Giant Bomb's Scores

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For 1,045 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 28% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 69% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 3.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 71
Highest review score: 100 Dragon Age: Origins
Lowest review score: 20 Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 594 out of 1045
  2. Mixed: 307 out of 1045
  3. Negative: 144 out of 1045
1080 game reviews
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per page
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    TiQal
    It’s thoroughly unexciting and visually uninspired, but that’s more the fault of TiQal’s place in history. If it had been one of the first puzzle games on the service, it might stand out a bit more. But now, despite its passable gameplay, it’s hard to not just say “wow, they made another one of these?” and move on.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Qix++
    While it doesn't carry the weight of a Pac-Man or a Donkey Kong, the core gameplay works well enough that it's easy to see how it could be remade in a flashy new way that appeals to the digital download crowd. But QIX++ is a short, dull take on the Qix formula that won't rope in new players or satisfy aficionados.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    NBA Ballers: Chosen One
    NBA Ballers: Chosen One feels like a relic, like an old arcade game that’s been given a fresh coat of paint, but no additional gameplay depth. Like an old arcade game, it’s fun for awhile, but unless you have nostalgic feelings for, well, the other two Ballers games, you’ll probably get fed up fast.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    ReCore
    ReCore offers a lighthearted, fun first few hours, but all that promise is quickly buried in a torrent of bugs and oversights, poor storytelling, and disjointed pacing that all make the game a pale shadow of what it could have been.
    • 58 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    ReCore
    The combat, platforming, crafting and customization, even the parts of the story that work were clearly built with care and seem like they'll amount to a really engaging game with a lovable cast of characters and an intriguing world, but the game's rampant problems are just impossible to look past. This game deserved to be so much more.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dante's Inferno
    Imitation is an open invitation for comparison, and while it's mostly competent from a technical perspective, it's all very rote.
    • 72 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Assassin's Creed Unity
    Assassin's Creed: Unity is at once an object of exquisite beauty and exhausting boredom.
    • 68 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Lost Planet 2
    With faster and more responsive controls, a better multiplayer framework, and a smoother character progression system, this one could have been surprisingly competitive in its category. But with so many problems holding it back, Lost Planet 2 is hard to recommend against all the other great shooters already out there.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    SoulCalibur
    Soul Calibur gets the fighting right, but without online play or the single-player mission mode that made it fun to play alone, this XBLA re-release is a flimsy package.
    • 49 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Saints Row: The Third - Genki Bowl VII
    THQ wants you to pay $7.00 for eight missions and a handful of mostly meaningless unlockables. That's just crazy.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Zombie Apocalypse
    A boring dual-joystick shooter that lacks the speed and intensity that the best games in the genre all share. Throw in a generic zombie theme and you're left with something that feels like it'd be a neat free Left 4 Dead mod. As a standalone commercial product, though, it's lacking at every turn.
    • 60 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Crackdown 3
    Crackdown 3 shows very little in the way of learning from the past or learning from the other open-world games that have graced consoles over the last nine years. Instead it feels slight, mindless, and dull. It feels like a gussied-up first-generation Xbox One game. Like the sort of game you might have expected to hear about back in 2014. In the here and now, though, there's... way less room for this sort of game on store shelves.
    • 55 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Kinect Star Wars
    There are a few glimmers of what could have been in here, but this is not the game that legitimizes Kinect as a game-playing device, nor does it do a single thing to restore any vibrancy or value to the Star Wars license. Fans of Star Wars, Kinect hopefuls, and little kids all deserve better.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Crackdown 3
    I don't think I'd call Crackdown 3 an awful game, but I would call it dated.
    • 56 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    WWE 2K15
    Yes, 2K has imbued 2K15 with impressive graphical prowess, but those hot visuals don't mean a whole hell of a lot when the rest of the game feels so undercooked.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    WWE SmackDown vs. Raw 2009
    The entire game feels lifeless and old. The presentation fails to capture the excitement of the real thing. The gameplay doesn't match the product it's attempting to emulate. And the layers upon layers of plain-looking menus feel like they were ripped out of a PlayStation 2 launch game.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Guitar Hero: Aerosmith
    Even if you are a hardcore Aerosmith fan, this game's short and spotty track list makes it hard to recommend.
    • 82 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
    The campaign has aged pretty poorly and the graphical updates to the campaign side of Gears of War feel half-baked, so unless you're really excited for the competitive part of Gears of War, there's nothing for you here.
