Were they on drugs or something to think that Double Dragon 2 The Revenge on NES is a bad game? They know nothing!!!!!!!!!!!! DOUBLE DRAGON FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!🐉🐉
Proof that bad video game journalism isn't a recent epidemic. Double Dragon II? Duck Hunt? Flicky? Popeye? Rad Racer? Robowarrior? Robocop? Days Of Thunder? Smash TV?? What kind of industrial sized crack blocks were they smoking?? And their reasons are absolutely pathetic.
No, no, no, Flicky is a terrible game. The fact that Sega released it as a Genesis title in 1991 while doing nothing to it made it insultingly bad. Bro, they wanted like $49.99 for Flicky in 1991! That's just crazy talk. Flicky should have been an early (1986 to 1987) Master System release on a My Sega Card for $23.00 - $29.99 at best (budget titles on card).
@@XX-sp3tt Nothing. It's just a thin pack-in light gun game. I don't understand why so many place Duck Hunt high on their best-of Nes games list. Considering the amount of must play games on the Nes it sits as average for me. Even in 1986 when I got my Nes there were better light gun games available. No, the show of that double pack-in cart was Super Mario Brothers. In 1986 no one had ever seen anything like it before. SMB's graphics, sound, expansive gameplay, and fun factor just made Duck Hunt look pedestal. It's something we had all seen before and next to Mario...it was a yawn fest.
One star means the game is somewhere in the bottom 20% of games. At least, that’s what it meant here in the UK. 5 stars means it is the top 20% Most games would be 3 stars. We were always amused by the way the US scored games. Seemed everyone got 3 stars just for showing up and spelling their name correctly. ;)
@@SmoMo_ yup definitely. It was almost like having USA magazines be 80% adverts influenced the scoring of games. Duck Hunt especially is trash. A one screen light gun game, gee whizz. Why do USA'ers like it so much? Utterly tedious.
And Alien Sydrome somehow became part beat-em up, because they were totally sure it was Alien Storm. And they apparently hate beat-em ups too much to actually play them.
I played the ever loving crap outta E-Swat back in the day. You couldn't just download a game back then. You bought it, hoped it didn't suck, and played the crap out of it. And E-Swat definitely didn't suck.
@zacharyberridge7239 it's certainly a hell of a lot better than the arcade. The arcade was cool in the arcade where the spectacle of it and a huge sprites gave the gameplay a pass but the actual gameplay was pretty terrible
Yeah, I get not liking ESwat, but the lowest possible score? It was competently made. Not even mentioning Fire Shark, one of the best shootemups on the system!
"Not quite good as the original...if that's possible" on Double Dragon II. Wow, was the reviewer okay, or did they just want to troll? And yes, that take is the craziest take by a long shot. Thank you for doing this video. Will you do the worst games of all time according to Zzap! one day?
The only game review I can agree with is Dark Castle on the Sega Mega Drive, due to the fact that it completely misses the entire point on why the game was only for PCs and Mac's. The game really is that bad in the Genesis, and even worse on the CD-I since you're never provided any usable controls that ISN'T the original Keyboard and Mouse controls. But I do have one thing in the review to disagree with, and it's the mention of EA. This wasn't even their game, they just ported and published it.
1 star means the reviewer considers it to be in the bottom 20% of games. It has nothing to do with’ hating everything’ Think of all the games you’ve played, and put them in order from the ones you liked least to the ones you liked most. Now the 20% you put at the start each get 1 star. The 20% you put at the end each get 5 stars. Is not about hating everything at all.
@@TheVampirePredatorI don’t follow what you meant when you said ‘on a curve’. I think you might be over complicating the European 5 star rating system. The reviewer decides where they would place the game amongst other games. Then 1 star means bottom 20% 2 star means 20 to 40% 3 star means 40 to 60 4 : 60 to 80 5: the top 20% I’m genuinely at a loss as to how the US rating system worked, the best I can come up with is a sort of arbitrary childish ‘stars mean such and such’ categories’, for example 1 star: terrible, worst gave ever!! 2 stars: Try harder next time. Don’t buy it. 3 stars: quite fun, if you like this kind of thing, 4 stars: Really good, buy this now 5 stars: OMG!! Best game ever!!
@@SmoMo_ When something is graded on a curve, the point of failure is also altered. If I put just Mega Man 2, Mario 3, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Metroid, and Blaster Master on a rating list, by their metric, one of these games is "awful", one of them is "fair", and one of them is "good", even though all five are among the greatest games of the 2nd generation of gaming. That's why I say this is bad journalism. Not just because a game in a certain slot on your game rankings doesn't automatically make it bad, but because their affixed comments to those games makes them sound unplayable and that is simply not true. It’s bad faith shock jock snarkery.
Mystic Defender was a game my mom picked up when they didn't have the one I wanted. Very early release on Genesis and I grew to love the game. I'm shocked it's on here.
I'm glad someone objected to this being on the list. I audibly gasped when it came up. Yeah it's an early Genesis game but it kicked ass when it came out and I still think it holds up well. And to call it a Ghouls n' Ghosts rip off makes me think they just saw the screenshots on the back cover of the case and wrote the review without even playing it.
