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 Sin & Punishment: Star Successor
Lowest review score: 20 Conduit 2
Score distribution:
  1. Negative: 68 out of 768
768 game reviews
    • 84 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As a solo game, Battlefield 3 on consoles is even less the sum of its parts than the PC version, due to compromised visuals and a legion of technical issues, some of which might stand in the way of actually finishing the game. When Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it's always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success.
    • 85 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    As a solo game, Battlefield 3 on consoles is even less the sum of its parts than the PC version, due to compromised visuals and a legion of technical issues, some of which might stand in the way of actually finishing the game. When Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it's always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 100 Critic Score
    Festival of Blood is campy, vampy fun and an absolute steal for $10. Best part: you don't even need Infamous or Infamous 2 to play it. Happy Halloween.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    But the complete lack of difficulty makes what should be an enthralling game sometimes boring.
    • 92 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Moment to moment, it outshines just about every other game on the market, and while it doesn't exactly break the action-adventure mold, it fills it with such practiced substance that you don't really mind the familiarity of its shape.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If it's survival-of-the-fittest thrills you want, Skylanders can do that.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    If solo play is your primary motivator, then it's hard to recommend Battlefield 3 as anything more than an audio-visual treat. The times where Battlefield 3 does its damnedest to go toe-to-toe with Call of Duty are the times it stumbles the hardest. But when DICE is doing what it's always done best, Battlefield 3 is a uniquely mesmerizing multiplayer game with a seemingly endless number of ways to feel like a success. It's not revolutionary, but it's the best Battlefield game, and that's saying a lot.
    • 61 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It's one of the most frustrating kinds of games that a company can possibly release: The disappointing thing about PowerUp Heroes is how much I like playing it, and how very little there is to play.
    • 70 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    If players walk into this game wanting a simple multiplayer game with Ratchet qualities, and not a Ratchet game with co-op, they will get exactly what Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One is trying to deliver. It's a standard, linear action game with high production values.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    And that's probably the best summation of Dungeon Defenders: a great (virtual) place to hang our with your friends.
    • 77 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    Rocksmith doesn't teach the player anything; they teach themselves, and there are much more entertaining and fulfilling ways to be a self-taught guitarist.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    The cel-shaded graphical style and kid-friendly characters keep the game from delving into morbidity and the message, overall, is one of positivity and joy. Nox and his friends aren't hoodlums, they're just young artists caught up in a dangerous situation. It's just a shame the game's frustrating design makes it so hard for you to help them.
    • 83 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Professor Layton and the Last Specter improved on its forebears, in both perceptible and imperceptible ways. I like all the other Laytons, but I like this one just a little better.
    • 86 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    This team of rhythm game veterans have proven once again that they are, as they always have been, masters of progressive iteration.
    • 94 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Rocksteady has made the greatest Batman game ever crafted, and they've done that before. But breathing life into a staggeringly beautiful world; one which hums not only with opportunity, but ambition? That's a new trick altogether.
    • 76 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    Infestation feels like what would have happened had someone made a good Aliens game in the mid-1990s. It's a cleverly structured take on the Metroidvania style of game that forces careful, methodical play. Despite those aforementioned issues, WayForward completely nailed the dread of Aliens.
    • 78 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    Speaking as someone firmly on the casual end of the flight spectrum, I've never had more fun in the Wild Blue Yonder.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The post game has been tweaked to be more responsive and allow for more subtle movements over last year's effort, and an improved shot stick means players have more options when trying to put the ball in the net. Last second fakes and finger rolls rule the day and are easily accomplished with a little practice.
    • 53 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    A Game of Thrones: Genesis feels cheap. The unique focus on treachery politics might have been enough to compensate for the lackluster graphics and gameplay a decade or so ago, but it's on the fast track for the bargain bin by today's standards.
    • 73 Metascore
    • 70 Critic Score
    It has a look all its own, and the dreamy, ambient score would make for great mood music in an opium den. It is, however, hindered by its controls and a lack of gameplay variety, which doesn't much evolve over its 10 hour campaign.
    • 91 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The level of synergy between Career and multiplayer feels precise and balanced; one constantly bolsters the other, yet neither take priority or feel parasitic. It's an equalized, symbiotic relationship that neither hampers nor enables, and players that prefer one over the other need not worry over missing out.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    If the writing were as clever as the gameplay it supports, Orcs Must Die would be a comedy masterpiece. It oscillates perfectly between states of calm, cool and collected design and panicked damage control, and rewards your diligence with a gorgeous sight: A finely-tuned whirling chamber of death, which gnaws up enemies with tactical brutality reminiscent of Tecmo's Deception series, and a gory kind of whimsy reminiscent of Grape Escape.
    • 57 Metascore
    • 50 Critic Score
    The staffers of Beenox may have done their research and read plenty of back issues, but if Spider-Man: Edge of Time is any indication, they never, ever wore the PJs.
    • 79 Metascore
    • 80 Critic Score
    It's a refreshing, perfectly sized game that squeezes the fun puzzle process, of learning and exploiting the rules, into tidy little rooms.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There's just not a lot of "there" there - my first playthrough, which included every side-mission and several job board assignments, took me 9 hours and 15 minutes. My second, where I completed every side-mission, every job board assignment, every courier mission, and most of the races, took eight hours and 50 minutes. RAGE ends so abruptly that I didn't realize it was over until the final cutscene began. I was left wondering what had happened.
    • 89 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The cycle of Dark Souls is essentially the same: Hours of diligent, often frustrating work followed by a surprising, often spectacular payoff.
    • 90 Metascore
    • 90 Critic Score
    The best additions this year are bits of the unexpected, something almost never achieved in sports video games. FIFA 12 delivers enough of those flashes of brilliance to feel a little less like a game, and more like a true soccer simulator.
    • 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.
    • 66 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    There are deep, deep pockets of joy embedded in the mantle of Burnout Crash, but for reasons beyond understanding, you're going to have to do your chores before you're allowed to play them.
    • 81 Metascore
    • 60 Critic Score
    Renegade Ops is adequate for what it attempts to be, but it's more conformist than the title suggests.

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