    • 63 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Borderlands: Mad Moxxi's Underdome Riot
    Everything in the Underdome is a total hassle, and that gets old fast. That you don't gain any experience points or build up more weapon proficiency while in the arenas only makes a bad situation worse, and it makes the entire experience feel pretty pointless.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Aliens vs. Predator
    You're left with the impression that the single-player was an afterthought and that multiplayer was the focus. But even the multiplayer is saddled with enough flaws to make this game missable.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Dead Nation
    But it doesn't matter how slick a game like this looks if the action isn't on point. Housemarque has proven in the past it clearly has the chops to make great shooters, but it doesn't feel like that skill was fully brought to bear on this one.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Command & Conquer 4: Tiberian Twilight
    Though it has two campaigns and a healthy array of maps for skirmish and multiplayer, Command & Conquer 4 feels like it's missing about half-a-game's worth of content. There are some neat ideas in play, but the action itself isn't strong enough to make it all work, and the cutscenes aren't good enough to make you forget that the game isn't all that hot.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard
    Humor is entirely subjective, and maybe some of the stuff I found to be a little easy and dull will get you going. However, I'm a lot more certain about the quality of Matt Hazard's gameplay, which almost feels like it's going out of its way to be mediocre at best. Hey, maybe that's part of the joke!
    • 53 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Star Trek: D-A-C
    It's another bad top-down multiplayer shooter on a system that already has more than enough of the same.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Agents of Mayhem
    It may share a genre and universe with Saints Row, but Agents of Mayhem is a lifeless husk of Volition's prior work.
    • 69 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Conduit
    If you're just comparing it to other action games released on the Wii, The Conduit does some interesting things with its control and with its multiplayer modes. But other aspects, like the poor story, bland design, and awful voice acting, would be just as bad on any platform. It's that stuff that drags The Conduit down into an area where it's tough to recommend without providing a boatload of caveats.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Zombie Apocalypse
    A boring dual-joystick shooter that lacks the speed and intensity that the best games in the genre all share. Throw in a generic zombie theme and you're left with something that feels like it'd be a neat free Left 4 Dead mod. As a standalone commercial product, though, it's lacking at every turn.
    • 62 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    Fracture
    While the game itself is technically proficient, nothing about the gameplay pushes it above and beyond that base level of proficiency. Its biggest problem comes from a clever premise with poor implementation. There's some replay value here in the multiplayer and the collection of data cells, which unlock the weapons from the campaign in a weapons testing area, but even those can get old very quickly. Once you get past the limited use of the terrain deformation you'll find yourself searching for anything new or exciting in Fracture's take on the sci-fi third-person shooter.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    WWE 2K16
    WWE 2K16 improves on the many things wrong with last year's game, but not nearly enough.
    • 34 Metascore
    • 40 Critic Score
    The Expendables 2 Videogame
    This is most definitely a lazy, slapped together, overly expensive waste of time that nobody need bother play. And yet, for some bizarre reason, all I could think about while playing The Expendables 2 was that it didn't have to be this way.
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In Progress & Unscored

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    • 85 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Starfield
    While a lot of Starfield's familiar Bethesda cruft is outdated and often boring in the early game, the story, quest, characters, and interactions all get better the more you play. That doesn't mean you can ignore the awkward traversal and janky bugs, but it is questionable how damaging those elements are to the experience after 250 hours in Todd Howard's space epic. [Quick Look]
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me
    "The Devil in Me" takes an intriguing historical true-crime premise, mixes it with a bit of SAW, and half-bakes it, amounting to a very by-the-numbers, unscary addition of the Dark Pictures Anthology. Unlikable characters with dull personal problems and a plot with glacial pacing bog down a game that had a lot of potential in its set-up. That's not to mention the graphical glitches and other oddities that make the game feel rushed out the door. These unfortunate factors culminate to make The Devil In Me the weakest of the Anthology series thus far. [Quick Look]
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Callisto Protocol
    The Callisto Protocol was touted as the next Dead Space and it unfortunately suffers for that comparison. With frustrating, awkward combat, an uninteresting plot, and jump scares that fall completely flat, The Callisto Protocol struggles in the shadow of its spiritual predecessor, which did all of those things better 14 years ago. (This is all not to mention the full-screen strobing light effects that cannot be turned off; an accessibility failure that one would not expect of a modern AAA game.) It's a pity that Callisto copied the aesthetic of Dead Space while failing to execute the aspects that made it frightening and fun. [Quick Look]
    • 90 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
    Quick look (video).
    • 56 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Redfall
    Redfall fails to compel on nearly every level, not just in its uninteresting story, but also its all-too-familiar gameplay. Not only does Redfall feel like a game stuck in yesteryear, even its performance finds a way to disappoint. [Quick Look]
    • 88 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Horizon Forbidden West
    Undoubtedly a gorgeous spectacle in every way, Forbidden West struggles to develop a compelling storyline out of the gate. It mitigates that through a satisfying and customizable combat system, though in our playthrough so far, hasn't demonstrated a substantial evolution from the original. [Quick Look]
    • 71 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Hong Kong Massacre
    Quick look.
    • 76 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    For Honor
    Quick look.
    • 90 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Marvel's Spider-Man 2
    It runs so, so smooth with no hiccups. Doesn't matter how much crazy bullshit is happening on the screen. Technically it's in the top 3 PS5 showcases. It's phenomenal.