Game Zone was the real outlier when it came to the Mystic Defender reviews. While it wasn't the top-rated game on the system by any means, it also wasn't a 1-star affair. Here's how the other magazines rated it ... Electronic Gaming Monthly: 7 out of 10 Sega Pro: 78% MegaTech: 63% Mean Machines Sega: 63% Raze: 61%
this was an awesome video! If they thought these games were bad like Double Dragon II for example then what did they think was great?! I had to put the coffee down for the amount of times I almost spit it out laughing at the absurdity of these takes. This was "so bad it's good!"
Holy crap...I mean, even Next Generation didn't give out this many 1-star reviews in a year. And I think maybe three or so of those actually deserve one star. Gotta go with Double Dragon II as the craziest one, though, insane. Great video as usual, though!
ALF on the Sega Master System is so awful that it has to be seen to be believed. Yes, the same ALF from the 1980s and 90s TV show. I found out about the game through AVGN, and I've gotta' say that ALF for the Master System needed a lot more time in development.
@@dreamlandnightmare There’s some sort of twisted fanaticism with Brit geeks. Larry Bundy Jr once dubbed “The Town With No Name”, perhaps one of the worst games ever made, as “Not so bad” just because it was on the Amiga CD32.
As a Brit there was some absolute dogs on the Amiga infact most Amiga games are awful. There was a weird thing early on where almost the more difficult a game the better it was received. Which is rubbish obviously.
@@dreamlandnightmare well for a start it's not a console, it's a pc. Secondly it was released in 1982 so if you you didn't have it then I can understand how jarring it can look at times. However the resolution was pretty high for the times so if the devs got the colours sorted then you could get some great results see Bomb Jack, Jet Pac and the huge graphics of The Trap Door. The Speccy was the first machine I actually owned that played games but I would really play much on it now. I still love games and modern games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Stalker 2. Now some people like with music tend to stop at a certain point with their love media which is fine but does tend to cloud their judgement.
Wisdom from 1991: "It's rare for Electronic Arts to slip up..." Almost choked on my coffee. Captain Hindsight never misses. QOTD; Possibly Snake's Revenge. It ain't canon or as good as the O.G. Metal Gears, but it's far from garbage.
AVGN is a repetitive Game Zone rip off who long ago should have been put out to pasture. His schtick is so very tired. It's that "I'll annoy the most I can for clicks, I have no integrity"
I can't decide whether I prefer the bleakness of the Skate Or Die: Bad 'N Rad review ("Given the choice I think I'd rather die actually") or the short and sweet bluntness of the Super Real Basketball one ("No it ain't")
The Flicky review had me laughing out loud 😂, I wasn't expecting that. What caused these guys to be so angry? I thought the Outrun review was harsh as well, it was the first console game I owned so has a special place in my heart.
Whoever did these reviews, they were not people who understood, loved or even remotely appreciated video games. I mean Double Dragon 2, Fire Shark, these are good games.
Duck Hunt I KNOW shouldn't be here. It's a simple game that again is doing exactly what it set out to do. Is it cake? No. But it's a perfectly good cookie.
I wish the US magazines had been honest back then. I remember as a kid reading things like GamePro in the early 90s and even then feeling like a lot of the reviews must have been paid for, because if a game was obscure they'd ignore it or give it a lower rating. I found an archive of all the GamePros and EGMs from the late 80s through to the end of the 90s and have been reading them for nostalgia. It's so funny how they didn't even try to hide that it was all a big advert, yet most of us kids then didn't notice.
EGM lost ad space after they refused to give NES Total Recall a good review. Instead of giving in, they celebrated and made sure everyone knew what happened if you saw a good review elsewhere.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Interesting, never knew that. Total Recall was a terrible throwaway game. Surprised such a big fuss was made over it back then.
@@Leahi84 Companies like US Gold and Acclaim knew they were making hot garbage, but also knew games journalists of the day were usually just glorified fanzine editors/random gamers who lacked writing experience and a larger perspective of the industry. Many were struggling to make ends meet, so they really needed those ad buys. Kind of like how many social media channels need to do ad reads for Raid: Shadow Legends, if they want to make the monthly rent.
Double Dragon 2? Really?! That game is actually pretty good. One of the BEST games from that era. I finished it like 20 times and it never get boring. Also other games on that list are surprise for me, because they are actually good.
Great video. For the most part the video game magazines from the 90's here in the USA had an agenda and kissed ass. This British mag is savage, I like it.
Some of these seem like they got low reviews just for being older titles, and they just hated Light Gun games it seems. Flicky, Mystic Defender and Outrun had me befuddled, but as many have said Double Dragon II has to be the most confusing out of these
Somebody else noted that I may have used the wrong footage of Days of Thunder. The clip I used had an inside-the-car perspective, but it wasn't as visually interesting as what I used. Not being real familiar with the game, I may have accidentally used the wrong footage. Sorry for the confusion.
@@DefunctGames Reviewing some game footage, I was actually wrong about it being first-person. It's actually a third-person, behind-the-car perspective in a window above a dashboard HUD. The footage used in this video was taken from the unreleased version, which also had a driver's seat perspective.
The thing to remember is they would be asking what £30 or $40 for an old arcade game. We wanted and demanded more from our games at that time and this review reflected that. Nowadays of course you boot up mame and give ms. pac-man a go but arcade conversions cost a lot of money!
