So, Resident Evil 6 hasn't got great reviews, which means the franchise is on the rocks! Finished! Back to the drawing board! Because the power of video game reviewers is absolute dammit. Or maybe not.
Here are 9 games reviewers took a critical dump on, yet went on to make giant piles of money anyways...
Note - I'm using VGChartz for these sales figures. Yeah, they do some estimating and aren't 100% accurate, but guess what? Those "official" NPD numbers are just estimates too (numerous retailers like say, Walmart aren't even tracked). VGChartz is close enough for the purposes of a light article like this. Also, in many cases the numbers I'm giving are combined sales across several platforms.
Just Dance
The Critical Consensus:
What the hell? All you do is hold a Wiimote while dancing! Wiimotes are stupid, dancing is stupid, and this is a stupid, stupid game.
Metacritic Score: 49
The Sales:
The first Just Dance did nearly 7 million in sales. Just Dance 2 and 3 both did almost 10 million. Jeez, who knew this whole "dancing" thing would catch on?
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City
The Critical Consensus:
A clunky, cheap looking shooter. The multiplayer was already done much better by the Left 4 Dead games.
Metacritic Score: 52
The Sales:
Over 1.5 mil so far and still going strong. Hey, if the Resident Evil name can turn a 52 Metacritic score into a million seller, imagine what it can do with RE6's 66 score! You're saved Capcom!
Cooking Mama
The Critical Consensus:
Cooking? I'm not sure what that is. Is it that thing they do with the squirt guns behind the Taco Bell counter? Oh, and I don't even get to eat the things I cook in this game? What...ever.
Metacritic Score: 67 (the average score of all the Cooking Mama games is 63)
The Sales:
The first Cooking Mama game sold over 5 million copies. The series has sold nearly 15 million. Think of your favorite video game series -- unless you're thinking about something like Mario, Pokemon or Call of Duty there's a good chance Cooking Mama has sold more than it.
The Mario Party Games
The Critical Consensus:
If reviewers could post a five-second video of them making a wanking motion as a review, that's what most of them would give Mario Party.
Metacritic Average of the last 5 Mario Party Games: 68
The Sales:
The Mario Party series is Nintendo's money-spinning secret weapon. The last five games have sold a combined 21 million or so.
Dead Island
The Critical Consensus:
Clunky controls, a lack of anything remotely scary and a bloated torso's worth of bugs hinders the promising "open-world zombie" RPG concept.
Metacritic Score: 71 (not as bad as some of the scores listed here, but still low considering the hype)
The Sales:
Nearly 3.5 million. I doubt Dead Island's relatively small-time publisher Deep Silver is complaining about sales like that.
Devil May Cry 2
The Critical Consensus:
Hey look, more Capcom! What happened to the style, challenge and polish of the original Devil May Cry?
Metacritic Score: 66
The Sales:
Almost 2 million, putting it right in the same range as all the other, better, Devil May Cry games.
Tony Hawk: Ride
The Critical Response:
What the hell? This is even worse than motion controls! I have to stand up and balance on a thing to play? I don't care how good Pro Skater 2 was, you're dead to me Tony Hawk!
Metacritic Score: 44
The Sales:
Almost 2 million. Also, take into account the fact that Activision was selling this game for 120 freakin' dollars. Activision made their money back on this one, no problem.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
The Critical Consensus:
Grumble mumble, Episode 1, mumble moan, George Lucas, mumble glarble blarg.
Metacritic Score: 71
The Sales:
Over 9 million combined sales over all platforms. That, for the record, makes it the best selling Star Wars game not to star Lego minifigures. The sequel, which had an even lower Metacritic score (63) sold another 3 million.
Anything Sonic
The Critical Consensus:
Sonic games are...not...good. They've never been good, they never will be good, there's no alternate universe where it's possible for Sonic to be good! For the love of God, stop buying Sonic games.
Metacritic Lowlights: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) 43, Shadow the Hedgehog 45, Sonic Unleashed 60
The Sales:
Sonic's core fans are so loyal that it's pretty much impossible for a multi-platform Sonic game to sell fewer than around 2 million copies, no matter how bad. The 2006 Sonic the Hedgehog sold a little over 2 mil, Shadow sold just a little under, and the ridiculous werehog starring Sonic Unleashed pulled in nearly 4.5 million.
