Joystiq's Scores

  • Games
For 768 reviews, this publication has graded:
  • 46% higher than the average critic
  • 3% same as the average critic
  • 51% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 1.8 points lower than other critics. (0-100 point scale)
Average Game review score: 73
Highest review score: 100 The Wolf Among Us: Episode 4 - In Sheep's Clothing
Lowest review score: 20 Conduit 2
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 68 out of 768
768 game reviews
    • 45 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    A shallow SoulCalibur imitation.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Between the uninspired puzzles and numbing repetition, it's especially difficult to recommend Create. As a puzzle game, it's shallow and monotonous; as a creative sandbox, it's extremely light on stuff to do.
    • 48 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    It's as much a shame on 2K Sports for releasing this game as it is for the MLB to carelessly stamp its name on it. Whether it was sheer apathy or contractual licensing obligations that caused MLB 2K13 to exist in this state, it certainly wasn't a love for baseball, sports games, or its fans.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    It's a careless, cynical, opportunistic mess that Silicon Knights and Activision should be ashamed to release. In fact, its concision almost comes back around to being a virtue, because at least you can quickly move onto something more pleasurable, like selling X-Men Destiny to a stupid friend you hate, or burying a beloved family pet.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    The Cartel heartbreakingly not only fails to build upon Bound in Blood's momentum, it spits in the face of everything that made it worthwhile. It doesn't feel like a misstep for the series, it feels like an epitaph.
    • 46 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    It's not just a bad game, it's a terrible use of Wizards of the Coast's timeless license. Even when boiled down to its core combat mechanics, D&D is cerebral, challenging, intense, and infinitely rewarding. Dungeons & Dragons: Daggerdale is just a game about hitting monsters until treasure falls out of them.
    • 71 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    As if getting excited for the involved games wasn't difficult enough, NES Remix's ideas for challenges are repetitive and widely underwhelming. The arbitrary goals friends assign each other for games they've mastered are better than all but NES Remix's few fleeting moments of greatness, and that's genuinely disappointing when considering Nintendo's usual brilliance at reworking its history in enjoyable ways.
    • 42 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Putting a $60 price tag on this dud is tantamount to Charlotte spinning a web above her beloved pig friend Wilbur reading "Holy Jesus, This Pig Is Delicious," somehow believing the world would be better for the slaughter.
    • 32 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Unlike Deadly Premonition, Earth Defense Force 2025, or other games that hide genuine depth behind an awkward presentation, Magus has no hidden quality, charm or saving grace. It's entirely witless, and none of its mechanics strive for anything beyond mediocrity. Despite its issues, though, Magus is surprisingly breezy to play.
    • 37 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Quantum Theory will always be remembered (if it's remembered at all) as that game that tried desperately to be Gears of War and failed miserably.
    • 54 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    Knack fails to capitalize on its own ideas and structure, and is successful only in acting as a reminder of the shallow, punishing platformers of a time when we really cared about how many bits there were on your console.
    • 25 Metascore
    • 30 Critic Score
    AMY
    It's almost unfair to review Amy, given the state it's in. On the other hand, it's sort of unfair that it was published at all. The thought of anyone spending money on Amy -- possibly drawn in by the promising trailers -- only to wind up with this mess, is quite honestly a little enraging. There might have been a decent story here once, or even good survival horror, but it's gone now.
    • 64 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    There's only one 4-minute bit in the entire thing that was fun to play, and that was tailgunning in the spaceship. So at least the whole review wasn't negative, amirite?
    • 36 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    Power Gig: Rise of the SixString is a dumbfounding product. It centers itself around a peripheral which is a real guitar, yet it doesn't allow the player to use the real guitar as if it were a real guitar. Instead, it settles for using a new toy to manipulate an old game -- but still manages to categorically fail at both.
    • 38 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    This is the worst, laziest, most manipulative type of licensed game making. It's a top-to-bottom disaster that nobody, especially not anyone who gives a crap about Harry Potter, should play.
    • 51 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    This is the worst sort of throwback: It neither recalls fond memories of 1985, nor keeps pace with the state of games in 2011. It does not need to exist.
    • 45 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    The marriage of a first-person shooter and the Alien franchise should be a perfect fit, especially from Gearbox, a team rooted in the genre. And yet, the pairing eludes a happy ending once again. Aliens: Colonial Marines isn't disappointing because it couldn't live up to lofty expectations, it's disappointing because it turned out to be such an unfettered disaster.
    • 47 Metascore
    • 20 Critic Score
    To its credit, the game is colorful.

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