Horizon Forbidden West Is Getting Review Bombed on PS5, PS4 for No Reason

I can't help but laugh when people say that they trust user reviews more than "professional" reviews.

0/10 - No robot monkeys. Fail!

Metacritic User Reviews - the Twitter of video game reviews.

Who and why does anyone even look at Metacritic...? Just don't. The site is horrible, and they have done nothing to address this review bomb issue that has been going on for years.

At this point, and I know they won't because it will hurt traffic, they might as well just stop allowing user reviews. This wasn't a problem way back, but it's clear any changes they did after The Last of Us Part II accomplished nothing when there's no reason for Horizon Forbidden West to get review bombed in protest of anything.

I don't agree with it, but at least I somewhat understood it happening for The Last of Us Part II. It was still ridiculous, but it wasn't totally surprising given how things are nowadays. Again, there's no reason for it to be happening for Horizon Forbidden West though.

I only go to Metacritic to look up reviews for games I'm unfamiliar with more often than not. Not for the user reviews though. User reviews used to be useful for things though back before people lost their minds.

I watch reviews from trusted sources.

Then i check some gameplay and then i decide to buy or not.

Metacritic user reviews are mostly unreliable at both ends of the spectrum

There are people on 4chan and elsewhere "organizing" themselves to review bomb these games en masse. There's screenshots of their cringeworthy "calls to arms" kind of posts making the rounds on Reddit. It's happened to Horizon and it will happen to Elden Ring.

All I can say is, whew, having no life to that extent must suck.

@Gaia093 They have a life alright. It's not a very good one, hence their negativity and their misguided attempts at happiness by bringing others down.

My guess, Sony shouldn't have charged the extra 10 dollars. It pisses people off.

One would think that with how xbox fans talk about game pass and ms buying ips they would have no time to do other things than play videogames but looks like it isn't the case lol.

@Singels no dude, this isn't it

@Singels

That’s not why these “people” are review bombing Horizon.

@Singels while I do detest the pointless $10 price hike this gen, since you can pick this one up for normal price I'm pretty sure that this time it's just the angry incel crowd again. Especially if 4chan is involved.

Yall, some of these replies here are just as childish as those reviews. Console wars in 2022? Keep showing your age, guys.

@Palleon

I only have two complaints about the game so far, both technically related.

1. Certain shadows look weird. And they’ll do weird things in cutscenes. Like one where the guy I was talking to had a weird shadow mesh cross his right shoulder every time he moved his arm. I’m expecting that to be rectified in the first big patch for the game.

2. NPC and Enemy “walking” and “dying” routines need some extra work. NPCs will sometimes literally walk in front of the camera in dialog scenes. And I had a hilarious glitch last night where I killed a human dude and he was stuck standing up without body armor on. He’s like an eternal statue.

I’m 7 hours in and I’m LOVING the game. They took everything I loved about Zero Dawn (that was my favorite PS4 game) and went to the next level with it and fixed the things that didn’t work in Horizon 1. For example, the human enemies are actually not total bores to fight this time.

If I spent time in my day to log in to a site just to say "Game is terrible 0/10" I would kick my own a**. Fanboys are so strange.

The comments make out ps fans don't do anything like this ever ..... Anyone who does s**t like this are idiots ,just enjoy the games no matter what consoles they are on

Horizon Forbidden West is one of my favorite games this generation right up there beside Halo Infinite. Hopefully Sony and MS can produce a few more titles as entertaining as them. They are the type of games I like and they need more of them on the new consoles.

Same thing happens with a lot of big Switch exclusives, lol. Metacritic's user reviews are ridiculously easy to manipulate.

“Unrealistically diverse” LMAO. In a world where mechanical robots roam the land this person is upset that there are too many minorities in one place makes it unrealistic. This doesn’t surprise me one bit though. Any time there’s diversity in media people lose their minds over it.

Also, the first game explained exactly why the human landscape looks the way it does. Although they shouldn’t even have to explain. Seems even that reason wasn’t good enough.

@themightyant

It’s very, very slight on PS5. I’ve got the PS5 version and a buddy of mine has it on PS4 Pro.

We were sending each other videos comparing the two versions last night and I will say, the PS4 version has a TON of pop-in at relatively short ranges.

On PS5, I didn’t notice pop in until I actually got to the real Forbidden West and the game’s draw distance really expanded since you are on open plains and desert terrain. I’ve noticed some pop-in of really distant objects. But it’s nowhere close to the pop-in on PS4.

@TheRedComet How do you know ?

@Singels you cannot be serious! There was no “extra $10” for TLOU II and the same thing happened. Wild argument.

@themightyant

I do agree about the weapons. I wish they would have went with a system where you get one weapon of each class and then that weapon had its own upgrade tree that would last for the entire game. And you could customize its functions based on what you selected as you went through upgrading it.

@ATaco that is probably why people are review bombing the game.

@AhmadSumadi There where other arguments there. Not saying you should agree.
But it is a likely argument here.

@Gaia093 I call 4chan 4chin, cause they are all fat sad losers.

@Singels

Most of those guys are 4chan incels.

They tend to complain about crap like ethnic diversity, what they consider “woke” and nonsense like that.

The series is ultimately about environmental protection and climate mitigation. A fascinating subject that even a person like me, who is more right leaning, loves to explore in my fictional stories.

I’m one of those weird right wing leaning people who believes in environmental protection and mitigating climate change. So I’m glad that games are exploring those issues and Horizon has been one of the best at it.

Why would anyone read Metacritic user reviews for anything other than the laughs?

People on the internet need no reason to be pathetic trolls. Sadly, internet mentality infected reality and this is why the world is in shambles and on the brink of a 3rd world war as well as various civil wars.

Another day, another highly anticipated PS Game getting review-bombed for either asinine reasons or no reasons at all... BIG SHOCKER

Well, I loved Horizon Zero Dawn, probably my favourite game, I've already quit Forbidden West, they have made melee combat irrelevant, turned the game into a shooter. I personally struggle with shooter's and get zero enjoyment out of them. Was looking forward to this game, game isn't for me, I'm really disappointed with it.

@UnlimitedSevens Pretty sure there were robot monkeys in one of the trailers though, so I expect to meet them eventually. There are even robot kangaroos, lol.

I'd say let's let ignore the kids and enjoy the game. I own Horizon zero dawn twice on playstation (retail & Digital) and also on the pc and loved the game. I'm sure this one is great again. Who reads Metacritic for reliable scores anyway. Just ignore it. Don't write articles about it and the fun wil disappear for them.Problem solved.

@gamiller1978

Wait what?

They completely revamped the melee and made it viable against machines. On the first game using melee against the machines on Hard or Very Hard difficulties got you killed immediately. I’m playing on Hard for my first playthrough and when they release New Game+ I’ll go back through it on Very Hard.

I never touched melee in Zero Dawn. On Forbidden West I’ve killed probably 30% of the machines I’ve fought with melee attacks. And melee is actually better than ranged attacks on human enemies.

Give the game another chance.

And to be honest, I have no idea how you beat Zero Dawn without heavily investing into ranged weapons. I was using combinations of every ranged weapon in Zero Dawn to kill Thunderjaws like it was a science.

I tend to ignore the user scores for games on Metacritic. I mean, anyone can go on there and leave a negative review.

I do find it hilarious how some people are like "I don't listen to any reviewer cause they're paid off, I only read user reviews on Metacritic".

Salty fanboys strike again! 🤦‍♂️

I was worried about the cross-gen situation with first party games but man sony did justice to both systems old and new..The game is a looker and sets a high bar for visuals and gameplay..Not just a resolution bump the competition was doing..so a lot of folks are salty.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion - however, I wouldn't trust the opinion of anyone who has NOT played through a sufficient amount of the game to have formed their own 'opinion' and can back that up with a valid reasoning.

Getting worked up by others having a different opinion is not worth it. If you don't agree, move on. If you 'love' Horizon, then enjoy the game, enjoy your own experience, write your 'own' review.

Its clear that some people just want to 'spoil' and/or cause arguments and be completely disruptive. Its not 'just' Xbox Fanboys, all Fanboys do it - as you can see from the comments here instantly thinking it 'must' be Xbox Fanboys and/or doing exactly the same type of 'idiotic' and childish behaviour in retaliation...

The sooner Gamers grow up, the better!!!

Not really surprising seeing this regarding fan boys. You’d think that anyone gaming on either consoles will have games to play that they wouldn’t have time to bother posting fake reviews. I’ve been playing for a few hours now-and so far it’s the best game that I’ve played on the ps5 & imo game of the year. Phenomenal looking game-only minor point was that the game was made to run on PS4. Would have been nice to see a horizon game made only for ps5.

Metacritic always have haters lowering the score of excellent games. It's a shame but the site should consider removing the user's score, they could keep the comments only though (if really necessary), but scores (numbers) are quite misleading and scores can not be applied to art in my opinion.

At least when you see a game review bombed on steam it's because the devs are horrible people or they released a literally unbroken game... usually anyways.

Yeah I saw those too lol. I am almost done with the game.

Saw the comments like Aloy talks too much (which she does), woke claims (which the game has the most diverse cast so I don't get the complains).

Same people that hated Tlou2.

Same people who hate Sony making hit after hit.

This is most certainly more a result of saltiness than an attempt at trolling. This nonsense can be the bane of smaller devs. Fortunately Guerilla will get through this as they simply ooze class.

User reviews on aggregate sites like this with no confirmation of purchase are about as useless as bony meat (when all I want is that damn fox skin for my fast travel pack......still a bit sore from that 5 years later)

This sort of stuff only hurts the developers. I wouldn't trust these sort of reviews.