    • 79 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Escape Academy
    Former GameMaster Jess geeks out way too hard at Jeff Grubb, teaching him the ropes of escape rooms! [Quick look]
    • 69 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    High on Life
    Despite the way-too-chatty guns (for what it's worth, there's options for that), High on Life ends up being a pretty fun shooter in a colorful and ridiculously stupid sci-fi world. It's not reinventing the wheel with its combat, but it doesn't really have to in order to be an alright time. The boss fights are surprisingly enjoyable and the game's exploration is satisfying, with upgrades and unlocks that open the world gradually, in a way that reminds me a bit of Ratchet and Clank. High on Life's crass humor is an understandable balk point for many — and the first hour or two is unrelentingly... well, Roilandy — but if you can push past the bad first impression, it's a good ol' competent FPS. [Quick Look]
    • 83 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Octopath Traveler
    Quick Look...
    • 71 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Somerville
    Somerville's strengths come from its mysterious narrative and storytelling intrigue, but it fails to match the overall polish and cohesive game design language as its spiritual predecessors. [Quick Look]
    • 71 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Days Gone
    Quick look...
    • 86 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Bayonetta 3
    Platinum makes Bayonetta wilder and more unpredictable than ever, mostly for the better. [Quick Look]
    • 86 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Cyberpunk 2077
    Jeff Gerstmann & Jeff Bakalar's early impressions.
    • 56 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Choo-Choo Charles
    A spooky and ambitious little indie game that knows exactly how silly it is, Choo-Choo Charles has some expected flaws from the constraints that come from being a single-developer project, but makes up for it with its originality and moxie. (I mean, what other game out there is about fleeing from and fighting a demonic spider-train? You just can't get that in a AAA game!) It's one of those indie horrors that's brimming with the joy and the jank that makes me love the genre overall. [Quick Look]
    • 71 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Chant
    The Chant is a psychedelic folk-horror action-adventure game that has more to it than one might expect from an indie title. While it doesn't bring anything particularly new to the table with its gameplay, it does provide a successfully fun experience and a compelling cult setting to sink into. [Quick Look]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Mirror Forge
    Mirror Forge is a little indie horror joint with a lot of heart and a lot of glitches... but that's not really a deal-breaker for me. It's one of those scrappy super-indie titles whose charm is actually kinda amplified by its rough edges. The developer's love for Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness, and Stranger Things is apparent as our trauma-laden protagonist wanders through bloody hallways with ancient secrets, told to us via somewhat goofy voice acting. Cliché stuff, yes, but I can't help but enjoy that this is a game that knows what it is - an ambitious, mishmashed, indulgent homage to some really great things. A solo developer stretching their legs and seeing what they can pull off. A janky, but entertaining time. [Quick Look]
    • 84 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Resident Evil Village
    Some say it takes a village to do a quick look, others say it only takes Brad and Vinny. Sit back and enjoy as the Giant Bomb team takes an unedited look at Resident Evil Village.
    • 89 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Apex Legends
    Jeff, Brad, and Ben jump into Respawn's new free-to-play battle royale game.
    • 89 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Last of Us Part I
    Quick Look
    • 87 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Hi-Fi Rush
    It's so nice to have a surprise like this come out of nowhere...and at the end of the year I expect I'm still going to be thinking about this when it comes to game of the year time. It would have made my Top 10 last year. - JG [Quick Look]
    • 88 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Night in the Woods
    Quick Look.
    • 96 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Elden Ring
    The Jeffs and Jan convene and hold gnarled fingers together to chat about their harrowing adventures in the world of Elden Ring.
    • 78 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Detroit: Become Human
    Quick look.
    • 93 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Persona 5
    So stylish...I am diggin' it. [Quick look]
    • 83 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Marvel's Midnight Suns
    Marvel's Midnight Suns has snappy tactical combat that's incredibly satisfying and manages to juggle numerous social links successfully with familiar heroes. [Quick Look]
    • tbd Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Ship of Fools
    Ship of Fools is a neat little roguelite Overcooked at sea mashup. Things get chaotic real quick as you and a friend have to navigate the seven seas and make sure to not throw precious material overboard. [Quick look]
    • 74 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Warhammer 40,000: Darktide
    An intro into the Warhammer universe that'll make you want to dive all the way in. Gothic organs blast as you and three other friends blast through hordes and hordes of decaying enemies. [Unprofessional Friday]
    • 80 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    The Entropy Centre
    The Entropy Centre is a brutally brain-bending Portal-like, using time as its main mechanic. Casual puzzle-enjoyers might find its trial-and-error game loop more frustrating than fun, but the meticulous-minded will probably enjoy its challenges. [Quick Look]
    • 71 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Pokemon Violet
    The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]
    • 72 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Pokemon Scarlet
    The age of the Switch's hardware and GameFreak's prowess as a studio is on full display in the newest Pokemon release as we see muddy textures and single frame animations. While we get a new crop of cute Pokemon, a more open world, and new battle mechanics we're unfortunately stuck trudging along at a snail's pace because of the game itself. [Quick Look]
    • 86 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Pentiment
    Pentiment sheds the dice rolls and combat to emphasize the branching conversations and compelling narrative that Obsidian is best at. And the result is an engaging page-turner that can only really work as a video game. [Quick Look]
    • 93 Metascore
    • Critic Score
    Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
    Quick look.

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