Agreed. I can understand somebody saying that Back to the Future Part III wasn't as good as the original, but I haven't run into too many people who say it's a straight-up bad film. When people watch the trilogy, it's not like they are dreading the final movie. What a weird hot take.
Someone in my family randomly gifted me paperboy on the genesis as a kid. What an absolute nightmare 😂 it was one of the only games I had as I had just got the system too 😫
Game zone was one of my fav mags here in the UK...... it was full of typical British humour ..... none of which I doubt would be allowed these days lol
"It's rare for Electronic Arts to slip up." Can you imagine them saying that today? (Though admittedly during the Genesis era they were much better.) Also, it seems that this magazine had a serious hate boner for the Master System.
This is a topic I've been interested in charting for a long time now. We've been in the "Electronic Arts is Evil" era so long that there are a lot of people who have completely forgotten (or maybe never even knew) that Electronic Arts was a popular third-party at one point. For most (if not all) of the 1990s, they were celebrated by both critics and consumers. There's a really interesting multi-page spread in Next Generation magazine looking at EA in 1995, and it's a glowing endorsement of the company. How they made daring games, how they employed a diverse selection of developers, how they tackled multiple genres, etc. There's a night and day difference between Electronic Arts in 1994 and 2024. I'm really curious to see the exact moment the press (and everybody else) turned on EA. My guess is that it was around the time they secured the exclusive rights to the NFL, but there could have been trouble before that. Either way, I'm curious to go month-to-month tracking their fall from hero to villain.
@@DefunctGames I tend to say it was during the John Riccitello era that EA started to gain its notoriety. Especially with the way they refused to release games for the Dreamcast. Never forget when Riccitello said that "the dollar we spend on a Dreamcast game is one less dollar spent on our PS2 marketing strategy." I will also add for me personally as a big PC gamer at the time it was when they acquired and eventually destroyed Origin Systems.
You bring up two excellent points. Although EA is hardly the only major publisher to buy great developers and not know what to do with them (See: Microsoft and Rare), they were one of the most notorious for this practice. And you're right about EA's decision not to support Sega after the Genesis basically helped create the EA juggernaut we see today. While it makes more sense in retrospect (the Dreamcast was likely doomed with or without EA's involvement), it did feel like a big slap in the face at the time. Great points.
And thats why nobody brought that magazine. Also worth pointing out that even after they split into different magazine. They still didnt last an entire year. Nuff said.
You're not far off. Sega Zone lasted 23 issues and Nintendo Game Zone only mustered up 18. Neither could last two full years, which isn't great. There was a lot of competition at the time (especially in the UK), so I'm not surprised to see that Game Zone was barely a blip on the radar.
Nothing says early 90s like "edgy" with lots of "attitude". A lot of these reviews aged like milk (a common theme in these videos!) I hope the authors are current day retro gamers who cringe and feel the appropriate shame at their work haha. I think 40% of those were master system games, many 4-5 years old, of course they weren't impressive in 91/92, when a lot were pretty average when released but wow. Kinda silly to even waste the ink stating the obvious
Duck Hunt, and didn't do a Dog Poop reference, it was right there. 😉😂🤣 Speaking of references, no idea what this Ace of Aces thing is they kept referencing. I tried Google, but only thing I could find was a 1933 War Movie. Was that movie a thing talked about in the late 1980s early 1990s? Anyways, as for the question, certainly not picking WWF WrestleMania for the NES, that's for sure. They were spot on with that. Now that WrestleMania Challenge you showed the ad for, that was a decent game, not the best, but decent, and miles better than the first WrestleMania game. No, the one I'm going with is the Outrun games. Yeah, I wouldn't put them as an absolute fav, but certainly better than they would lead you to believe.
When the reviewer gave his opinion about Flicky on the Genesis, he should have stopped at saying he played for 10 minutes. When he went on to say he played for another 2 hours that's when I knew he was lying because hardly anybody plays Flicky for that long. It's meant to be enjoyed in 15 min to 45 min bite-sized sessions sort of like Teddy Boy since it's based on an Arcade style of game. Then their, "views," of Super Thunder Blade had me dying laughing too saying it's an ancient game with loads of really blocky graphics. That port came out in Japan 10 months after the Arcade release and was the best home conversion of the time before the PC Engine version came out in 1990 lol. 😆
4:12 - So they aren't just bad game critics, but bad movie critics, as well. 5:59 - Ugh, another terrible take on a great movie. Wish these idiots would just stick to being bad video game critics.
At the other end of the scale in the nineties in the UK ITV (a commercial nationwide TV station) ran a programme on Saturday mornings called "Movies, Games and Videos". As we were all starved of any video game stuff on TV this was very popular. HOWEVER every game on there was given a positive review. It was so bland I think they must have been reading from PR letters. Just awful. On the other hand and this was later a bit around the time of girl power so has aged a bit there's a games show called "Bits" fronted by 3 women which was great fun to watch and the reviews were honest. You can find bits and pieces (no pun intended) on YT but have only managed to find the 4th series in complete form.
@ Yeah have no idea what they going on about there. Mega Drive games (bar some Accolade titles, Sonic and Knuckles and the couple of soft box EA ones) always came in plastic clamshell cases like the US. In fact when the US in around 94 started using cardboard we didn’t. Hence the likes of Mega Bomberman, power rangers and Comix Zone all having plastic cases over here.