@Singels + 100/100 reviews don't help either. I can be wrong here but didn't Deathloop have those 100/100 reviews and PS only people were not ok with that because MS bought them? I mean,
this game was in development before they bought them ....
The game is good overall. We shall see the same thing if GT7/Starfield or any other game with potential gets some 100/100 reviews, I'm sure of that!

Ah yes the same old crap whenever a big PlayStation or Xbox game is released. Some proper sad people on the old interweb?

@Singels I think we found one of the review bombers 🤡

@Palleon Yeah. Visual bugs are the worst thing about the game. Non game breaking, but there are pick ups inside rocks, some floating, tall necks walking through trees and shadows pop ins. Also characters leveling/floating themselves up for a second.

@RevGaming That's the way I see it, too. Even for imdb. If there's any kind of diversity or any issue that bothers them, angry people review bomb things they haven't even watched/ played.

Nobody buying this game got anything other than what was expected. Yes, it’s a tried and tested, somewhat stale, format. But with an interesting story / protagonist, competent controls, good performance, and great graphics. Anybody who acts disappointed that it wasn’t something unique purchased something completely blind, or is lying for their own sad fanboy reasons.

@RevGaming as always with these big games,we will see a lot of patches coming over the next weeks. Probably one or two months more of polish should have threaded the game well but with GT7 upcoming Sony most likely wanted tos tick to their release schedule.
Overall there are no huge bugs in the game. The shimmering disturbs the image a bit but even this should be improved during the next weeks.

@Jacko11 Believe me I have better things to do. 😄

Its also getting equally inflated reviews so it balances out.

@Pusher2021 Agreed. Offtopic: Looking at your avatar, the new animated series is out

@Baircade I mean, what other assumptions are there besides hating on sony or calling stuff "woke"?

More proof of it were needed that Web 2.0 was an unmitigated disaster and that asking the general populace to contribute to the internet in any way instigated the actual downfall of western society.

Haha, some people really are sad and shame the majority of gamers.

@naruball I don't get it. There's white, red heads, blacks, indians, asians, men, women... What's the freaking problem lol?

Some people are really going to have trouble making friends irl.

@Reeneman Yeah... But they should have delayed it at least 2-3 weeks. Some of this stuff was not acceptable. It doesn't really bother me, but it ruins it a bit.

Just imagine having their lives. And be grateful you don't.

People really need a life, this is just sad

By the way, how can it be unrealistically diverse? It's meant to be a cross section of the world's population, that was built into Zero Dawn.

@RevGaming I’m sure they will release the next patch already next week.

Maybe they are bots?

Why is this being compared to the last of us 2? This review bombing is completely out of left field. That wasn’t the case for the last of us part 2 (doesn’t mean there weren’t a bunch of trolls who review bombed tlou2 for no reason, but there were also genuine bad reviews)

@Ralizah bayonetta 3 about to be review bombed on metacritic by PS fanboys because bayonetta 3 is Switch exclusive.

@RevGaming there used to be a time (like a decade ago), where a black character was just a (black) character. Now, the game immediately becomes woke. Same with lgbt etc.

Nothing new here. Online review systems are fraught with issues. People can say whatever they want and give whatever rating they want of course. There is no way to prove they played the game, saw the movie or bought the product. Some sites let reviews for items not yet released. Then there are people reviewing items based on things that have nothing to do with the product, like shipping delays or payment issues. I'm betting there are some game reviews complaining about the PS5 stock shortage or something similar. Silly.

@Rubssi Of course there can be legitimate criticism, but in some cases, even ostensibly legitimate criticism is anything but. Name any game and (even if I haven't played it) I can write a review explaining why it's a huge disappointment and all the "legitimate" issues I have with it. For me a 0-1 score for almost any game is a dead giveaway that the review shouldn't be taken seriously.

@naruball When it was about Balan Wonderworld, most people talked in pure negativity about this game without even playing it.
It's always harder being in a minority position.

They need someway to link to you account to verify actually playing the game

Seems like a very hurt fanboy of a certain black box (not many fans of white radio).. sorry mate, these sort of reviews are exactly why one should pick up a bombed game.
Also, game is superb and only minor issues people are reporting are due to how spoiled PS community has become (because of constant stream of above average games).

@Barryburton97 I’m loving the game but the way the side characters speak in HFW seems to have advanced a lot from the first game. One of the side characters used the word ‘municipality’ earlier. I don’t remember the side characters in the first game having this kind of vocabulary? It’s been a while since I played the first game but I swear the conversations were more basic. It sometimes feels like people from our world (as it is now) are LARPing or something, which makes me laugh 😁

Not really a complaint though, merely a funny observation.

@Nintendo4Sonic you're right about that game. My impression is that it's a bad game, though I haven't seen a single trailer to form even a superficial idea of whether it's any good. But the negative comments affect us.

@Texan_Survivor well said.

@themightyant I have sometimes the feeling that some people are judging the games without any of the patches. Not sure why and what’s happening with their system. No internet connection activated on their PlayStation? Issues with the update system?
Hard to imagine but when you read some of those issues that they are experiencing, it seems like that.

One of the best open world games ever made. Any other opinion is utter trash imo

Tbf the critic score on the website is a complete waste of time too. As are reviews in general. Majority only listen to ACG and SkillUp.

Idiots online everywhere.haha know when a game is good. And this game is just as good even better than the first one.word up son

Publishers need to stop tying incentives and bonuses to studios based off their Meta scores.

They should let review only people who bought the game, this way we will not have anymore this problem.

@BritneyfR_ee I have to agree. I also noticed that there seems to be loads of NPC's using modern slang words and terms that just doesn't fit with them being tribes. I know it's to give them more character (which works) but it's as if everybody has to sound like they're from California just because it's set in the west. I keep expecting Aloy to bust out with a, "like, oh my gawd".

Maybe try make people enter there PSN name, gamer tag ect and maybe sync it to see time played.

The game ridiculous good but it does have some faults I've been getting attacked while in cut scenes, the pop in from some cutscenes is insane at time even during the intro credits the map didn't even load textures, like do they not even have game testers theses days? Maybe because I put in rest mode I dunno if anyone else has had it.

@clianvXAi I don't see that happening, as it'd lower their traffic.

So far the only thing that’s bugged me is Aloys hair

It moves around like an octopus on crack sometimes

Like they were trying to showcase it. Seems too light weight wise. I can’t help but wonder if they weighted it a bit more and calmed it down would it free up rendering resources for 4k60fps

From what I remember hair takes a ton of resources to render.

Other than that loving it thus far.

maybe if you played on the base ps4 like us you would understand lol it's a festival of bugs and glitches and an incomplete mess, story is so basic and boring and generic, the open world has nothing to offer except the same repetitive dull combat vs robots, the same repetitive quests over and over again and again, forgettable characters that I found myself forgetting in the middle of the game let alone after few months lol i won't even remember their names or faces, HFW takes everything from the 1st game and repeats it but horribly and adds nothing new to the open world genre but keeps repeating the same things we saw many many years ago in open world games, this has to be one of the worst sequels i have ever played, it's like watching paint dry, it's like watching the trees grow.

@MasterEMFG “It moves around like an octopus on crack”

I heard there’s a real crack epidemic in the Octopus community. They’re even making a documentary about it on Netflix 🤪

@BRUTALSAM and what’s your opinion about Halo Infinite?
Was this boring open world shooting without any glimps of story a good game in your review?

@MasterEMFG I agree. Have the same feeling. A bit less would be more in this case.
In some cutscenes it moves around like crazy. I get the point during scenes with wind on high buildings but it moves around so crazy also in quiet conversations.

Review booming orchestrated by man-babies that foam at their mouth whenever they see diversity or don’t see over sexualized female characters.

Metacritic will just let them pile up, capitalize on the clicks, and then delete them in a few days as they usually do.

@Reeneman I don't care about halo infinite or any xbox game

@Singels Yes Saw it on Netflix the other day. Will be watching it soon 12 eps x 15 min

You don't need a review. Just play the original that they gave away last year and if you don't like it then don't bother with this one.

@UnlimitedSevens Now I want robot monkeys all of a sudden

Well it's a good thing I don't use metacritic to persuade me into buying a game. Just Skillup, AJ, and ACG for me.

Does anyone really care? Anyone that is remotely interested in this game already knows what the quality they are getting and anyone new to the series will do their homework first. Youtube would be my first point of call to look for reviews on something i hadnt played before. Not that cesspit they call Metacritic .

i never used Metacritic and prob never will , people that review bomb have way to much time on their hands.

That’s why i don’t care about User score, so much loser don’t buy game and they just only want to bomb review with no reason ! I have two friends is Xbox user but they really like this game and they still try to bought PS5. I just play this game 5h and really like this game, all i want in HZD i can get it now in this game ! Really awesome !

I gave it a 0 to attempt counteract the overly generous avarage!...and vice verses; back and forth type of war that goes on there. When user reviews get a little too personal

@RevGaming decided to trek into 4chan, diving into enemy lines to see what the fuss was about and it seems like now they're outraged that Sony seems to be pushing this agenda of "ugly is beautiful" because they find Aloy unattractive. These are the same sorts of people that got pissed at TLOU2's heavy lgbt themes. Just people that refuse to advance with society...

What? 0/10!? I better request a refund real quick!

