Topic: The worst reviewed games you enjoyed playing?

I think that would be Wolfenstein Youngblood which I am currently playing and loving it The graphics are awesome and very fluid. Great work @PanicButton. The mission based levels are fun and I haven't even touched multiplayer yet. But even in singleplayer it is so much fun. Don't know about the performance before they patched it but now it runs great and I bought the deluxe version around black Friday for 19.99€ and am really happy about it. Give it a try!

Let's see, I think the worse ones I think I have played over the years and enjoyed would be:

Tank! Tank! Tank! - Simple arcade mayhem, would have put quarters in this once upon a time.
Eat Lead: The Return of Max Hazard - Stayed for the cheesy humor
Gex: Enter the Gecko - Stayed for the cheesy humor
Captain America: Super Soldier - Poor man's Batman: Arkham but was fun
Dungeons & Dragons Daggerdale - Poor man's Diablo that was dirt cheap (and I enjoyed).

Seems like you're devaluing these games because of their genre.
But a good puzzle game can have an equal amount of programming skill put into it, and can be as great and addicting as the next Triple AAA open world game.
And Tetrisphere is one of those all time greats in my eyes.

I'm glad Nintendo knows that even in this day and age, a good puzzle game has equal rights to exist on a shelf next to other games (Snipperclips Plus, Sushi Striker: Way of Sushido, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, TETRIS 99, Dr. Kawashima, etc.)

yeah that sounds about right.

I'd honestly argue single player Triforce Heroes, based on my experience, is the worst experience of the entire series (I'm mad I even have to bring up that the CD-I games don't count). It's a failed compromised experience, and I might go so far as to say they should've made it ONLY multiplayer, because I fail to see the point in playing it otherwise. I got lucky in that I knew friends who had it.

Another thing that irked me about Tri Force Heroes was the lack of a two player mode.

We've got two Zelda fans in the house, each with their own 3DS, but we've still got to find a third wheel to play it that way or go solo.

In terms of overall action, I think Federation Force and Metroid Prime Hunters respectively have the most and least amount of action in the Prime Series. Would you consider Metroid Prime 3 as having the most combat in the Prime Trilogy? Federation Force is probably a notch or two more than what you would get through that game. Remove the Morph Ball puzzles from Metroid Prime, and that is around where Federation Force is.

The exploration I would say is around what would be expected in Metroid Prime overall, but less so than Prime 2 and Prime 3. I'm basing that off of what may be considered optional areas of each game's map playing through casually. There are a decent amount of MOD locations that I would consider well hidden, a fair amount of them will require the player to side track a little from the core mission objectives to acquire. I will say though that Federation Force does have missions that have little, if any, exploration. Excluding any mission that involves a boss, there are two missions that are solely action based. I do think one of those missions is arguably the worst mission in Federation Force.

@SKTTR I actually have no problem with games in the genre being “full priced” (although I can understand why that’s what you read from my posts).

If a game takes thousands of hours to design and test it has a value - even if the end result appears “simple” compared to AAA games. That the hard work is invisible to the end consumer is not a sign of laziness.

With Tetrisphere and Wetrix both suffered though from being on the N64 with its hard and very high lower bound for cartridges (min £60 at one point!). A game had to be packed to the gills to be “value for money” on that console.

The problem was that some good game concepts had to be stretched very thin to clear that bar. Wetrix and Tetrisphere were both games that IMO would have worked much better as £20 games. Especially since neither had a really good multiplayer mode.

Similar games on the PlayStation at the same time were almost always under £30. That’s what they were being judged against at launch.

I’d love to see either return though. The download era has made high concept puzzlers like them more viable.

@Darknyht tank tank tank is great

Hmm...That is more encouraging. Though the pure action missions still give me a bit of pause. I'd be willing to give FF a shot, at least at a low price point. Part of why I found it off-putting too was I'd read the difficulty was harder in single player, which is what fueled my TFH-induced concerns. Hopefully the game doesn't cause circle pad and button death. XD

I had a great time playing Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley on the 3DS back then when that was new, played it much more than most games in the franchise. I generally enjoy the post-marvelous Harvest Moon games, though that first one was my favorite.

@Tyranexx i had trouble i think on the third mission. Once you unlock more mods slots the game is more approachable but you will need assistance or to bring your A game in the beginning. I would recommend the game at 20 bucks but it will provide a noticeable challenge solo in the beginning. Maybe three later missions also provided a super challenge for just one mech solo. It is such a great game but the mod system sometimes can just not be enough to solo missions especially when you dont have all three mod slots unlocked at the beginning and some of the middle.

