Games media has such a wide ar🐼ray of opinions, it’s hard to tell who you can trust. Going with the consensus often means ignoring those who have specialized knowledge about a given genre or subject, giving an unsatisfying, cursory look that appeals to the widest audience possible. A specialist, by contrast, is necessarily limited by the biases of its sou♛rce, potentially poisoning the well if the person in question has a specific political agenda or mechanical preference.
Good reviewers 🀅find a way to make this obvious, either by excelling at maintaining objectivity or by fully admitting their subjectivity, but in either case, there’s a good chance that critics sometimes just get things wrong. Maybe it’s a case of hysteria surrounding the hype of a game’s release, a scandꦅal broke out weeks before, or the game just happened to exist in the wrong genre at the wrong time, but it’s a reality that some games just get a bad rap.
We♒’re here to set the record straight on 20 games that critics hate in some capacity—be it a single, influential, clueless reviewer or an anomaly in consensus. The games listed might not be the best of the best, they might even be deeply flawed, but they’re not as bad as some critics out there want you to think🌞. So give them a shot, you might even find that they’re really quite good!
Of course, if you’d rather get our🍌 hot take on terrible games that really shouldn’t be all that popular, why not check out 15 ﷽TERRIBLE Nintendo Games That Sold Incredibly Well?
20 Just Dance Series
I’ll level⭕ with those of you gearing up to tell🗹 me why Just Dance rightfully sucks; it is✤n’t the best game ever. I even included it on my list of the laziest franchises, because they really do just keep getting away with it. Every year, it seems, a new version would be shovele🦂d out, and unlike a lot of the other games on that list, critics 🌼have long since decided enough is enough.
But even the most 𓃲hardcore gamers must concede the point that Just Dance sells for a reason: it’s fun. Maybe it’s not exceptionally technically competent, nor groundbreaking in any respect, and yes it did jump on the rhythm game bandwagon and stayeꦫd there way past its prim🔴e, but even despite all that, it’s still really, really fun. That may not be enough to warrant Game of the Year, but then again, not every game has to be.
19 Perception
Perception is a game that is intrinsically tied to its cultural context. When you hear the that a game is headed by a female protagonist, who has a disability, in a game that a heavy focus on story, there’s a good chance you’re either gearing up to play or just counted the strikes in your hea𝔍d. Unfortunately, even among well-meaning peopl♒e, this context is impossible to avoid; take Destructoid’s , which manages to cram in references to SJWs, diversity, and self-deprecating presumptions about the game that the author fully admits are incorrect, yet cites as evidence of the game’s lack of quality. And this is from 🍨the supposed liberal side.
Discountiꦍng this soph🍸omoric hyper-focus on identity politics quips, Perception reveals itself to be a much more nuanced experience.💞 The fact that the game utilizes its narrative to inform its gameplay through a unique echolocation mechanic—in survival horror, no less!—seems to breeze past most critics when they should be singing its praises. Simple interactive fiction, this is💎 not.
18 Farming Simulator Series
Farming Simulator gets a good share of criticism for good reason; it’s turned what should be a fairly simple concept into a yearly reiteration on par with most sports games while falling into the critically suicidal trend of becoming YouTuber Bait™. This shouldn’t in itself lead to any conclusions about the quality of a given entry in the💦 series, but naturally people make assumptions based on these facts, and they’re not entirely wrong to do so.
There is something 𓆉to be said about t๊he development tactics Farming Simulator undergoes, certainly, but ultimately the series does continue to provide a solid simulation o🉐f increasing complexity and graphical quality. And really, though the extension may be gratuitous, isn’t that what a simulator is ultimately all abo✃ut?
17 Postal
Whether or not you like it, Postal is a cult classic game. That doesn’t always necessitate it being𝕴 good—given its gory presentation and infamy, one wouldn’t be at f♔ault for thinking POSTAL might fall in that ca🔯tegory—but it does mean that it holds a specific place in gaming history. This isn’t your run-of-the-mill Hatred fiasco; Postal got a United States senator ⛎ and started a national conversation the likes of which rarely stems from video games as a medium.
But all things considered, what’s striking about Postal is how competent of a game it is. The worst reviews of the game, despite their negative connotation, often have little more to say than that the game is “boring” or some sꦫimilar argument. While it may not be a stunning work of political satire, the reality of the criticisms lobbed at it from a point now outside that political reality puts them into perspective.
16 Sunset
With Sunset, once again we see a game’s ༒political and narrative focus affects its reception. The criticisms for the story are all over the place among detractors; some see it as “monotonous,” others as “highly intelligent,” but ultimately the reviews come to a singular conclusion: the interesting part, the revolution, is not what is presented; instead, we get the banal existence of a maid.