Those are the people who think the future is all digital, services & subscriptions (thanks Microsoft). It honestly gives me more satisfaction in supporting the PS5 Special Edition. Who knows when or if it will end, but I'm riding the big banger PlayStation exclusive train all the way and this kind of stuff just amps me up even more

Judging by that review in the article image I think we know their reasons are just straight up racism and mysoginy.

just dont take the dheads on....my bet elden ring n gran turismo will get the same treatment....sad

@Futureshark "Salty jealous Xbox crowd who probably can't get past the idea of a female lead instead of a 'bro'."

Joanna Dark, Kameo, Kait Diaz, Recore, and the whole deal going on with 'Tell me why'.

These people review bombing these games do not care about your console war. They just hate minorities.

I have NEVER looked at a user review to decide whether to buy something....I don't think I've even ever actually read a user review on metacritic

With triple A platform exclusive games Metacritic is useless the same goes for COD and BF people somehow cant handle those things. Im not going to reviewbomb any Xbox exclusive games because why? And everyone who gives those games a 0/10 cant be taken serious.

@UnlimitedSevens that reviewer would love Astro's Playroom.

@TheRedComet I just play the game to murder giant robot dinosaurs.

I was about to review bomb HFW this evening, but see I no longer need to. I'll just vent my frustration here instead.

I'm disgusted by this game and PlayStation's anti-consumer practices. I've been eagerly awaiting this title for over a year, and what do I find on launch day? It's not included in my Gamepass subscription!! No communication whatsoever about this from Sony or Guerilla Games! Enough is enough I say, when will people open their eyes to these shady business practices? We need to send a message loud and clear to these developers that when we, the gamers, expect something we bloody well better get it. They deserve these bad reviews, and it's probably a crap game anyway, full of hair mechanics and story and stuff. Peace ✌️

Just got off the game. Wow...the sheer scope... game is huge!

Why are The Gamers tm (credit Stephanie Sterling) terrified of women? I get it, but I don’t get it.

I’m 6.5 hours in and I’m loving it. I can’t vouch fir the story yet, but the combat (especially melee), traversal and characters all seem vastly improved from Zero Dawn. I adored Zero Dawn, so it’s truly impressive they managed to make it play better.

This is just out of pure saltiness towards playstation, from people who obviously wouldn't know a great game if it hit them in the face

Also people shouldn't take metacritic seriously anyway, some of the games with high scores don't deserve it whilst others with lower scores are hidden gems

While I totally agree review bombing is a thing, I find it odd that push Square chose the one they did in the article as an example, because that one in particular, sounds valid and are absolutely criticisms I can understand one would have.

How can you bomb the storyline on a game you've only played for a couple of days? Makes no sense to me!

@Odium I’m struggling with the climbing a bit but I think it’s because I started playing this right after Uncharted Legacy of Thieves. I’m sure I’ll get used to it the more I play.

Happens with everything. Nothing new to report.

Obviously those who gave it 0/10 are the sad fanboys of gaming community who of course have no taste or respect

@Rural-Bandit Unless you can quantify that with hard data, no one can say who is allegedly putting more garbage in the lakes. Personal anecdotes are not scientific nor objective.

@Futureshark Please give the fanboy garbage a rest. You look like a fool. Gears has female leads. Perfect Dark is coming back. Recore has a female lead. Big IPs like Tomb Raider are widely available on XB. And Sony's making their own GamePass equivalent, FYI. The selection is hardly fodder.

Review bombing happens to every platform. That's the price of having a free, open internet. 🤷‍♂️

Pushsquare: Horizon getting reviewed bombed for no reason

Metacritic user reviews: reasons

“ Of course, we all know that the user score on the website is a complete waste of time...”

No, we don’t. I trust player reviews over media and blog reviews any day of the week, and I’m media literate enough to “read” a review bomb, understand what the grievances are, and determine if I care.

This is gross and I hope your readership can see through this facile attempt at gatekeeping.

Yea let me just blindly trust user reviews that are anonymous. That's the way, trust anonymous users over someone who puts a name and face, or at least has a portfolio of work, to an opinion. /s

I realize that professionals can be corrupt but it's far less likely than user bias and sexism creeping up on MC.

@Singels £10 is nothing when its a masterpiece potentially game of the year contender as all sony exclusive games end up being

@Falkirk4life It’s not obvious. Many 0/10 reviews — and 10/10 reviews for that matter — post their “actual” score in their review and only swing for the extreme numbers to try and affect the user score. They’re trying to game the algorithm.

@ATaco Wooow.
Aloy is pretty.

Too bad they won't get a girl as pretty as her (ugly to them) with that inmaturity.

@StylesT That’s fine, but I don’t think that’s a good reason to dismiss user reviews. Most of the time they line up with media reviews within a few decimal points. When they don’t, there’s almost always an interesting reason. Either something really messed up technically that the media is squashing (think Cyberpunk, Skyrim PS3), or something “political” (think bad company practices, “woke” or anti-“woke” commentary, community grievances).

It’s interesting at the very least, and quite informative if you follow the hobby and industry.

Steam reviews are particularly good because you can vet the user’s profile and see how many hours they logged.

@Spiders Meh. I bet 90% of that user pool barely plays games. Probably beat 1-2 games per year. Plus they're too emotions oriented as you can see.

I'll take critics anyday.

@Spiders I get a feeling you will hate the next street fighter.

The 0/10 scores are there to compensate for the underserved 10/10 scores. I actually agree with the 7.7 user score for HFW. It's just another open world game.

Okay, I had to go and look, and read over 30 o/10 reviews. Gotta be real here, push Square is misrepresenting the truth here. A large majority of the reviews are long descriptive and detailed accounts of their grievances with the game. Clearly not review bombs.

Now, that being said is giving a game you think is decent or good a 10/10 not also just a review bomb? I think the bigger picture here with how these user reviews are being given is being missed here. It has become somewhat the norm now that most either give a review on there with either a 10 or a 0.

Most people reading any review site or retail review list know you must read the reviews and determine if there are enough mentions of a positive or negative that demonstrate consistency. Then make a determination based on that, not an overall score.

In the case of many of the negative reviews on HFW, they demonstrate long, well written and specific explanations for consistent aspects of the game that have disappointed them. Aspects that clearly show they have played the game.

Bottom line here hfw is not perfect, nor are scores an accurate reflection of a game. Read the reviews from many sources whether user or critic, you will see specific things mentioned that are clearly consistent. Then make a determination based on such.

I personally think it is far more suspect when a game outlet with a vested financial interest to hype a game (marketing revenue, continued early access to titles, clicks etc), highlights significant issues, false promises, and more and yet gives the game a 9 or 10, yet on a different game, those exact same issues warrant it being a 5 or 6 or worse.....

There’s opinion… and then there’s agenda, anyone who has an agenda when producing a video game review is an idiot. As simple as that really.

@BritneyfR_ee climbing certainly isn’t as smooth as Uncharted, so I can see how you’d be struggling with it. I haven’t played Uncharted or a game with much climbing in a while, so it feels pretty good to me.

The game is amazing and I do not care about what haters say. Do not like it do not buy it. It has some bugs but are only a few that does not ruin the great experience. I love it. 😀

@Spiders That steam method would be nice to have on the likes of meta....have to log in with an account linked to a gamer tag so you could see if people had actually played games so you could tell if they where genuine......

The whole thing is sad that people care so much about the score that people end up over rating or underrating games

I have only played about 2 hours of horizon west and I am pretty underwhelmed given the huge hype(which i thought I mind find) but I just find it sad people will give it a 0 and on the other end of the scale the super ps fanboys will give it a 10 even if they don't think it is

Anyway I hope I start to enjoy the game more

The game currently has a 7.7/10 user reviews on Metacritic. That's a high score, not a review bomb. There's probably equally as many 10/10 of people that barely or didn't play the game. Either way who cares, watch some gameplay and make up your mind whether you like it or not. I liked the first one and it was a 7/10 for me, I might get this one when it's on sale. Different tastes for different folks & all that.

That Stevivor review was laughable considering they didn't get a a review copy & they gave halo infinite a 9.5 🙈😂

Let's face it you're never going to fully agree with reviews that we read, metacritic is split into three review types, those who purposely rate a game 0/10 as its on a console they don't like, those who rate it highly just because its on a console they worship and then there's those who give honest reviews who's scores can range from 0-10/10.

But metacritics user score bundles all these together to give an average which is why you can't take metacritics uswe score at face value or read too much into it.

Stick to critics reviews and dedicated gaming sites reviews if you want a reliable review.

Also its all down to personal preference especually when it comes to genres you prefer, as to me Horizon Forbidden West is a solid 9/10 as i love a good story and Rpg's, whilst halo infinite was a 5/10. To someone else who prefers FPS then those scores would be re-versed.

End of the day, Reviews are always going to get attention from all crowds and the only review that matters is your own. The fact your reading a review of a game already means that your interested in said game, so just take the gamble and buy/rent it and see for yourself.

Go and click on the profiles of the people rating 0/10. At least half of them have all Sony games as 0/10 and then you see Halo Infinite as 10/10. It's mostly upset Xbox fanboys that they have nothing coming out this year.

@KundaliniRising333 I'm not seeing these long, descriptive reviews making good points. The "most helpful" negative review is in Spanish and just says there's too many NPC's and the game is boring, it's obviously from someone who hasn't even played the game. Funny, he also has Forza, Halo Infinite, Pyschonaughts 2, and Twelve Minutes at 10/10 meanwhile Returnal is a 1 and Rachet and Clank is a 2. It's blatant fanboy downvoting dude, stop trying to say otherwise.

@Medic_Alert I will stick at it...I really want to enjoy it....but as you said it does feel quite outdated...I guess with all the hype I was cautiously hoping for more....but it just doesn't seem like it's anything unique atall...is this just a case of a overhyped ps exclusive?