@PlusUltra Ah, so some of the impressions I read were indeed correct. I by no means dislike challenging games, but to me there's a fine line between "challenging" and "I want to throw my controller across the room because this cheap gimmick killed me for the 500th time". As long as things don't feel too unfair, I'll manage. I play games primarily to relax, not to send my blood pressure skyrocketing. XD $20 is about my sweet spot for the game actually, so I'll certainly grab it for that amount or less.

@Tyranexx No problem. Just thought you should know. I try to be more choicy with games too and deciding when and if to stop to make sure Im actually enjoying them.

I had trouble with the game once I got to Mission 11, which is right about halfway, then I decided to equip both the drones and the Lone Wolf MOD. I didn't necessarily need those equipped for the entirety of the rest of the game, but I did so to avoid potentially becoming very stubborn with another mission and delaying my progress. I've beaten every Metroid game, and I would say Federation Force's difficulty comes more so from management from what MODs the player has equipped for a particular mission to how they use a limited equipment supply when faced with varying situations. It's all around a much more strategic game. I should say too that I've used the Metroid-related amiibo with Federation Force, and have used the Bounty Hunter Paint Job for the vast majority of my experience with the game. Those amiibo paint jobs basically act as a fourth MOD slot.

@I-U Really? I didn't know that or maybe I forgot. I already disliked amiibo but that is the equivalent of drawing first blood. Its on like donkey kong, you tiny Lords of the Sith.

I can't remember which exact missions gave me trouble. I think the 3rd was just me mis managing or starting it with others then losing connection or maybe i meant a later level. I didnt like the level where you leave your mech suit i think i had help on cart level but lost connection.

One of my most difficult times was trying to fight late game bosses then afterward trying to destroy moving targets while being hounded by maybe unlimited space pirates. Once i got enough weapon and mod slots I stopped trying to play online although online really helped and was fun. Drone mods were essential because i forget maybe they can be destroyed or lose their charge.

I think the most useful mods for me was strongest tier blaster mod and lone wolf but then i maybe started mixing it up later in the game desperately searching for an edge. I didnt want to use best mods then die and have them break.

Metroid isnt my forte, federation was my chance to get my feet wet without getting entirely soaked. I understand why the game's mechs had to be so different and clunky but samus control and power in bounty hunters was smoother than morph ball.

I am currently playing and enjoying outerworlds on switch so I totally get why metroid is so important for metroids fans especially since I started but stopped bounty hunters. That game brought amazing sound work to the ds, and its unbelievable how on a ds no less your control of her really becomes second nature. In prime i guess i never got immersed in it without headphones and handheld. With motion controls and hd rumble I imagine even tv mode for switch is going to be very immersive.

I actually really enjoy the Avengers game. It gets a lot of flack from online by individual users and Youtube reviewers.

Heck, I'm surprised since I was one of the people who refused to get on the initial hype train this game was on when it was first announced. The characters all have their unique moveset that is designed to give them their own strength and weaknesses. Heck, my favorite character to play as is Ms. Marvel, with her huge range of a AOE attacks and her healing skill. The enemies, while possessing frustratingly bs moves from time to time, do feel different and I typically find myself taking different approaches to the fight depending on the composition of the enemies I fight.

I just wish the game was not such a glitchy mess. It also have a lot of questionable GUI decisions.

Okay, I spent way too much time on my answer. This is my first time on metacritic, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I ended up checking my entire game library of 230 games and ordering them by metascore. I dunno why I kept doing it but I did.

I found some interesting disparaties over how I normally rate games. For example, all games I own, good or bad, tend to be very highly rated in general. While many titles are rated close to 100, I can't find a single game I own rated under 50, and 4 out of 5 games I checked were rated above 75. So, with that, I'm going to assume a rating of about 80 is an average game.

There's also an obvious skew towards old games, guess cause they've had more time to get reviews and nostalgia and all that. It was very rare to find a game I owned before 2012 that was rated poorly, though I guess I didn't own many titles for the wii, so I missed the infamous shovelware.

Well, here we are. I found many more games rated way higher than I would have given it credit for, but here the ones that were lower than I was expecting. To be fair, these rating are actually pretty good if I were rating them myself, but I just thought it was odd that I found these in the bottom 20% of my games library.

Tumbleseed: 78 (7.4)
You control the character kind of like a clunky old moving-parts arcade game, with a rolling ball on a balance beam, and you control the tilt of the balance beam and make your way up a mountain. Its not a bad score but its one of my favorite games. Makes sense, though. Roguelike with a weird gimmicky control scheme? Perfect recipe for me, definitely not for being popular.