As I haven't played a lot of the games here I can't say much about their takes, besides raising an eyebrow at Back To The Future III being crap. Sure, the "Marty's hot-shot attitude getting him in trouble"-plot point feels a little out of nowhere and like they just needed something for him to do, but it's mostly Doc's movie and wraps up his story well in my eyes. Maybe he was more a fan of Michael J. Fox than Cristopher Lloyd? Anyway, the trend here seems to be that low-effort Master System ports and ports in general of aged games, like Super Thunder Blade, are considered bad because old / low effort. I haven't heard of many of them, and most of them certainly don't look very impressive with flickering sprites and slow paced gameplay. But some are games I've heard praises sung for before. E-Swat, Mystic Defender, and Double Dragon II have fans back then and now. Maybe in Double Dragon's case they were comparing arcade games to the console versions and didn't like the focus on "leveling" and thought the games too slow in comparison? Duck Hunt is the most interesting to me- they seem to take more offense to the "Hunt" part than something in the gameplay. Sure, Duck Hunt was very simplistic even back then, I never played it for long... but the gun was accurate and the game was simple to understand and get into. It didn't chug, it didn't look back- I wouldn't call it a classic, but it's at least a two-star in my eyes. Also, those commercials. The first one I found pretty charming, and the slogan "do us a favour, plug me into a SEGA" actually works with that british accent. The one with all the black men in African tribal outfits... I leave to others to tell if it's subversive enough to get away with it but I have a feeling Nintendo's in no hurry to remind anyone of that one. But the wrestling one surprised me since the kid speaks with an american accent despite being a UK advert, and hearing Mario from before Charles Martinet changed the way people look at him... man, it never gets any less bizarre.
This is worthless. Absolutely worthless. A dozen or more of these games are quite good. Whatever this magazine was definitely just rolled a die to determine the ratings.
Not really, remember you're only seeing the games that received the worst reviews. It gives you a skewed perception that Cyril is rubbing his hands with glee at :-)
I guess they only picked games that were modern and popular at the time so no et since it was old and no action 52 or raid 2020 because they were too obscure . it reminds me of the logic used by movie reviewers when they call an average movie worst movie of the year because they ignore low budget movies.
With nearly 70 games, lots of title cards to make and tons of editing in not a lot of time, it's possible that mistakes were made when it came to the gameplay. Especially if I'm not extremely familiar with the game (or that version) in question. This is probably one of those examples of me snagging the wrong clip. Sorry about that.
Yeah....ESwat was not a beat em' up and was a great game in 1989. Double Dragon 2 was also great but came with a learning curve. Once you got the strange kicking down it is fantastic. Anybody that says Duck Hunt is "ideologically bad" should be horse-whipped (I'm talking about the reviewer not the host)
(Despite this comment section) Guess I'll be the guy that defends what was written about Double Dragon 2. I like it but let's not pretend the control scheme isn't annoying with B being a right attack and A being left no matter what direction you're facing. Still there were a few games on here didn't deserve the hate, particularly Ms. Pac Man, Flicky, and Duck Hunt.
While it's true that this comment section is largely pro-Double Dragon II, it's okay to not like the game. You bring up valid criticisms, and I get how somebody might give it top scores. However, what people are reacting to is what feels like an excessively low score, coupled with the mean review. Compared to the rest of the Double Dragon II reviews, this one is completely out of step with their peers. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being the contrarian.
1 star review for Double Dragon 2. Tells me everything I need to know about this rag. I’ll stick to Game Players magazine. These idiots don’t know a good game from their asses in the ground.
This guy is trying to be a bargain bin AVGN, but falls short. But I must admit, 3 games did earn their "critiques": Super Hydlide, WrestleMania & Zany Golf. 😅
Just a reminder that these are not my opinion and I am NOT trying to be the Angry Video Game Nerd. I am reading from Game Zone magazine, which I clearly mention in the intro (and in the name of the video). Anger is not my brand.
Talking crap in an annoying voice is not big of clever. Fireshark is one of the best shooters on the genesis and Double Dragon 2 on the nes is great too.
I'm sorry you find my voice annoying, but you do realize that I'm not the one talking crap, right?? I love both Fire Shark and Double Dragon II. Your comment makes no sense and is just insulting.
Double dragon 2 on the NES? Mystic defender? Space harrier 3d? Really? Beginning of the dark castle review, "it's rare for electronic arts to slip up," lol. Gangster town is awesome. Seems like they liked the master system, just not most of the games which is understandable since most of those ports were crap. They seem to have a affinity for writing about "crap" too. QOTD, can't pick between Double dragon 2 and mystic defender being one star. Pretty hard reviews there.
Were they on drugs or something to think that Double Dragon 2 The Revenge on NES is a bad game? They know nothing!!!!!!!!!!!! DOUBLE DRAGON FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!🐉🐉
Proof that bad video game journalism isn't a recent epidemic.
Double Dragon II? Duck Hunt? Flicky? Popeye? Rad Racer? Robowarrior? Robocop? Days Of Thunder? Smash TV?? What kind of industrial sized crack blocks were they smoking?? And their reasons are absolutely pathetic.