I'm not going to lie I missed out on the PS3 and PS4 and all the ps fans made out like there exclusives where on a different level....but every exclusive I've tried so far ..I've came away thinking there wouldnt be much hype if these where multiplat games ....they are just 7 or 8 out of 10 games

Best one I've played so far is probably Death Stranding...which oddly enough is one of the lower scoring ps exclusives

Definitely a Reddit crowd game, can’t really argue that point or any of the others. Pretty spot on assessment of nearly all triple A games run by evil corps

@BritneyfR_ee given that the complete knowledge of the human race was deleted in the first game, it is very impressive they've all managed to learn English so nicely !

@Tecton217 what's a Reddit crowd game?

Well, I suspect I might get some heat for this but I actually don't necessarily disagree with anything this "enut_butter" said in his (or her) metacritic review. Assuming Forbidden West is more of the same (haven't gotten to Forbidden West yet), I found the original, Zero Dawn to be incredibly inoffensive and tame. And I'd say it was pretty unrealistically diverse as well. Now whether that's an issue for you or not is purely subjective. That sort of thing doesn't bother me personally but it was definitely something I noticed during my initial playthrough.

My biggest issue with the review isn't actually anything that's said it's the score that's given. A 0 out of 10 is a bit harsh for those particular criticisms. Is being tame, boring and inoffensive really worth docking 10 points? Most reasonable people would probably say no. If this review was worded the exact same way but the user had given the game a 6 or a 7 it wouldn't be met with nearly as much scrutiny. There would still be some toxicity levied from those that can't handle any sort of criticism but that's to be expected. If you're going to give a game like Horizon Forbidden West a 0 out of 10 you better have some damn good arguments as to why. I would actually love to see a well thought out argument from that perspective, this however unfortunately is not it

Stop giving these goons attention. It's literally all they want, do better.

Entertaining these keyboard warriors is akin to spending time on Twitter for anything other than sports scores. You'll quickly lose faith in humanity.

@RevGaming I wish we could bet! You make a lot of assumptions I’d like to test with some stakes. Also, Why would I hate the new Street Fighter? I love Street Fighter.

@Spiders The only assumption was about the street fighter thing.
I'll remain silent, we will know tomorrow (you can comment the things you didn't like).

@Medic_Alert @rawzeku That and I’ve boticed

Yeah I notice a few funny glitches in my playthough and the opening isn’t a strong as the first games. Things pick up once you can finally free roam I find.

@Barryburton97 Maybe Aloys focus translates it all or something.

@StylesT I'm just guessing you don't like these story narrative games and that's fine.

It is what it is. I finished it. It's a about a little over a 9 imo.

@RevGaming I don’t even understand the leap in logic... I’m psyched about Street Fighter 6....

I also think PushSquare wrote a ridiculous article trying to call a ‘7.7’ user score a review bomb “for no reason” other than people didn’t like it as much as they did.

Horizon 1 wasn’t that good I played it. It was fine. I got bored at like 30 hours and dropped it. I’d give it a 7/10. User reviews for the sequel are stronger.

Is that a “review bomb”? or I just don’t like linear games stretch across “open” worlds for the sake of it?

@Medic_Alert I dunno, at the time of its release people complained about the game’s pacing being a slog due the micromanagement of its mechanics and extreme adherence to realism. Not to mention it didn’t exactly revolutionise gaming like Kojima promised.

@RevGaming I am getting over the “narrative” games, fair enough, but what does that have to do with Street Fighter 6? I have over 1,000 hours in SFV and never touched the story mode if that’s what you mean.

@rawzeku Yeah, whats metacritic good for anyway?

New rule nobody can post a review anywhere until they have the platinum trophy 😂

I love the game, I knew I would like it as HZD is my favourite PS4 game. It's like my new Star Wars, just love being in that world. It's a dangerous place but I feel at home running around as Aloy taking down machines with my arsenal of weapons.

@Spiders Like I said. Lets wait for the sf6 reveal. I'm expecting an outcry about something in general.

@Medic_Alert I just no life it lmao.

I give it a 9.2
No spoilers

• Stealth AI could've been better
• Visual bugs
• Dialogue Options were redundant in an specific area
• Aloy at points narrates the gameplay (too much)
• Some characters weren't up to par with others
• Some side missions weren't as good, but they're better than the first one

-2 Some story moments were meh

It's almost the same negatives (mostly caused by not so great dialogue) as the first one, with the main plot being a bit less interesting because it's not so much shrouded in mystery. Gameplay, World, Graphics, Presentation, Content, Music all have improved imo.

I have my own review criteria on what I like to see on these type of story based games. It seems like I took a lot, but I have so many other key points.

I think it will get nominated for sure, but win it? Pretty hard when Elden Ring, Starfield, God of War and Zelda are in this year.

@DarthKiwi I don’t know man... the user reviews are pretty sanguine. This article has me losing my faith in journalism. Or blogs or whatever this site is.

@RevGaming I think you’re mistaking me for someone who “outcries” versus someone who listens to outcries. I don’t ignore user reviews because PushSquare tells me too, and if there was some issue or controversy that caused people to be upset, I want to know what it is. Ya know, like a news site ought to be doing.

Turns out some people don’t think it’s all that good. Glad PushSquare was here to tell me those people have the wrong opinions and are trolls. Good grief!

@Medic_Alert Good for you. I for one do not have the time or space for such an experince at the moment.

I’ll just leave this here for the 80 hour game claim... or do we not trust each other as players anymore only the media?

https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=79775

@Spiders Lets just wait for SF6. I'm just expecting Capcom changing something hardcore fans love. It may not happen. I'm speculating. We'll talk.

I'm not ignoring user reviews because Pushsquare tells me to. They want my clicks and I want their info so I don't see that we have something special going on.

I'm just saying, there's less integrity to the user score that there is to the critic score. 0s? 10s? Ghost had 10s all over the place because Tlou2 had triggered a lot of people (You can't kill one of the two main characters, the game being too woke when it's not), while you have review bombs against animal crossing, astral chain and fire emblem to name a few. These users are not reliable. AT ALL. I don't even know their credentials. Yeah, some critics make super horrible reviews, but those are rare to the amazing well crafted 0 out of 10s. Some of those haven't play enough games (not saying you need 100 games beaten, but it helps).

0 out of 10 TO ANY GAME is in bad faith/trolling.

@Spiders anyone can and should be able to review a game but...I just hope they actually play the games before they review them. It really takes some kinda energy to review a game that you actively hate and have no intention of playing.

@Medic_Alert Forgot sound. I think it's as good as the first one. distance, being in the a tunnel/cave, direction etc.

I'm going to play Elden Ring in march even though I have it pre-ordered. I made a review criteria for 100 points. I don't write reviews, but I like to score a game the most objectively way possible.

The start is slow, but I think with open world games is always like that (even Red Dead and Witcher). I had no problem with the climbing. There were only a few moments were I didn't make the jump. I get that she may get stuck in some places, but I see that in Open world games every single time. Even the horse in red dead trampled over the smallest pebble lol. I guess I will have to play the new AC games to see if that's the issue with the game for you. I scored the first one 9.6 (was mostly dialogue between characters holding it back).

Need to force people to link their steam/epic etc, Xbox, or PS accounts to track time played and not allow reviews for anything less than X amount of hours.
Also when reporting an average across scores anything 3 or less out of 10 should not be included in the average, unless of course the person looking at the score wants to include them for whatever reason.

@Tchunga Unrealistically diverse?
But it is set over 100 years in the future, in a post apocalyptic world

@Medic_Alert One last thing. The only game I think it's a true 10/10, is The Last of Us. At least since the ps3/360 gen. God of War was a 9.8 which is the highest since then. I think some reviewers just round up things to 10 and people think they're saying it's a perfect game when they just rounded the number. It's probably why you see Horizon winning more awards than Mario Odyssey and GoW more than Rdr2.

@DarthKiwi It being set in a post apocalyptic world hundreds of, if not thousands of years in the future make the diversity of these incredibly primitive villages make even less sense, not more. Again, it doesn't bother me. I'm all for diversity for diversities sake but to say it's realistic is simply not true

@naruball I tend to agree more with user reviews, but I don't look at reviews until I have finished with the game. Reviewers tend not to appreciate certain games because they don't have time to lose themselves in the world and want to be immediately engaged. I certainly can't trust professional reviews in general.

So website I’ve never been to is review-bombed by people I have nothing in common with. Just checking my care-factor … and it’s dipped below zero

@Ravensbane Or just have more people that are enjoying it give it a good review? Censoring reviews would just backfire on on you. Censoring doesn't work.

@AhmadSumadi A lot of games have forced diversity when they really shouldn't. I'm mostly thinking of Assassin's Creed, but Horizon is set in America, so you'd expect the characters to be pretty diverse in Horizon.

@Ravensbane my problem with review scores is how short some of them are.

"Should not have wasted money on it, this was such an overwhelmingly boring game"

An example of a 0 review for Forbidden West I just looked up. What can I as a potentially consumer infer from this? Boring how? Others say "lots of bugs" without being specific. Usually just two sentences and that's apparently a review.

This problem applies to both 0 reviewers and those that give it perfect 10s. Until metacritic sets better standards in place I find it hard to trust user review from that site.

there is a simple solution to fix the sorry state of user reviews on metacritic. sony needs to add an app on the ps4/ps5 — you will not get access to the ratings/review system unless you first validate the game and prove ownership (and so many hours docked). simple as that. this would add a great deal of credibility in knowing that every user review is based on a verified account. i don't think this is an unreasonable step to take but sony and metacritic apparently don't have a problem with how it is currently being handled i suppose? naturally, this would also apply to nitnendo, microsoft and valve if we can actually take these reviews seriously.