Bomb Chicken: 77 (8.1)
A 2D platformer with a chicken that can't jump but lays bombs bomberman style. I dunno, its a simple concept and it executes it well in almost every way. I can't imagine why this is lower.

Ittle Dew 2: 77 (7.7)
That Zelda spoof on Wii U, now with better puzzles, graphics, and combat mechanics.
I just found it strange that the first game has such a higher review score despite being inferior in almost every way when it comes to production value. Its like giving Kid Icarus a better score than Uprising, or the Donkey Kong arcade game a higher score than Super Mario Galaxy. It was actually my game of the year in 2016, though that's with not much competition.

Moving Out: 77 (7.0)
Its a really fun wacky co-op game, turning the mundane task of moving boxes into a riot with a timer and free license to break whatever stuff you want. What's not to love?

A Hat in Time: 76 (8.0)
Sure, its production value can't compare to Super Mario Odyssey, but it still feels great for a 3D platformer, and it has tons of unique level ideas.

Chariot: 76 (7.9)
Co-op games sure get the short end of the stick. You and a friend have to carry your deceased king of a father to the afterlife with ropes and platforming. I suppose can be frustrating at times, cuz it requires a pretty high level of coordination with your partner, but that's what makes it fun. Plus, loads of charm and humor.

Superliminal: 75 (9.6)
This game is a really cool, you can change the size of objects through a trick of perspective. It has a unique puzzle solving system coupled with a narrative it half-borrows from Portal; I'm not sure what it's downsides are. Its user reviews are closer to the mark but almost suspiciously high...

Manifold Garden: 75 (7.3)
Another cool puzzle game with a few unique ideas. You can change gravity by looking at any wall, and all of its puzzles are in a rounding space, like an arcade game that has you popping out the other side, except in all directions. Its more about visuals than it is about truly unique puzzles, but that's sort of the point. The game's lead developer is primarily an artist who mostly does experimental 3D art, but the game is well polished too, so he either knew what he was doing or surrounded himself with people who did. The games path is just vague enough to let you get a little lost but not too lost, and its classic Miyamoto "teaching without words" method is nice and slow so you have plenty of chances to get a hang of it.

Fe: 72 (6.8)
I wonder if this got knocked down because of its affiliation with EA. But I kinda get it on this one. Its a vague, weird game about singing to forest animals. But the abilities you get really feel good to use, especially when you get the ability to glide. The gliding honestly made the game for me, and there's one level in particular that feels incredibly good to fly in, but I won't spoil too much about it. And once you beat the game, the relatively small open world combined with its gliding makes it real fun to find all the extras. But yeah, I get it. There are a few times where its way too abstract for its own good when trying to figure out what to do next. And it's just a really weird game; the sound design and the art style combine to give you this sense of "wtf am I playing right now?"

Crush3D: 71 (7.4)
Fun puzzle concept. You move between the 3D space and can change the camera angle before hitting ZL and squashing everything into a 2D plane. Unsquash, change angle, squash again. Rinse, repeat. I think it's kinda what Fez was supposed to be; this game gives you 5 directions to play with, and the fact that you have to align yourself and press a button to activate makes solving them feel like a conscious effort. It feels a little cheap, not the best production value, but for a game coming from a small studio, it's solid. Some of the puzzles are real stumpers, it expands on its concept really well, and it just feels really good to find the right alignment and hop your way to the finish. This is one of my lowest rated games and I can't imagine why.

Wii Party U: 65 (7.0)
Its nothing new, but I had a lot of fun playing this with irl friends. Not much to say, I just can't think of any flaws it has over any other party game.

Tales Of The Neon Sea - 2 out of 5 stars. Love the artwork and puzzles. Story is first rate too. Characters are interesting. For the price, can’t beat it. Highly recommend the game.

Wondering, would playing a poorly reviewed port count? Thinking about it, I was remembering the times I played the Sonic 1 port on GBA. Yeah, it's a poor port with technical problems, but I really did like the novelty of playing Sonic 1 on the go long before the DS collection was ever released.

@Darknyht Another one for Tank Tank Tank here, played the download version when I wanted a tank game to play, and had a great time with it.

@Sunsy @Kitoro I feel like that Tank! Tank! Tank! was vastly misunderstood by the gaming press. It has a 45 on Metacritic for the Wii U port. When I wanted a simple shooter game to play with the kids, Tank! Tank! Tank! was a go to for 10-15 minutes of fun.