What the Hell is wrong with Duck Hunt?
No, no, no, Flicky is a terrible game. The fact that Sega released it as a Genesis title in 1991 while doing nothing to it made it insultingly bad. Bro, they wanted like $49.99 for Flicky in 1991! That's just crazy talk. Flicky should have been an early (1986 to 1987) Master System release on a My Sega Card for $23.00 - $29.99 at best (budget titles on card).
@@XX-sp3tt
Nothing. It's just a thin pack-in light gun game. I don't understand why so many place Duck Hunt high on their best-of Nes games list. Considering the amount of must play games on the Nes it sits as average for me. Even in 1986 when I got my Nes there were better light gun games available.
No, the show of that double pack-in cart was Super Mario Brothers. In 1986 no one had ever seen anything like it before. SMB's graphics, sound, expansive gameplay, and fun factor just made Duck Hunt look pedestal. It's something we had all seen before and next to Mario...it was a yawn fest.
One star means the game is somewhere in the bottom 20% of games. At least, that’s what it meant here in the UK.
5 stars means it is the top 20%
Most games would be 3 stars.
We were always amused by the way the US scored games. Seemed everyone got 3 stars just for showing up and spelling their name correctly. ;)
@@SmoMo_ yup definitely. It was almost like having USA magazines be 80% adverts influenced the scoring of games. Duck Hunt especially is trash. A one screen light gun game, gee whizz. Why do USA'ers like it so much? Utterly tedious.
I don't think they actually played most of these games. I mean they have double dragon 2 and Sega Genesis ESWAT on this list
And Alien Sydrome somehow became part beat-em up, because they were totally sure it was Alien Storm.
And they apparently hate beat-em ups too much to actually play them.
Especialliy GB2 on Gameboy. I can't say I like Eswat at all but these are just opinions.
I played the ever loving crap outta E-Swat back in the day. You couldn't just download a game back then. You bought it, hoped it didn't suck, and played the crap out of it.
And E-Swat definitely didn't suck.
@zacharyberridge7239 it's certainly a hell of a lot better than the arcade. The arcade was cool in the arcade where the spectacle of it and a huge sprites gave the gameplay a pass but the actual gameplay was pretty terrible
Yeah, I get not liking ESwat, but the lowest possible score? It was competently made. Not even mentioning Fire Shark, one of the best shootemups on the system!
Very amusing to see them say things like "I'd rather eat my dog than play this Flintstones game!" It's like the ancestor of AVGN.
Alleyway doesn't seem like it belongs there. It's doing exactly what it set out to do. It's the kinda game that should be critic proof.
maybe because it was too expensive compared to other game boy titles that had more game play but were the same price
That Skate or Die Bad N Rad review was BRUTAL! 😂
😂😂😂
"Not quite good as the original...if that's possible" on Double Dragon II. Wow, was the reviewer okay, or did they just want to troll?
And yes, that take is the craziest take by a long shot.
Thank you for doing this video. Will you do the worst games of all time according to Zzap! one day?
For what it's worth, they gave the original Double Dragon 2 stars.
@@DefunctGames YIKES!
The only game review I can agree with is Dark Castle on the Sega Mega Drive, due to the fact that it completely misses the entire point on why the game was only for PCs and Mac's. The game really is that bad in the Genesis, and even worse on the CD-I since you're never provided any usable controls that ISN'T the original Keyboard and Mouse controls.
But I do have one thing in the review to disagree with, and it's the mention of EA. This wasn't even their game, they just ported and published it.
Either these guys were big trolls or they are assholes that hated everything and I understand why they only lasted a few magazines.
1 star means the reviewer considers it to be in the bottom 20% of games.
It has nothing to do with’ hating everything’
Think of all the games you’ve played, and put them in order from the ones you liked least to the ones you liked most.
Now the 20% you put at the start each get 1 star.
The 20% you put at the end each get 5 stars.
Is not about hating everything at all.
@@SmoMo_
Gaming shouldn't be rated on a curve. That's just bad journalism.
@@TheVampirePredatorI don’t follow what you meant when you said ‘on a curve’. I think you might be over complicating the European 5 star rating system.
The reviewer decides where they would place the game amongst other games. Then
1 star means bottom 20%
2 star means 20 to 40%
3 star means 40 to 60
4 : 60 to 80
5: the top 20%
I’m genuinely at a loss as to how the US rating system worked, the best I can come up with is a sort of arbitrary childish ‘stars mean such and such’ categories’, for example
1 star: terrible, worst gave ever!!
2 stars: Try harder next time. Don’t buy it.
3 stars: quite fun, if you like this kind of thing,
4 stars: Really good, buy this now
5 stars: OMG!! Best game ever!!
@@SmoMo_
When something is graded on a curve, the point of failure is also altered.
If I put just Mega Man 2, Mario 3, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, Metroid, and Blaster Master on a rating list, by their metric, one of these games is "awful", one of them is "fair", and one of them is "good", even though all five are among the greatest games of the 2nd generation of gaming.
That's why I say this is bad journalism. Not just because a game in a certain slot on your game rankings doesn't automatically make it bad, but because their affixed comments to those games makes them sound unplayable and that is simply not true. It’s bad faith shock jock snarkery.