@AhmadSumadi ahahah true. "Blame if you do. Blame if you don't." Some people simply will not be satisfied by anything. Imagine loosing your time reviewing a game or any media, just because there isn't enough flowers or trees in a game or movie, or whatever some seem to pick on. Sad really.

I think the game is fun, its got some issues. I will be honest, I didn't the first one was great it was good but not great.

So far this game is feeling the same way to me.

I'm not sure who said this game should be realistic. What sort of realism are we expecting lol. It is a fantasy game set in the future. It boggles the mind that the diversity on show is considered unrealistic but the machines are what, bang on for being realistic? They're appealing to a wider audience with the characters in this fictional game and who can blame them.

Anyway I'm loving the game. Any reviews of around 5/10 is evidence that the game isn't for that person, anything below that is poor trolling. I don't play Halo, don't play COD. I'd never review bomb them though or criticise their lack of realism, they're just not my thing.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Stop crying. You don't have to agree with them and metacritic score is pointless. Read the reviews, not the score.

The sentence below clearly summarizes the credibility of these clowns. This reminds me of the cringy folks that rated The Last of Us Part II so poorly because it was "woke" (i.e. has real people in it with lifestyles they don't understand). I'd wager very few of the haters, if any, actually played either game.

“'Probably the biggest disappointment in a while,' one user wrote of the 80 or so hour game, less than 24 hours after its release."

@Nem
It's impossible to take any of these clowns seriously. They most likely have never played a game that is a true 4/10 let alone a 0/10.

@naruball For films I do trust the overall number more than I do critics. Not for games because gamers are crazy nutters.

Typical incel crowd and Xbox fanboys, this is why user reviews are worthless. Its a fantastic game with my only issues so far being the various graphical bugs and issues.

@Nem These aren't opinions this is incels who haven't played the game upset because the game has a female lead and has a diverse cast of characters.

Of course it is.

Exclusive games on Xbox, PS and Switch have been getting consistently review bombed for years now.

I'd be more surprised if you said it wasn't

It's all 0's and 10's from console warriors duking it out on any battlefield they can utilize.

Best to just not look at user reviews on MC. Only Steam User Reviews are worth reading.

@WallyWest
incels who haven't played the game upset because the game has a female lead

That's... silly. Nobody cares about a "female lead". I guarantee you that is not anyone's motivation (barring a few outliers which I'm sure exist). It's just fanboys. That's all it is. Same reason Xbox exclusives get review bombed, and Switch exclusives get review bombed. It's console wars. They've been raging for decades

Has nothing to do with "incels" or "hating women". It's just fanboys fighting their console war.

@naruball It really depends on the userbase but yet MetaCritic ones are always unreliable.

This happens every major release.
Xbox fanboys review bomb Sony stuff and Sony fanboys review bomb Xbox stuff.
Its always pathetic and childish.

@gamiller1978 Been awhile since I played the first one but I remember the melee combat being way more shallow in part one. That said I am probably 15 hours in and I am just starting to go down that tree.

@TheRedComet Regarding the melee. I only started playing Horizon Zero Dawn this weekend. I'm not far into the game, but playing on very hard difficulty I find melee more efficient than ranged. Maybe I'm a poor shooter, but anyway. It is working on anything I encountered so far, except the corruptor and sawtooth: basically the machines that can perform frequent wide area attacks.

@mucc To be fair, Xbox guys have Starfield coming out this year, so they need just to wait till holidays.

@Spiders If you trust reviews on sites that allow you to score a game without purchasing one, how do you know which one was review bombed?

@EVIL-C Review bombing is mitigated on platforms that require you to purchase the game before reviewing. One of the problems with Metacritic is that people use it as a popularity context: upvote something you root for, downvote something you don't like.

Unlike films I never found an aggregate review site for games that works for me. That's why I'm on PushSquare, their review scores are most of the time match the experience I get playing those games. But other sites can be way off. If I would take an average, then the score would be skewed too much.

So yes, for PlayStation I get my reviews from just one source (and watching some gameplay), and I'm better off for it.

@WallyWest nah that’s a terrible take . tomb raider for example is iconic .

A game review should always be objective, and always posted by people that actually spent more than 10 hours in that game's world.
Giving a 0 to such a game "just because" is simply childish. I very much doubt a hefty part of those "reviewers" went hands-on with the game ... they are simply being rallied and herded by influencers posts.
Never cared about Metacritic scores anyway. And never trusted 1-2 sentences reviews that sustain "this sums it all up".
Always watched 2-3 official reviews from different sources, and a few gameplay trailers.
Something that overall takes about 30-40 minutes tops.
If I liked what I saw, I bought the game.
If not, I moved on and played something else.
And speaking of playing, going back now into Horizon Forbidden West. Because I'm actually playing it and I like it so far.
Cheers!

@JaxonH Considering the bulk of the "reviews" are against Aloy and the diverse cast i disagree. They have already had a meltdown because Aloy isn't a supermodel and they cried last week because she has fuzz on her face like nearly every woman has. Nah its incels mostly here, i have no idea why people are trying to say otherwise when the comments speak for themselves.

@nomither6 and?

@Grimwood I don't think you understand what objective means.

@naruball True about the 0-1 score, unless the reviewer specifies his criticism is specific to an aspect of the game.

Wait till they find out the majority of humans on earth aren’t European. “Why is Earth woke?! Whaaaa!”

It's not for no reason. It's likely the Xbox fanboys as usual. They do this everytime a great PS exclusive comes out for validation because the ones who are fanboys are pathetic and insecure.

@RevGaming astral chain got reviewed bombed by psusers 💀not Xbox but keep thinking like that. There's review bombers on ALL platforms

@Rubssi Unless it's literally unplayable, I fail to see how any issue can legitimately justify a 0.

My hold on and wait for the price drop strategy my prevail quicker than expected

@mucc Xbox has redfall,Scorn, Stalker 2 and starfield coming out this year, what was the point of your console war BS comment. You can call out fanboys without saying things that have no merit, you look as bad as the people who are leaving HZD FW bad reviews 🥶. I know this year I'm gonna enjoy gaming on "All" platforms like everyone should

@naruball
I think neither are to be ‘trusted’ especially not random numbers.
The take away is read the reviews (not the score) and use your own brain to tell you how you feel and think for yourself without lapping up everything. Nobody in the world can tell you what is good for you.

@Envy Im just as bad as upset fanboys for pointing out their fake reviews? Uh no. I obviously don't mean theres nothing coming out for Xbox literally. Redfall and Starfield are supposedly coming out late this year yet there's not even gameplay revealed for them and Stalker and Scorn are in development hell and keep getting delayed, Stalker 2 is just a 2 month exclusive too. Either way Sony has more major games releasing in the first 6 months of the year than Xbox has all year. I'll also be enjoying those games on PC.

@RevGaming I get what your saying but the 0/10 is just to pull down the number — that’s just people gaming metacritic to be heard — it has nothing to do with the content of user reviews.

Still, despite the system being open to gaming and abuse but still the user reviews and critic reviews line up for the most part so it really is those times when it doesn’t there is usually a story that we’re not hearing in the media.

This Horizon example is even worse because there is no “review bomb”... user score is literally 8.0 as I type and really this is just a gross fake news story by PushSquare slamming gamers for not going with their narrative that Horizon is some masterpiece.

PS call Horizon an 80 hour game; it’s more like 30-40. They say gamers have “no reasons”, but a quick glance at the actual user reviews and you see they have actually a consensus on issues and they’re disappointed with the story, lack of innovation in structure, and immersion breaking technical issues like Aloy getting stuck on geometry, that an $70 AAA game in 2022 shouldn’t have.

Also, what little they showed of SF6 looks dope;)

@ATaco I think it’s sad too, to review games you haven’t played, but most of the user reviews I read have the similar complaints and it sounds like they played the game.

@Spiders
Hi. While I don’t agree with user reviews and I think a lot of them are complete BS I do appreciate your comment in the media having a bias against gamers but supporting their fellow press reviewers because they want to validate professional opinion.
If they criticise gamers reviews they should ALSO criticise other press reviews many of which to be honest are also complete BS.

@viktorcode You can tell by the difference in the critic and user scores and then read the reviews. Most user reviews end up within 10 points on the 1-100 scale and that’s as close to agreement with the critics one can expect.

A good example of a review “bomb” is COD Vanguard Critic:73 User: 36.

It takes less time to read a “critic” review than to see what’s going on with gamers:

-samey gameplay
-bad campaign
-network issues
-borked spawns and imbalanced weapons
-Activision sexual harassment
-woke pandering in story

NONE of this is brought up in the PushSquare review (7/10). After going through user reviews, PS sounds like a press release. They don’t even describe what network play is like; they just go over modes over a paragraph. That’s where most players spend hundreds of hours.

That’s not to say users are right and critics are wrong here, but I think you get a much better picture of what’s actually going on with a title by taking it all in and determining what’s important to you.

Honestly, I think user reviews are more of a backlash of our poor enthusiast press and the idiotic number grades system than of the actual games.

@Envy Astral Chain is currently Critic: 87 User: 90... where is the review bomb? Was it “counter-bombed”?

I guess for all this talk, I’d like to see an example of a “review bomb” that didn’t bring up an issue the press ignored that shouldn’t have been brought up.

