Amusingly bad reviews

[captpain]

http://xbox.gamezone.com/reviews/item/guwange_review/
Glorious idiocy in the comments, but the review itself is pretty good. Just look at the 4th comment up from the bottom. Jesus Christ.

Comments sections are always a cesspool on any site like that, but it's very encouraging to read such a fair review. He seems to "get it" with regards to shmups.

[Thjodbjorn]

Not a review, but equally if not more stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAJwvKFkEgk

Fucking idiot wannabe. hahaha "theres a lot of COD clones out there"

His "It's called ay-kay katana, which means 'red katana'" reminds me a lot of Chris Farley's "El Niño" character from SNL.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Lol at both the red katana and tomb raider 4 videos, the later had me in tears, while those raspute guys tend to over egg their jokes and speak over intesting parts of the original, they do find some great you tube vids that would overwise be lost to obscurity.

[mangadrive]

http://www.console-arcade.com/2010/09/2 ... sky-stage/

This review sums up about every shmups review I've read lately

a) I don't understand the appeal behind shmups, this should have been an XBLA title (if its a 1000GS/full release), It was short and I beat it in 20 minutes by hitting continue

b) I understand the appeal behind shmups, but this wasn't made by Cave, its not made by Irem , its not Ikaruga so its boring and linear with no depth.

Also almost every single review I read for this game prior to purchasing the game made zero mention of the "provacation" system and did little to explain the depth between all the characters and their special moves with the charge meter. Personally I enjoy this game greatly but hardly the point. It seems gaming review sites have now staffed barely 20 something gamers that will not favor this genre . Not to say age doesn't prevent a shmups fan from being born, but in general "next gen" gamers rarely "get it". Its amazing how nostalgia woes the RPG genre with things like Final Fantasy and Nintendo's platforms thrive on reshasing in general, but modern shmups just go way over a lot of people's heads in any shape or form it seems.

[kemical]

Any review written by Jim Sterling.

[Thjodbjorn]

Not about shooters, but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM12XYtgyEA

This probably embodies everything I hate not only in video reviews, but life itself. I cannot properly describe what about it just makes me want to go apespit besides "everything".

[RNGmaster]

Any review written by Jim Sterling.

Well, at least he didn't fawn over FFXIII. Or is that what made you hate him?

[emphatic]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_g4ATbJB2o&feature=fvsr

It's a "walk through" of Guwange XBLA, USING CONTINUES.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_g4ATbJB2o&feature=fvsr

It's a "walk through" of Guwange XBLA, USING CONTINUES.

I feel abit of an elitist prick laughing at it but I just cant help myself. Half of me feels guilty, but the other half says fuck it, if someone made a BMX freestyling vid with a bike fitted with stablisers the vid would become viral

Edit: Ahhh i feel better now ive left an helpfull comment in the YT page. Thats 1 more person "enlightened" as to how to shmup. My karma is balanced

Stage 3 is the worse one where he saves his game and gets trigger happy with the start button when he starts pressing continue after losing a life.

[Drachenherz]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_g4ATbJB2o&feature=fvsr

It's a "walk through" of Guwange XBLA, USING CONTINUES.

Now that IS funny... He must be playing an other version of the game, one where the shikigami is broken and doesnt come out... Wait, what?

[RNGmaster]

Check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_g4ATbJB2o&feature=fvsr

It's a "walk through" of Guwange XBLA, USING CONTINUES.

That was the shmup version of tubgirl. I thought I sucked at Guwange, but wow....
Just physically painful to watch.

[pseudo]

you guys have to realize that when you give a bullet hell shmup to any random on the street thats how theyre going to attempt to play it
sucking is a relative term. like 1 percent of the population of the world even has the ability to finish guwange on 1 credit lol

[Taylor]

It's more because of the "educational walkthrough" part.

[RNGmaster]

you guys have to realize that when you give a bullet hell shmup to any random on the street thats how theyre going to attempt to play it
sucking is a relative term. Like 0.1 percent of gamers even have the ability to finish guwange on 1 credit lol

fix'd

[pseudo]

yeah good point, i guess it is pretty darn hard now isn't it

[RNGmaster]

So apparently Handsome Tom doesn't think DDP DOJ lets you move.

Yeah.

[burgerkingdiamond]

I am sure that I am stupider now after watching that video.

[drunkninja24]

Not sure if it's been posted here before, but I found this entertaining. not necessarily a bad review itself, but a commentary of a bad review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbK5rx9UTIE

[MadScientist]

"I haven’t enjoyed a shoot-em-up as much as this since the original R-Type"

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2010/11/17/ ... at-flying/

[Special World]

I'd like to see what it takes for a scrolling shooter to get a 9+ from major review mags/sites nowadays.

"This one actually has a STORY."
"100 mediocre levels! Top that, Gradius!"
"Totally retro. You haven't seen anything this retro since PONG."
"This is a long established series that I know I should like."
"This game is actually hard, unlike those other shooters. You only have one continue! Cripes!"
"This is the sequel to Ikaruga, the only shooter that matters."

[DragonInstall]

I'd like to see what it takes for a scrolling shooter to get a 9+ from major review mags/sites nowadays.

"This one actually has a STORY."
"100 mediocre levels! Top that, Gradius!"
"Totally retro. You haven't seen anything this retro since PONG."
"This is a long established series that I know I should like."
"This game is actually hard, unlike those other shooters. You only have one continue! Cripes!"
"This is the sequel to Ikaruga, the only shooter that matters."