The problem with this is that Sunset succeeds in a long history of media which captures banality and uses it to its advantage. The knee-jerk reaction to demand violence, action, excitement, is the exact sentiment it predicts, and opposes. Whether this makes for a “fun” time for someone depends on the person, but to argue it intends to do otherwise is to miss the point. Rarely, if ever, does games media use banalitไy as a tool, and for that alone, Sunset deserves a look.
15 💦 Necropolis
Recently, we had one of the most egregious examples of꧂ taking the Dark Souls comparison too far in a GamesRadar of the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Self-evidently, Crash is not Dark Souls, but this silly statement reveals something endemic (and lazy) in video ga🌳me criticism: the desire to compare anything and everything to the popular franchises of the time.
Necropolis came about a little too early for this awareness to fully set in, and therefore fell victim to it; by its nature of difficulty and tendency toward killi🔯ng the player, it necessarily was considered a Dark Souls clone. Nevermind that the game’s aes🎉thetic, genre, and mechanics didn’t resemble 𒈔anything Soulsborne. Sadly, this meant that Necropolis wasn’t given the time of day it truly deserved as a distinctive, stylistically unique roguelite. Even a year later, it remains true to its vision as a compelling dungeo♍n craw🦄ler.
14 Baroque
Baroque is a unique position respective to the last two games in this list; it uses death as not only a mecha♛nical elemꦫent, like Necropolis, but also a nar🧸rative, s𝔍ubverting expectations in a manner similar to Sunset. Unsurprisingly, most of the games press didn’t get it. Criticisms about dying are a lot less relevꦬant in a game that actively uses dying so completely.
E🐈ven outlets that seemed to understand, at some level, that this is wha๊t Baroque was try♌ing to achieve, still defaulted to the status quo of measuring success in video games. IGN that you still must give the player a “sense of accomplishment”—but in such a context, why is this necessary? Shouldn’t a g𒆙ame be given an assessment that considers the intentions and goals it sets for itself, rather than a nebulous reduction to the common threads inherent in all games? If that sounds at all like something you’d agree with, consider giving Baroque a try for a truly unique experience.
13 7 Days To Die
We’re all a little𝓡 tired of zombie games, aren’t we? Certain other words immediately stoke ire or a sense of exhaustion: crafting, “pro🔯cedurally generated,” and survival horror being among them. So you wouldn’t be entirely remiss to write 7 Days To Die off from the get-go, considering it is all these things, though 📖you would be missing♎ out on the key factor of execution.
Even that🍸 may not immediately entice you, considering that the game is littered with bugs. But inasmuch as you consider the mechanical depth, 7 Days To Die takes everything you would expect and adds a sense of layered nuance: zombified animals, specialized ev𓆉ents like “bloodnights,” and consistent updates make the game feel like more than your standard zombie crafting fare. This last part specifically renders much of the criticism in the early reviews obsolete, but you’d never know that only reading the reviews, revealing a major problem with this format for evolving game formats.
12 The Crew
For many, The Crew was a stunning open world of massive proportion wherein one could travel acros൲s the entirety of the United States (sans Hawaii and Alaska). The persistent world was a major draw for obvℱious reasons, but there were lots of drawbacks noted by critics as well: predominately, microtransactions and an always-online model. Ahhh those were the good old days when such things were uncommon! Sadly to say, they’ve become only more ingrained in the psyche of games media, and with The Crew 2 on its way, it’s 𝓰important to discuss whether or not the original was subject to a “” as per Slant.
While these things bog down the recollection of The Crew, the reality is was a lot more memorable for what it did well than what it did poorly; always-online🌺 tactics and microtransactions hardly started (or ended) with The Crew, but you’re hard-pressed to find another racing game of its kind. Here’s to hoping that its sequel will learn from its🐬 mistake꧅s.
11 Shadwen
We all hate escort missions. Whenever they enter a game, they often become the most frustrating, diseꦅngaging part, at best serving as a mediocre backdrop to some larger plot point. So the fact that Shadwen is essentially a top-to-bottom escort mission, even if mitigated by the cleverly crafted gameplay that renders every choice a moral quandary (tꦓo kill or not to kill?), probably leaves 🎃it dead in the water to many people. That’s a shame, because it’s ultimately a surprisingly good adventure.
Shadwen may be inherently limited by its conceit, but within that♉ limitation it performs as excellently as can be expected. The visuals are beautiful, the mechanics are deep, and the dilemmas it poses are true to its narrative. Really, that the game is not a train wreck in itself testifies to the merits of its develope👍r.