The mountain PushSquare made of the user review molehill is that some gamers are disappointed with the story, the structure, and the “filler” and thought the game should be knocked more for these issues than from what the press is saying... literally they got it down from an 88 to an 80. Sounds like a reasonable to me.

Worse, and really my issue here is the way this article slanders users/gamers voices. “no reason”, “nobody actually listens”, etc. It’s really gross, and an example of the worst trends in press today of dismissing, marginalizing, and insulting people who disagree with them. I’m surprised they don’t just say everyone who gave Horizon a ‘0’ is an unvaccinated fascist.

“Review bombs” are the people’s voice, and like I theorized above, more of an indictment of the press than of the games.

@TheCollector316 Howlongtobeat.com has Horizon at 30 Hours to finish the main story not 80 (100% checklist complete) and I don’t think one need to play to credits to decide they’re disappointed.

@themightyant The majority of user reviews are 10s and 0s to move the needle. It’s “Twitch Plays Pokémon”... they’re just trying to move the average score in one direction or the other.

It disingenuous to discredit a user review because it’s a “0”. Nobody actually thinks it’s a 0/10.

@Porco Valve does have authenticated reviews.

@Uncharted2007 You don’t think the opposite is true? The press having open contempt for the people and misrepresenting their grievances for clicks, consensus, and consolidation is not an issue?

@WallyWest i said it in the first sentence . your assumption is terrible .

maybe try reading ?

Personally I think the last of us part 2 has possibly one of the worse written stories in video gaming as it accidently tly seem a bit far right ie killing a child for the greater good despite that solution making no sense in a world that far gone and gives allot of power to a pretty shifty organisation. Abbey as well seems a pretty nasty piece of work as much as they try to soften her with Lev.

Also it's attempts at being politically correct are undermined by the killing of a disabled charecter to quicken up the gameplay, the extreme violence and the scars conflict being a bit troubling politically being Drunk man claims that its based on Israel Palatine and if so is saying Muslims are savages.

Also there is an extremely good reason to give Horizon a bad review. Sonys really poor practice in selling the Ps5 version for ten pounds more despite giving you it free with the ps4 version which is just an example of terrible business practices.

@JJ2 while in a perfect world, gamers would read/watch a few reviews to get an idea if the game is worth their time, in reality, many (if not most) don't. They just look at the score and think "this is/isn't worth my time". There was even an article going over how most gamers who read reviews, click on the link and go straight to the score. With metacritic, they don't even have to read the conclusion. So, scores are and will remain important.

I actually like it , saw a bit review of yong yea but I already had it ,just playing it now ,i didn't expect many things but I enjoy exploring , so far so good .Play it if you had played previous one you will feel like fish in water and also you will be happy to discover new challenges.

Is there a genuine reason they're doing it? I haven't noticed anything that's made me want to angrily leave a 0/10 review.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say because it appears to be originating over at 4chan, they're invalid reviews left by alt-right incels... Basically the same as TLOU2.

@tselliot Censoring isn't the same thing as removing trolling. Neither is it "censorship" for Metacritic to remove reviews.

@Toypop AngryJoe played right into the incel outrage and lost my subscription as a result. His review was invalid.

@Needjamesd

"Also it's attempts at being politically correct are undermined by the killing of a disabled charecter to quicken up the gameplay, the extreme violence and the scars conflict being a bit troubling politically being Drunk man claims that its based on Israel Palatine and if so is saying Muslims are savages."

Maybe, just maybe, it wasn't actually attempting to be "politically correct", then?

@Spiders if you didn't play it to the finish you shouldn't be giving a review.

That's not to say you can't get an hour into a game and say "I don't like this. I'm not enjoying this" and share those thoughts with the rest of us, but don't call it a "review".

It is a known way for anti-Sony and jealous Xbox fanboys to show their feelings….

@MattBoothDev It was in a way as it tried to be representative with trans and gay rights issues but basically it main problem was it had far too many theams and they often didn't gell. Also my biggest complaint story wise was all the magic where charecters would appear out of nowhere, personalities would randomly change, it just didn't feel very well considered as a whole, like they just threw every idea they had at it and didn't think about how this makes a cohesive story.

Indeed I would argue its actually a very good lesson for anyone who wants to write as it contains so many bad examples of storytelling in a game that's good in all other aspects.

@Envy Fine. Both were there.

@MattBoothDev I think there’s a lot of ground between one hour — which I agree is an unfair assessment, especially with today’s front-loaded tutorials — and finishing a game.

Even let’s look at Horizon. 30 hours to roll credits, 80 hours to Platinum.
Platinum is not representative of how most people play, and frankly most open world games have so much copy-paste content I would be surprised if most didn’t bother.

Moreover, look at a game like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla where I think you’d see the ratings for the game go down had professional reviewers actually slogged through the “100%” game. It’s biggest user criticism is padding and length. A pro with a deadline is never going to catch that. (I wonder what PushSquare’s play clock was for Horizon...)

I agree at least rolling credits for a professional reviewer ought to be expected, but I can see the other side of it too.

If you’re bored of a 30 hour game at 10 hours and utterly disappointed at 15, then that’s the review. I think that’s fair. I can’t think of any game that redeems itself so much in the last act that first two are no longer representative.

This was the argument for Final Fantasy XIII: it gets good after 60 hours. That’s crazy. Having played it, you can get a pretty good impression of how it’s going to be after 5-10 hours.

I think we both agree that reviewers should disclose their playtime, but I think we disagree on how much one has to play that their experience could be considered representative of a potential player’s experience or of the whole game.

@Hypoman Nonsense. Most reviews on metacritic are Horizon 1 fans disappointed in the sequel. Just take a look for yourself.

@Needjamesd
Strange to reason like this. Give a poor review b’cause of bad pricing? Hmmm

@Spiders There's a lot of issues in today's world. That's definitely one of them. Happy to see CNN crashing for example.

@MattBoothDev The user review PushSquare quoted:

“ “I had very high expectations. The story is bland and unimaginative, the gameplay is very boring. Even the lauded graphics are underwhelming. Really dropped the ball here.”

Does that sound like an “alt-right incel”? C’mon now don’t fall for that noise.

@Spiders To pull the number down? That's immaturity.

Those issues do not make the game get a 0 lol.

@Spiders
Everyone you don't agree with is an incel, didn't you know? Here, let me get you your manual.

@Spiders
I think the game is good. There some bugs but the graphics are great, story is good and i think the game deserves a 7,5 at least! In my own opinion an 8. I don’t believe Metacritic is bullitproof anymore….

@Uncharted2007 Here here! I do think there is a problem that lives just below the narrative though ... see my post right above this one. (273). it’s nuts to have an article dismissing people who disagree so mildly (not the zeros, which is just tug-of-war, but the actual copy) and be slandered and have people throwing crazy and marginalizing accusations at them. It’s wild. Someone thinks Horizon 2 is a disappointment? Alt-right incel!

We may agree or disagree whats wrong in the world, but I think we can agree that a society that operates like this is incapable of solving any of them.

@Spiders COD Vanguard isn't a 3.6 either. I don't care if they have issues. I won't listen to them because you're giving games 0s. His/Her opinion is invalid. I'll listen to the 6-7s though.

@Spiders Metacritic HAD to remove a lot of bad reviews in the past. Go find the reports. They actually removed them. Astral Chain did have a red score at one moment.

@Spiders no, but I've flicked through a few and it's all very thinly veiled stuff. More covered than the TLOU2 fauxrage but only just barely.

Smells like that "peach fuzz" problem.

Edit:

On playtime, it's valid that a game might get good or have a significant event after a certain point.

My main thing is, if you didn't roll the credits you didn't get the full experience, so it's not a review. It's no less valid, as an opinion, especially if you state "I just didn't like it" or words to that effect, but it's not a review.

I think the same for the professionals, too. If they didn't finish, it's not a review.

Me, personally, I watched the Digital Foundry tech reviews and went from there. I didn't want anything spoiler-y, but I got a look at bits of the game and gameplay. I had 100+ hours on Zero Dawn, so that was enough for me to tell if it'd be fun to play.

@MattBoothDev Same here. A 5? He gave re3 a 6 I believe, which I also think it might be a bit to low? He also said 5 is average lmao. I've been watching his reviews lately, and he barely is giving good reviews.

@RevGaming You’re hung up on the zeros. It’s just a binary tug-of-war between 10s and 0s to move the User Score up and down. Nobody actually thinks Horizon is a 0/10. It should read as thumbs up/thumbs down, but metacritic wants it to be analogous to the critic score so it gets gamed.

Especially with a game like COD that PushSquare’s review didn’t even seem like the queued up for an online match, wouldn’t you want to hear what the reviews are from people who are actually playing?

@Toypop Why do you think HZD having an 89 is too high when you gave the an 8 and it shouldn't be below an 8 too? That seems like an unrealistic way to think.

You're in the range. I don't see how a 6 or a 10 shouldn't happen.

@RevGaming Yes, to pull the score down. Hate the game (metacritic) not the player. That’s the system they created. When all is said and done, it’s not a 0/10, it’s a User Score of 8.0 which is pretty reasonable.

@Hypoman games can be an unusual product as its media but with films the price is less dictated by the publisher. With most products the pricing would be part of the review ie is it worth the money.

I think allot of people will have been upset to pay £70 for a game you can get for £50 and only did so because of the bizarre behaviour of the publisher.

I'm pretty sure any film suffer the same fate if they did the same.

I can’t imagine being in the mindset of someone that would negatively review game they haven’t played, as if they had. Probably some console wars b.s. again.

I have my (PS4) copy ready, I just want to finish off my replay of Horizon: Zero Dawn first.

