money on it.

[Gamerforlife]

I bought Shinobi for the PS2 despite some mixed things I read about it online. It's one of the greatest action games I've ever played. The Red Star has some sevens and I think two sixes on gamerankings.com, yet I consider it a fun, challenging game that is polished to near perfection. Anything less than an 8/10 score for the game just makes you a dumb reviewer in my opinion(my personal score would be a 9). I think graphics are a key issue here, as both games don't have the most amazing visuals and I'm pretty that is the reason some reviewers didn't give them high scores. Given how a game like Odin Sphere can get really high review scores with its gorgeous visuals despite its mediocre gameplay tells you something about where some reviewers' priorities are.

I like to occasionally buy the various Warriors games that Koei puts out despite mixed or occasionally low review scores some of the games get. I think Western reviewers just don't "get" Dynasty Warriors, because the games get good reviews and high sales in Japan. Sure, Koei keeps pumping them out with little variation between installments, but each game is fun, challenging and unique despite what reviewers say about them. They say the games have dumb AI and can be played by just mashing X, which clearly indicates that they never play the harder stages on the harder difficulty settings, and they obviously never take on the extremely difficult challenges required to unlock many of the powerful weapons and secret items. Reviewers really don't play certain games. This is a fact. There is a clear bias in regards to what games they put genuine time into, and which ones they don't.

I've also bought and played Mega Man X6 and Mega Man X7 despite poor reviews. I'll be the first to admit that they both kind of suck(especially the rushed,half-assed MMX 6), but I still got some enjoyment out of them as I was such a big MMX fan when I bought and played them and for all their flaws they still managed to provided some of the things that make MMX games cool.

[Snickerd00dle]

this is embarassing, but i bought two worlds about a week after it came out, for about 50 bucks, hearing about how bad it was, but for some reason i just was convinced they were wrong, and i felt like such an idiot, i had to defend the game for weeks when my friends told me it sucked so i didnt feel like to much of a sucker

that and enchanted arms, but, i actually enjoyed enchanted arms a lot

[glynnahab]

im not sure since its quite old but Megarace might be another one. I recall a review somewhere trashing the game for the FMV sequences which i thought were quite funny in a annoying smug way (although 2's are just plain annoying to anybody who has seen them).

The first PC my family ever owned in 1994 came with Megarace - among other crappy games. I played and enjoyed it a lot back then.

[TheyCallMeTheSwede]

I usually don't listen to reviewers mainly because number scores don't really matter to me, I just think its going to be a good game, or I look up in the internet and see you (bloggers, forum members) think of a certain game because the only people in the world who has better opinions and you people.

Anyway, I bought Backyard Wrestling for the PS2, I ignored every reviewer (Gamespot gave it a 4.5 out of 10) and bought the game mainly because I hated ICP so much and that was an opportunity to beat the living crap out of them. It was fun for a good week, and after that week, I begin to see its flaws, Load times are terrible, CAW is just crap, annoying sound fx, the only value the game has (again) beating the crap out of ICP and the music that was included in the game (Anthrax, Sepultera = hell yeah!), at the end of the day, the game plan sucks.

[glynnahab]

Anyway, I bought Backyard Wrestling for the PS2, I ignored every reviewer (Gamespot gave it a 4.5 out of 10) and bought the game mainly because I hated ICP so much and that was an opportunity to beat the living crap out of them.s.

This is a noble cause to buy a video game. Not because it's ICP or anything like that. The fact that you bought this game to beat up someone you hated is awesome!

[RadarScope1]

SPACE GIRAFFE!

There were some AWFUL reviews for this game, but also a handful of very good reviews. Anytime there's a split in opinions (even for movies, books, etc) I always feel I have to check it out for myself. I bought SG the first day I had my 360. It was only 5 bucks and well worth it. It's actually a pretty deep little game. I think it got panned because the reviewers didn't really "get" what Jeff Minter was going for -- it's a game that you have to adjust you eyes and ears to. You actually have to listen for audio cues amid the mess of visuals. This wasn't an overlooked design flaw -- it was an intentional mind fuck on Minter's part.

I'd recommend SG to any retro gamer with a 360 and 400 points laying around.

[fingersmaloy]

I just remembered Fighting Force 2, which was hyped like a hypoglycemic hippo from planet Hypulon (a lot) and which I put at the top of my Chanukah list the year it came out. What a piece of crap that turned out to be.