Mystic Defender was a game my mom picked up when they didn't have the one I wanted. Very early release on Genesis and I grew to love the game. I'm shocked it's on here.
I'm glad someone objected to this being on the list. I audibly gasped when it came up. Yeah it's an early Genesis game but it kicked ass when it came out and I still think it holds up well. And to call it a Ghouls n' Ghosts rip off makes me think they just saw the screenshots on the back cover of the case and wrote the review without even playing it.
Game Zone was the real outlier when it came to the Mystic Defender reviews. While it wasn't the top-rated game on the system by any means, it also wasn't a 1-star affair. Here's how the other magazines rated it ...
Electronic Gaming Monthly: 7 out of 10
Sega Pro: 78%
MegaTech: 63%
Mean Machines Sega: 63%
Raze: 61%
this was an awesome video! If they thought these games were bad like Double Dragon II for example then what did they think was great?! I had to put the coffee down for the amount of times I almost spit it out laughing at the absurdity of these takes. This was "so bad it's good!"
Holy crap...I mean, even Next Generation didn't give out this many 1-star reviews in a year. And I think maybe three or so of those actually deserve one star. Gotta go with Double Dragon II as the craziest one, though, insane. Great video as usual, though!
ALF on the Sega Master System is so awful that it has to be seen to be believed.
Yes, the same ALF from the 1980s and 90s TV show. I found out about the game through AVGN, and I've gotta' say that ALF for the Master System needed a lot more time in development.
All this extremely British writing with a heavy American accent really makes this video work
Hearing Cyril (iirc that's his name, apologies if not) saying "quid" is always a joy 🙂
Them being Brits would have given these games 10 stars if they were on the Amiga.
Or the ZX Spectrum. Never understood their love affair with that console. The color scheme is utterly nauseating.
@@dreamlandnightmare
There’s some sort of twisted fanaticism with Brit geeks. Larry Bundy Jr once dubbed “The Town With No Name”, perhaps one of the worst games ever made, as “Not so bad” just because it was on the Amiga CD32.
They just have bad taste
As a Brit there was some absolute dogs on the Amiga infact most Amiga games are awful. There was a weird thing early on where almost the more difficult a game the better it was received. Which is rubbish obviously.
@@dreamlandnightmare well for a start it's not a console, it's a pc. Secondly it was released in 1982 so if you you didn't have it then I can understand how jarring it can look at times. However the resolution was pretty high for the times so if the devs got the colours sorted then you could get some great results see Bomb Jack, Jet Pac and the huge graphics of The Trap Door.
The Speccy was the first machine I actually owned that played games but I would really play much on it now. I still love games and modern games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Stalker 2. Now some people like with music tend to stop at a certain point with their love media which is fine but does tend to cloud their judgement.
Wisdom from 1991: "It's rare for Electronic Arts to slip up..."
Almost choked on my coffee. Captain Hindsight never misses.
QOTD; Possibly Snake's Revenge. It ain't canon or as good as the O.G. Metal Gears, but it's far from garbage.
Wait, did they really call Hydlide an ARCADE adventure?
And we thought games journalism TODAY was out of touch!
That was the term that was used in the UK at the time befor genre names were kinda universally settled on.
When it split into Nintendo zone..... the Colin culk feature every month was prob one of my main reasons for picking up the mag.....
These reviews make the most repetitive AVGN ripoffs seem like eloquent and charitable poets in comparison.
AVGN is a repetitive Game Zone rip off who long ago should have been put out to pasture. His schtick is so very tired. It's that "I'll annoy the most I can for clicks, I have no integrity"
I can't decide whether I prefer the bleakness of the Skate Or Die: Bad 'N Rad review ("Given the choice I think I'd rather die actually") or the short and sweet bluntness of the Super Real Basketball one ("No it ain't")
#1 in top 67 overly exaggerated and expressed video game reviews.
The Flicky review had me laughing out loud 😂, I wasn't expecting that. What caused these guys to be so angry? I thought the Outrun review was harsh as well, it was the first console game I owned so has a special place in my heart.
Action 52 is the worst game ever made. DD2 is awesome, you can do Ryu's Tatsumaki Senpukyaku in that game.
Action 52 is so bad that basically no magazine even wanted to review it (GamePro gave it a 1.5).
Seems they had a very limited vocabulary. How many of those reviews used the word crap?
Whoever did these reviews, they were not people who understood, loved or even remotely appreciated video games. I mean Double Dragon 2, Fire Shark, these are good games.
Duck Hunt I KNOW shouldn't be here. It's a simple game that again is doing exactly what it set out to do. Is it cake? No. But it's a perfectly good cookie.
I wish the US magazines had been honest back then. I remember as a kid reading things like GamePro in the early 90s and even then feeling like a lot of the reviews must have been paid for, because if a game was obscure they'd ignore it or give it a lower rating. I found an archive of all the GamePros and EGMs from the late 80s through to the end of the 90s and have been reading them for nostalgia. It's so funny how they didn't even try to hide that it was all a big advert, yet most of us kids then didn't notice.
EGM lost ad space after they refused to give NES Total Recall a good review.
Instead of giving in, they celebrated and made sure everyone knew what happened if you saw a good review elsewhere.