@Spiders I don't care about the user score. It can be a 7, 8, 9 or a 10. It's useless because people overrate it and underate it. I don't hate too much on the 10s, because some critics gave the game 10s, but 0??? They didn't like some characters? What about the enemies, AI, amount of content, world, graphics, animation, art direction, music, sound, bugs etc...

I don't even look at user reviews. It's useless. Anyone can give whatever rating in there, can make multiple accounts etc. Youtubers are worth hearing though, but this?

No. I don't want to hear people that give 0s to games. They're opinion is useless and childish/emotionally driven. I don't care if they think it's really not a 0. They shouldn't give anything a 0.

@MattBoothDev TLOU2 has some serious gripes from a political point of view — I don’t agree with those views, but I don’t like to judge people that do because honestly I dropped out of TLOU1 out of boredom so I don’t know how much of a betrayal they perceived was real or nonsense.

I don’t think that’s happening here. I think this is more “Celda” than TLOU2 and HFW defenders are trying to dig up old controversy to dismiss pretty mild and reasonable complaints — I haven’t seen one negative review talk about “fat Aloy” or Mary Sue or anything like that.

Really, this is a controversy over whether the game is an 8 or a 9 at this point and there’s plenty of “incel” to go around. My main concern is the gaslighting article and people falling for it.

@Needjamesd

" It was in a way as it tried to be representative with trans and gay rights issues."

Yeah, I don't follow. They had Lev as a trans boy and it was barely mentioned. The issue wasn't that he was trans, it was that he didn't want to become a sex slave wife to one of the elders. She literally crawled out of her skin at the thought, shaved her head and lived as a boy as a result. There was absolutely no parallels with modern life because we aren't living a post apocalyptic world with various insane cults.

The "bigot sandwich" thing was also literally just one line. Ellie has been gay since (well, forever, but it was revealed in) Left Behind. That was 2013.

"but basically it main problem was it had far too many theams and they often didn't gell. Also my biggest complaint story wise was all the magic where charecters would appear out of nowhere, personalities would randomly change, it just didn't feel very well considered as a whole, like they just threw every idea they had at it and didn't think about how this makes a cohesive story."

Which is all well and good and your own opinions, with merit. Hard to disagree with your personal experiences and feelings on those subjects... but I take issue with the first bit as mentioned above. I felt the LGBT thing was literally invented by the detractors at the time.

Did Halo Infinite receive a deluge of bad reviews from Sony 'fanboys'?

Forza Horizon?

I don't recall this happening, not significantly enough to be news.

And now, SIGH, some on here are bringing up The Last of Us Part II AGAIN. We get it, games with female leads that don't look like supermodels are always going to bother some folks. People like this should be ignored as they're clearly morons.

HFW is a good game (only 7 hours in) that I'm sure will blossom into a very good if not great one. Just like Zero Dawn.

Just play your damn games, people.

@RevGaming Many reviewers write their real score in the review. You obviously don’t read metacritic user reviews because you have no idea how it works. ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ beat the game, but if you zoom in on one minute of it, it just looks like a bunch of morons spamming left and right. You’re not understanding fundamentally how the user score works and why people spam 10s and 0s and that the context is written and often reasonable.

I think it’s childish to dismiss them out of hand without knowing at all what you’re talking about.

@Col_McCafferty That’s not at all what’s happening. The controversy is between an 8.8 critic score and an 8.0 user score. The “fanboys“ are the ones enabling PushSquare to gaslight with this toxic nonsense article.

@Spiders "Unrealistically diverse" "gynocentric" "made for the reddit crowd"

That's what this article shows in the headline image. I've seen similar complaints myself just flicking through the reviews.

This is invented reality that these people are living in. Exactly the same as TLOU2, where they invented a reality and imposed it on the reviews. The invented reality being that it was an SJW game forcing politics down people's throats.

The actual reality being that there was no politics in the game until they made it so. The LGBT "forced representation" and all the other guff? Completely invented. Didn't happen. Literally not in the game.

Complaints about gameplay, boredom, set pieces, story pacing, narrative? All valid. But politics of the game? Invalid. It's simply not there.

EDIT:

BTW, the vast majority of the low reviews are people talking about bugs and technical issues, all very fair, imho.

@MattBoothDev Not saying the guy you're replying to is like that, but some people are bothered by the bare presence of an LGBT character. The game can never mention anything about LGBT, but because the character is one, they'll say it's woke.

Look at some of the horizon reviews. "Unrealistically diverse". The game never talks about races, but people are bothered by it.

Watch Atreus be gay/bi by making one single comment in the whole game, but never talking about the topic elsewhere, and people will still make multiple videos hating it. It's the existence of them that is enough to bother them.

@Col_McCafferty I sometimes think some people just don't enjoy female personalities lol. I don't think people found Ellie boring, but I think that's because she curses every second and men like that (me too lol). Lara? I don't see any guy saying she's a great character. People were complaining Selene was ugly.

I think Aloy is a fantastic character. Some people said she was plain, and some say she has more personality in this one, but I just don't see it. She's the same character.

@Spiders I know what I'm talking about. You are justifying them because they want to drop a score lower. That's childish.

How is it childish to dismiss people who spent their time giving 0s because they don't like the user score being too high?

"You’re not understanding fundamentally how the user score works and why people spam 10s and 0s and that the context is written and often reasonable."

No is not!

@RevGaming If Atreyus turned out to be gay I'm not sure I'd be saying anything to him about it. Have you seen his Dad?!

You're absolutely right, though. I'm 35, too old to be giving a damn about what someone else does in the bedroom and I don't actually care if it's in media and games.

@Spiders Have you seen people give 0s to mk11 because the female characters weren't as busty as the previous games?

How am I suppose to think a 0 score like that it's valid? Hello?

@MattBoothDev I think I saw the “reddit” crowd but I don’t know what that even means haha.

The unrealistically diverse thing is a interesting in that it’s explained by the story of HZD but it makes sense to point out because it is, in fact, unrealistically diverse. That’s the point. It does sound ignorant to bring it up as a knock against the game, or at least reveals you haven’t played it too far.

I’ll concede I just didn’t see any reviews that brought that up, and I do think those would be stupid reasons to knock the game — especially if their fake! — but I’m glad we agree that most of the gripes are pretty reasonable.

I don’t know enough about the story about TLOU to have an opinion, but I’m always skeptical of one side gaslighting the other. I could be wrong but my take was that TLOU2 was a Snake/Raiden bait-and-switch and then the internet brought guns to a knife fight and made it all political. I could completely wrong here and wouldn’t mind being illuminated, but that’s all to say I think there’s plenty of “manufactured reality” to go around.

Also to be fair, I quit playing Chrono Cross back in the day when they took a steamer on the characters plot of Trigger, so I don’t know how I’d feel if I cared at all about TLOU1. I’m generally for the artist’s vision over gamer’s expectations, but I respect the tension.

@MattBoothDev Lmao. Kratos talking to Atreus about being gay should give me a lot of laughs.

"Boy, you think this guy is... pretty?"

but that won't happen. If anything it barely mentions it like TLou2. That would ruin sales.

@RevGaming @Spiders

Here's a collection:

"So metacritics deleting negative scores again.. probably cause this trash game isn't selling well because no one wants this sjw trash."

"Even worse than HZD, which is saying something. Every character looks like if a random person from the street was performing at a circus. Even Aloy looks less sexy."

"A game which is messed up by this filthy woke ideology. I've made the mistake to buy the first one, I won't do the same again, seeing it has not changed direction and still focuses on being politically correct.
Which us, gamers, don't care and don't want to be exposed to in a game we're suppose to pay."

"Looks terrible and the chick looks like a dude. This is going right into the trash can."

@Spiders

"I could be wrong but my take was that TLOU2 was a Snake/Raiden bait-and-switch and then the internet brought guns to a knife fight and made it all political."

You nailed it! That was my take as well and I'm old enough to have been baited by Kojima and taken the switch

I hated Raiden for years, but MGS2 is still a solid as hell game.

EDIT:
I loved TLOU1 and I personally never understood the "ya done ma boy Joel a dirty" narrative people were pushing.

@RevGaming That’s fair, but again I’m not concerned about the number. I doubt that professional reviewers brought it up and if I was an MK fan, I might want to know that the series’ sexuality has been toned down.

That’s my point: there’s is a lot of off-narrative stuff that only comes to light in user reviews, comment sections, etc. I think it’s pretty cheeky for PushSquare to dismiss them out of hand and try to claim authority and consensus.

@RevGaming being fair, I can't think of an excuse to bring up Atreyus' sexuality in any future games, either, though. I mean, I guess it's a given the God of War fux, of course he does, but his teenage kid? Ummmm.

@MattBoothDev I disagree because they did do a huge amount of marketing around LGBT issues. In all reality I think both ellie relationships (although they ruined it at the end) and Levs story where some of the better bits, and much preferred Lev to Abbey who just seemed rather nasty piece of work.

Its more that it seems a bit cynical, LGBT people should not just be marketing tools added to a plot in order to gain publicity. With this game despite actually being fairly portrayed I do get the impression marketing was a major reason for inclusion rather than just creating a diverse world. The reaction was manufactured aimed at upsetting those who always get upset and using LGBT people like this is a bit wrong.

Compare this to cyberpunk which had trans and gay charecters as well but never used them a cheap marketing trick.

@Spiders "I might want to know that the series’ sexuality has been toned down."

Why? that's irrelevant. Sexuality shouldn't be a thing to consider unless the story has to do something with it, but it doesn't.