As sad as that is... its probably true.

[gs68]

Not sure if it's been posted here before, but I found this entertaining. not necessarily a bad review itself, but a commentary of a bad review:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbK5rx9UTIE

Yeah, that's Rob's "Ikaruga Poor Review", which he retracted from his YouTube account for reasons unknown.

[mrsmiley381]

So apparently Handsome Tom doesn't think DDP DOJ lets you move.

Yeah.

Thanks for reminding me of how painful that video is. I had almost forgotten about it. I mean, everyone is allowed to like what they want, but it's like they only picked games people might recognize or they just never really tried harder games or other games in general.

Also, Rob's reviews are spot-on. I pop those videos on when I get a little bored or tired or depressed and they just make me cheer up.

[DocHauser]

Thoroughly mediocre PSP/PS3 Mini, A Space Shooter For 2 Bucks, got a 9/10 review on the UK IGN website:

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/114/1141208p1.html

It's a vertically-scrolling shmup. With inertia. Oh dear. Also, the wacky banter between the characters is painfully unfunny.

So, if they give that 9/10, what do they give Crimzon Clover? 15/10?

[mrsmiley381]

Thoroughly mediocre PSP/PS3 Mini, A Space Shooter For 2 Bucks, got a 9/10 review on the UK IGN website:

http://uk.psp.ign.com/articles/114/1141208p1.html

It's a vertically-scrolling shmup. With inertia. Oh dear. Also, the wacky banter between the characters is painfully unfunny.

So, if they give that 9/10, what do they give Crimzon Clover? 15/10?

I got it as part of my Playstation Plus subscription and I wanted my bandwidth back. Seriously, it pissed me off to no end. Wasn't even fun.

[gs68]

I find that reviews that praise the game but make silly statements like "Space Invaders on steroids" and "You must be a Japanese god to even survive for 5 seconds" are just as amusing as bashy reviews.

and by "amusing" I mean "orz-inducing"

[Demetori]

This is a review I found in the comments of another review when I was looking for the achievement list of DFK:R

I had considered writing a review of this one, but decided against it. I would have been much less kind. To sum up my very contrary opinion, Dodonpachi Resurrection is one of the most boring, assinine top-down shooters I’ve ever played. The game is little more than an orgy of lights and explosions. Your ship cuts such a wide swath of destruction that it almost doesn’t matter where you fly; if something is on the screen you’re going to hit it without even trying. Enemies have only one strategy, that being to flood the screen with as many bullets as the device can handle, and so they all end up feeling exactly the same. In fact, most of the time they are so obscured by a miasma of explodery that you won’t even see them. Luckily, you don’t actually need to see them to destroy them; see above. And because this is a “bullet hell” shooter, you will spend most of the game staring directly at your ship and a one-centimeter radius surrounding your ship. The rest of the screen doesn’t matter at all, is totally unimportant, because whatever is out there, you’ll shoot it without trying, and because whatever is out there, the only thing it can do is throw more bullets at you just like the ones you’re already navigating, and when those bullets get to you, they will be just like the bullets already here. Honestly, you could play this game with pinhole vision.

So while many will go on saying this is the best shooter in the app store, I disagree. I think it’s one of the worst — a tedious, repetitious bore in which every enemy, every boss and every stage feel exactly the same. The $8.99 price tag is a joke, and not a funny joke, but a mean joke. Like your friends tying you up, hanging you upside-down from the ceiling and using you as a piñata; like Cave slapping a new coat of paint on Espgaluda II and selling it to you again as a brand-new game.

Thank you, Cave. In retrospect, my money would better have been spent on a second copy of Space Invaders Infinity Gene gifted it to a friend.

Isn't this exactly why people shouldn't even bother to state their opinions on something they clearly have no understanding of?

[Ixmucane2]

This is a review I found in the comments of another review when I was looking for the achievement list of DFK:R

...Dodonpachi Resurrection is one of the most boring, assinine top-down shooters I’ve ever played...

Isn't this exactly why people shouldn't even bother to state their opinions on something they clearly have no understanding of?

My dear, he doesn't understand that he doesn't understand what he's talking about: if he did, he wouldn't have make such a fool of himself.

It's a basic pattern of ignorance: ignorance prevents having doubts and gives satisfyingly clear, radical opinions, while knowledge is required for the unpleasant realization that we might be wrong.
From my point of view, not knowing anything about this new DDP Resurrection game except for what I've read in your quote, he might be right and your equally black and white opinion might be the wrong one.

Of course, in the case of game and literature reviews there is an important asymmetry at work: an adverse review can be the result of ignorant misunderstanding, a positive review implies some kind of comprehension (or there would be nothing to like).
At worst, a "wrong" positive review we disagree with demonstrates aberrant taste, not arrogant incompetence.

[monkeyman]

[quote="Special World"]"This is a long established series that I know I should like."[quote]

True on so many levels!

[njiska]

"This is a long established series that I know I should like."

True on so many levels!

This one colours a lot of reviews, but the inverse "I like this long established series/genre but now it's different so it must suck" is also a hazard (See Skykid's DFK thread, discussion of autobomb, western reviewers not playing Ikaruga, etc.). Breaking the mold is an automatic fail for far too many reviewers.