@@juststatedtheobvious9633 Interesting, never knew that. Total Recall was a terrible throwaway game. Surprised such a big fuss was made over it back then.
@@Leahi84 Companies like US Gold and Acclaim knew they were making hot garbage, but also knew games journalists of the day were usually just glorified fanzine editors/random gamers who lacked writing experience and a larger perspective of the industry. Many were struggling to make ends meet, so they really needed those ad buys. Kind of like how many social media channels need to do ad reads for Raid: Shadow Legends, if they want to make the monthly rent.
@@Leahi84 Even 20 years later the programmer that worked on the game got angry online when people talked badly about it
Double Dragon 2? Really?! That game is actually pretty good. One of the BEST games from that era. I finished it like 20 times and it never get boring. Also other games on that list are surprise for me, because they are actually good.
Arguably the best Double Dragon game.
@@DefunctGamesI agree
I hadn't played many of these so I wasn't sure if the reviewer had bad taste yet, but when I got to ESWAT I knew this guy was trolling or something.
Great video. For the most part the video game magazines from the 90's here in the USA had an agenda and kissed ass. This British mag is savage, I like it.
Some of these seem like they got low reviews just for being older titles, and they just hated Light Gun games it seems.
Flicky, Mystic Defender and Outrun had me befuddled, but as many have said Double Dragon II has to be the most confusing out of these
5:40 - Wait, was that a European variation of DOT? The NES version of DOT I played was a first-person view behind the car's steering wheel.
Somebody else noted that I may have used the wrong footage of Days of Thunder. The clip I used had an inside-the-car perspective, but it wasn't as visually interesting as what I used. Not being real familiar with the game, I may have accidentally used the wrong footage. Sorry for the confusion.
@@DefunctGames Reviewing some game footage, I was actually wrong about it being first-person. It's actually a third-person, behind-the-car perspective in a window above a dashboard HUD.
The footage used in this video was taken from the unreleased version, which also had a driver's seat perspective.
no wonder this magazine went under
Zany Golf on the Amiga was actually very good and we played that quite a lot.
10:59 Pac Man with nothing new to offer? PAC MAN SHOULD BE ALL YOU NEED!
The thing to remember is they would be asking what £30 or $40 for an old arcade game. We wanted and demanded more from our games at that time and this review reflected that. Nowadays of course you boot up mame and give ms. pac-man a go but arcade conversions cost a lot of money!
20:04 DOUBLE DRAGON II..... SERIOUSLY?!
Highly diagree with some of these, especially Ghostbusters 2 on GB, it and the NES version New GB2 are the best Ghostbusters games! Highly replayable.
Crap was a popular word over here in mags back then. Them hating the film Back to the Future 3 was odd.
Agreed. I can understand somebody saying that Back to the Future Part III wasn't as good as the original, but I haven't run into too many people who say it's a straight-up bad film. When people watch the trilogy, it's not like they are dreading the final movie. What a weird hot take.
@@DefunctGames yeah it’s a bizarre hot take. I’ve never heard anyone say it’s bad. The 2nd one but not the 3rd.
Someone in my family randomly gifted me paperboy on the genesis as a kid. What an absolute nightmare 😂 it was one of the only games I had as I had just got the system too 😫
Actually me and my cousin were looking forward to Paperboy on the C64 for several months, imagine the disappointment once we finally got it.
Game zone was one of my fav mags here in the UK...... it was full of typical British humour ..... none of which I doubt would be allowed these days lol
"It's rare for Electronic Arts to slip up."
Can you imagine them saying that today? (Though admittedly during the Genesis era they were much better.)
Also, it seems that this magazine had a serious hate boner for the Master System.
This is a topic I've been interested in charting for a long time now. We've been in the "Electronic Arts is Evil" era so long that there are a lot of people who have completely forgotten (or maybe never even knew) that Electronic Arts was a popular third-party at one point. For most (if not all) of the 1990s, they were celebrated by both critics and consumers. There's a really interesting multi-page spread in Next Generation magazine looking at EA in 1995, and it's a glowing endorsement of the company. How they made daring games, how they employed a diverse selection of developers, how they tackled multiple genres, etc. There's a night and day difference between Electronic Arts in 1994 and 2024. I'm really curious to see the exact moment the press (and everybody else) turned on EA. My guess is that it was around the time they secured the exclusive rights to the NFL, but there could have been trouble before that. Either way, I'm curious to go month-to-month tracking their fall from hero to villain.
@@DefunctGames I tend to say it was during the John Riccitello era that EA started to gain its notoriety. Especially with the way they refused to release games for the Dreamcast. Never forget when Riccitello said that "the dollar we spend on a Dreamcast game is one less dollar spent on our PS2 marketing strategy."
I will also add for me personally as a big PC gamer at the time it was when they acquired and eventually destroyed Origin Systems.
You bring up two excellent points. Although EA is hardly the only major publisher to buy great developers and not know what to do with them (See: Microsoft and Rare), they were one of the most notorious for this practice. And you're right about EA's decision not to support Sega after the Genesis basically helped create the EA juggernaut we see today. While it makes more sense in retrospect (the Dreamcast was likely doomed with or without EA's involvement), it did feel like a big slap in the face at the time. Great points.