@MattBoothDev Man people are asking too much. She's good looking. I bet their wives don't look as good (oops).

I don't think so either unless Atreus gets a companion after Kratos dies. Maybe he dates the head. JK

@Needjamesd Didn’t Cyberpunk have a huge backlash when they had put that key art of an in-game ad with a trans person with a big bulge out? The resetera OT was like a two-page pinned post of trigger warnings and hand-wringing on how if it was okay to buy the game or if a purchase made you transphobic.

@RevGaming It’s relevant if I wanted my games to be sexy. Personally I don’t care, but is that not valid anymore? That’s been the brand since MK2. It’s Kung Fu Heavy Metal Fantasy.

@Spiders You shouldn't stop buying a series you like because you don't like that their chests got smaller. That's all I'm saying.

I think if a person didn't buy C2077 because of that picture, that person is probably one of those.

@MasterEMFG So far the only thing that’s bugged me is Aloys hair
It moves around like an octopus on crack sometimes.

I had this problem in the first game. I remember taking a long elevator at one of the settlements and when you were going down her hair would go up 😂😂 it was like a plastic bag in the wind and looked odd.

Metacritic, do yourself a favor, just close the user review section already. It's not reviews anymore, it's just blatant trolling.

@Needjamesd I must've been living in a bunker because I didn't see any of the marketing on LGBT stuff. The only LGBT stuff came about because the internet mistakenly thought Abby was the trans character, after having read some leaks.

Again, I just don't recognise those complaints.

@naruball
Oh I used to make the same mistake many years ago and miss out of a few good games.
Yes scores are important for the gaming industry and professional. That’s why they stick to it. They make the clicks, the front page from publishers, etc etc they are part of the system. They aren’t really important for gamers either than being often misleading. It’s somehow like advertisement.
Gaming and games keep evolving and a launch game can be very different just a few months later but the random scores remain. It’s complete BS.
I say random because they even admit there is no method to it other than ‘good means x score, great mean y score’. Absolute bs.

Edit
Just imagine HFW having no score at all. Imagine.
Spoiler: that would not change anything for gamers. Nothing at all. Absolutely useless (for gamers)

@DarthKiwi enut_butter said the game was supposed to be realistic. AKA the metacritic user who gave Horizon Forbidden West a 0. It's the review that Pushsquare has highlighted in the thumbnail of their article.

@Needjamesd
I know what you mean and i also think the strange price difference between PS5/PS4 is a disgrace but imho i think the prising has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

@Bartig
I agree +1

@JJ2 I heard that some websites that removed scores had to shut down. People still attach great value to scores.

Strongly agree with you about the review not reflecting the game some people get to play months after it's been released.

@Spiders it's an advert In game but yes I forgot about that one, I think the ad makes sense given the world but it was a mistake by their marketing team too.

It's a really good game, more of the same with some tweaks is fine with me as I loved Zero Dawn.

Anyone that genuinely gave this game 0/10 is clearly an ***** and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a console or PC.

@naruball
Yea I’m sorry I don’t want to sound like I’m some activist or emotional about it. Was just expressing my genuine thoughts haha
Have a nice gaming day 👍

@MattBoothDev https://gaymingmag.com/2019/09/the-last-of-us-2-release-date-trailer-is-troubling-for-queer-audiences/

Basically gay audiences where worried that they where just being used. It can be a delicate balancing act

@gamiller1978 there's too much shooter game play in your 3rd person open world shooter hub?

Seriously though, 30 hours in and I truly don't understand what you're talking about. They've dramatically improved melee combat. Combos can be done, building up the new resonator blast, being able to vault over enemies; legitimately there is so much more to the melee in this compared to first game. Either this is bad trolling or you haven't looked at the Warrior skill tree and tried out the melee centric fight pits.

@Needjamesd Was that before or after the alt-right thrust the issue to the fore?

@nomither6 There's a big difference between Aloy and Lara, last week incels had a meltdown that Aloy like most women has fuzz on her face. Check out the these reviews and you can see what the big "issue" is with them. Honestly you're strike me as one of those what thinks because Ripley is loved that people have no issue with female leads in films. Nowadays there's a subsection of losers what hate diversity and hate anything what isn't a white straight male lead, Lara was created in the 90's before the internet gave rise to sad losers like them.

@Spiders Here's one of the zero reviews I found again.

"Should not have wasted money on it, this was such an overwhelmingly boring game."

That's literally all they wrote. No context, no substance to it...nothing. Personally I think that a lot of metacritics problems could be solved if they set a word threshold, kind of how like push square forces us to write more than two words to post. If a zero review is only writing a sentence, there's barely anything you can infer from it. I'd say that if you had to write, at minimum, around 3 paragraphs or so it would reduce the amount of review bombings (and boostings) while allowing the people with valid reviews to actually speak their minds with informative reviews that actually have some substance to them. I do cherish reviews and the ability for everyone to express their opinions, which is why I think that the current system makes a mockery of it all. We're talking about review bombers here but we're not talking about the review boosters, those that give the games 10 with a 1 sentence review of "It's a masterpiece." I can never take any of these seriously.

Real gamer's play games not systems. I am tired all all these youtubers, game sites etc. trying to pit gamers against each other just for views. Some people are just trying to justify their purchase, who cares what someone else purchased. Some people just unhappy people and have to try to make others feel the same. Just game and be happy.

@WallyWest you’re right

Do we rate the games according to marketing expectations? Or, against other, similar games on the market? Or, are we grading it based on a blank slate with no expectations or outside factors? Many people hated TLoU 2 because of the story’s twists and story decisions, the protagonist’s sexual orientation, or character likability issues…but it’s arguably the best looking and sounding, most engaging, well-acted game released in the PS4 era. The bang for the buck meter is through the roof on TLOU 2.

The folks giving Horizon FW low scores for not meeting their expectations is akin to giving Citizen Kane a 1 out of 10 rating because it’s just a slow-moving, black and white character-study of a power hungry rich dude who had a good time in the snow as a youth, but the reviewer wanted it to be more of a mystery-thriller with a likable lead. Oy. What can ya say?! Can’t please everyone.

I'm enjoying it so far. Honestly, the only "user reviews" I ever listen to are those of people I actually know... the rest can take a flying leap.

@Toypop Actually, I didn't smear anyone and I'm not "shouting".

There are absolutely people who are just disappointed about the game, narrative, whatever. My comments are about the alt-right weirdo contingent that poisoned the well and toxified the entire debate

Unfortunately, at the time, a lot of normal people leaving negative comments or reviews were indeed lumped together with the "others".

Can you use someone's comments to infer a political leaning? Absolutely. They tell you what kind of crowds these people travel in.

Anyway, if you care enough to trawl enough through my comments (I wouldn't blame you if you weren't) you will find me pointing out that only a handful of the negative reviews on Forbidden West seem to be misogynists or weirdos. The rest are typical comments about bugs and so on.

I personally have to agree with the ones about performance mode being a complete pile and waste of time.

I started playing right at launch and have already put in about 43 hours. And I still have a good portion of the map to unfog. I’ve been doing every side quest and question mark and activity I see.

My one complaint is there are too many weapon variants and the resource grind to upgrade them and the outfits is too much. So many weapons I don’t even use cause there’s way too many that are all too similar. I don’t like how I can’t upgrade my favorite stuff unless I go out of my way to find a squirrel bone or have a specific part of every machine and that’s just for one weapon or outfit level. Throw in tons of weapons and later ones having at least 5 upgrade levels it gets to be a grind.

Push square really should've locked the comments on this one. It's a ***** show

this is the buggiest game I've ever played since cp2077 lol not to mention the boring tedious repetitive quests and bland characters and basic cliché boring story.

Funny how it's always "review bombing" when people try to address certain issues with today's gaming culture. User score is often a more reliable source of information, since the paid critics would soon be non-paids, should they ever even slightly hint that catering to minorities is starting to affect story quality negatively in many games.

@OptimistPrime you created an account just to post that nonsense!

They are just jealous Xbox fans because this time HFW will be GOTY 2023!!!

@JJ2 you too, man!

@Toypop Man, you're in love with yourself.

I don't have Twitter, Facebook or Reddit. I don't do social media. So, strike that out.

The fact is and always will be that they was a HUGE contingent of very, very angry neckbeards and incels who made up a LOT of rubbish about TLOU2 on launch. It's not up for debate. It happened. It's documented.

I also, as I pointed out to you earlier, took lengths to say that, it appears that most negative criticism on Metacritic for FW seems to be technical issues and complaints, with a meer handful being there incel twaddle.

Here, let me quote it:

"""Anyway, if you care enough to trawl enough through my comments (I wouldn't blame you if you weren't) you will find me pointing out that only a handful of the negative reviews on Forbidden West seem to be misogynists or weirdos. The rest are typical comments about bugs and so on."""

The rest of your post is irrelevant nonsense. I didn't once infer you were an alt-right whackjob for simply disliking Horizon Forbidden West, or parts of. That would've been ridiculous.

Don't make stuff up and put words in my mouth.

@Spiders It's very naive to presume that those reviews on Metacritic were written by people who played the game. I repeat it once again: any rating counting scores from anyone (and not only from those who made the purchase) is just a hype noise measurement.

Attack of the Xbots

I think it's getting "review bombed" for being a bland game with almost exclusively fat characters. I'm about 10 hours in, and honestly, I can't recommend this game to anybody. People are allowed to dislike things...

@Toypop You're not allowed to dislike things with ladies as the main character. That goes double if they are non-white, and triple if they are gay.

The combos suck... They're maddeningly stressful and difficult. They're impossible to complete