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Dead Island was actually quite fun.
Agreed.
Yeah, Dead Island was awesome. I bought it on launch and didn’t really experience any game-breaking bugs. Minus the ridiculously shitty story, this is one of the greatest co-op games EVER.
It was a fun game but it got stale over time, only played Co-op a few times and while it was fun (note, only played with 1 other person) I wouldn’t say one of the best co-op gmaes since one us might just go around killing zombies and sliding on slides and driving around while the other does the mission. It didn’t really push you to work together it was just an option among many.
I am really surprised at all the criticism of Dead Island. Was it really, really buggy? Sure, but lots of games are. I thought it was legitimately challenging – I must have died a hundred times when you first enter the slums. And the story was OK. It was a fun game, and I don’t even like RPGs. I’ll gladly but the sequel when it comes out.
Gonna agree here as well. Dead Island was a good game from a small company. I think a lot of the hate comes from the FPS style minus guns. It wasnt scary but it was intense. I defy anyone to go through the city portion without an elevated heart rate.
The only bug I remember and I hesitate to call it a bug, as it was more likely an oversight was that I was able to 1 hit the final boss with the knife that makes heads explode. That kinda killed the buildup for me.
I’d like to see a follow-up to this post: “Games critics loved but actually sucked.”
I’ve played many supposedly awesome games that I absolutely hated, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil among them (character-relative controls suck, I’m sorry).
Second.
I think such a list would inevitably generate a lot of comments like Thabass’s below. So I guess I’m for it? Provided the author doesn’t have a problem with a couple dozen people calling him a moron and such.
You quickly grow immune to that if you write things about video games online.
Finally someone else who hates sonic games; dear god they are balls
Came here just to say I will never visit this site again:
“Sonic games are…not…good. They’ve never been good, they never will be good”
To the person that wrote this: You’re an idiot. You’ve been an idiot and you’ll always be an idiot.
OH SHIT THABASS AINT COMIN BACK!!!!!!!!
Sonic has a great nostalgia factor. Go play the original now…its not that good, which is a lot better then any recent Sonic games…but at least Sonic and Mario can whore themselves out for the Olympics! Or Mario Party! Or Super Smash Bros!
The original 2D games have their merit, but Sonic hit the polygon ceiling so hard he left a large blue smear.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the 2 million that bought Shadow the Hedgehog.
Oh, and if you read closely Sonic fans, you’ll note I was going a bit over the top with a lot of the “Critical Consensus” sections. Perhaps even comically so.
I though the first Force Unleashed was awesome, the easter eggs, the story. And the gameplay while beeng a God Of War ripoff it did it well.
The second one well…
It was fun for a bit, but quickly became a repetitive slog and collapsed under a metric crapton of bugs/glitches
It’s one of the small handful of games I’ve bothered to beat over the last 10 years.
I also loved Force Unleashed, but I am an admitted Star Wars nerd. It was fun to be able to use force lightning on stormtroopers or send them flying across the room. Hell, I even enjoyed the second one – although admittedly, I didn’t have to buy it since I borrowed it from a friend, so I wasn’t pissed about spending $60 for a short game. I actually wish they would make a third Force Unleashed to finish off the storyline, but I don’t think it will ever happen after the critical pounding FU2 took and the bloodletting at LucasArts
The first one was a lot of fun. Going through a 2nd time and killing entire groups of storm troopers with force lightning cant be beat. Part 2 on the other hand was garbage. I beat it in under 6 hours, and never felt the need to pick up the controller and play through again. If they make a third, I’m pretty sure it’ll be a flop since people like me have already learned their lesson.
While I agree that Sonic the Hedgehog had been a total bag of dicks for about a decade, the last two games that have come out are legitimately good and unleashed would have been good if they didn’t include the Werehog mechanic. You should try Sonic Generations.
Fug yourself, I love classic Sonic. 3D Sonic? Not so much. But classic Sonic was a blast.
The only one of these games I own is Devil May Cry 2. I won’t lie, it is not a great game, but it’s a great way to relieve some stress and unlike the first one, it doesn’t having any goddamn water level. But it also doesn’t have that cheesy freaking dialogue that made me laugh so hard I shot vodka out of my nose. Which don’t get me wrong, that’s a selling point.
The Mario Party games are fun when you have people over.