And thats why nobody brought that magazine. Also worth pointing out that even after they split into different magazine. They still didnt last an entire year. Nuff said.
You're not far off. Sega Zone lasted 23 issues and Nintendo Game Zone only mustered up 18. Neither could last two full years, which isn't great. There was a lot of competition at the time (especially in the UK), so I'm not surprised to see that Game Zone was barely a blip on the radar.
Nothing says early 90s like "edgy" with lots of "attitude". A lot of these reviews aged like milk (a common theme in these videos!) I hope the authors are current day retro gamers who cringe and feel the appropriate shame at their work haha.
I think 40% of those were master system games, many 4-5 years old, of course they weren't impressive in 91/92, when a lot were pretty average when released but wow. Kinda silly to even waste the ink stating the obvious
Duck Hunt, and didn't do a Dog Poop reference, it was right there. 😉😂🤣 Speaking of references, no idea what this Ace of Aces thing is they kept referencing. I tried Google, but only thing I could find was a 1933 War Movie. Was that movie a thing talked about in the late 1980s early 1990s? Anyways, as for the question, certainly not picking WWF WrestleMania for the NES, that's for sure. They were spot on with that. Now that WrestleMania Challenge you showed the ad for, that was a decent game, not the best, but decent, and miles better than the first WrestleMania game. No, the one I'm going with is the Outrun games. Yeah, I wouldn't put them as an absolute fav, but certainly better than they would lead you to believe.
The NES (I think) review of "Ace of Aces" in this this video. That's what they keep referring back to.
When the reviewer gave his opinion about Flicky on the Genesis, he should have stopped at saying he played for 10 minutes. When he went on to say he played for another 2 hours that's when I knew he was lying because hardly anybody plays Flicky for that long. It's meant to be enjoyed in 15 min to 45 min bite-sized sessions sort of like Teddy Boy since it's based on an Arcade style of game. Then their, "views," of Super Thunder Blade had me dying laughing too saying it's an ancient game with loads of really blocky graphics. That port came out in Japan 10 months after the Arcade release and was the best home conversion of the time before the PC Engine version came out in 1990 lol. 😆
4:12 - So they aren't just bad game critics, but bad movie critics, as well.
5:59 - Ugh, another terrible take on a great movie. Wish these idiots would just stick to being bad video game critics.
At the other end of the scale in the nineties in the UK ITV (a commercial nationwide TV station) ran a programme on Saturday mornings called "Movies, Games and Videos". As we were all starved of any video game stuff on TV this was very popular. HOWEVER every game on there was given a positive review. It was so bland I think they must have been reading from PR letters. Just awful.
On the other hand and this was later a bit around the time of girl power so has aged a bit there's a games show called "Bits" fronted by 3 women which was great fun to watch and the reviews were honest. You can find bits and pieces (no pun intended) on YT but have only managed to find the 4th series in complete form.
The cardboard box line made no sense as Turbo Outrun came in a plastic standard md box. Games crap tho well that port.
@byronlaw6491 It did make me wonder if maybe Mega Drive games came in cardboard in the UK.
@ Yeah have no idea what they going on about there. Mega Drive games (bar some Accolade titles, Sonic and Knuckles and the couple of soft box EA ones) always came in plastic clamshell cases like the US. In fact when the US in around 94 started using cardboard we didn’t. Hence the likes of Mega Bomberman, power rangers and Comix Zone all having plastic cases over here.
Well, those aged well. Christ.
As I haven't played a lot of the games here I can't say much about their takes, besides raising an eyebrow at Back To The Future III being crap. Sure, the "Marty's hot-shot attitude getting him in trouble"-plot point feels a little out of nowhere and like they just needed something for him to do, but it's mostly Doc's movie and wraps up his story well in my eyes. Maybe he was more a fan of Michael J. Fox than Cristopher Lloyd?
Anyway, the trend here seems to be that low-effort Master System ports and ports in general of aged games, like Super Thunder Blade, are considered bad because old / low effort. I haven't heard of many of them, and most of them certainly don't look very impressive with flickering sprites and slow paced gameplay. But some are games I've heard praises sung for before. E-Swat, Mystic Defender, and Double Dragon II have fans back then and now. Maybe in Double Dragon's case they were comparing arcade games to the console versions and didn't like the focus on "leveling" and thought the games too slow in comparison? Duck Hunt is the most interesting to me- they seem to take more offense to the "Hunt" part than something in the gameplay. Sure, Duck Hunt was very simplistic even back then, I never played it for long... but the gun was accurate and the game was simple to understand and get into. It didn't chug, it didn't look back- I wouldn't call it a classic, but it's at least a two-star in my eyes.
Also, those commercials. The first one I found pretty charming, and the slogan "do us a favour, plug me into a SEGA" actually works with that british accent. The one with all the black men in African tribal outfits... I leave to others to tell if it's subversive enough to get away with it but I have a feeling Nintendo's in no hurry to remind anyone of that one. But the wrestling one surprised me since the kid speaks with an american accent despite being a UK advert, and hearing Mario from before Charles Martinet changed the way people look at him... man, it never gets any less bizarre.
Duck hunt ,it's one of my all time favorites
This is worthless. Absolutely worthless. A dozen or more of these games are quite good. Whatever this magazine was definitely just rolled a die to determine the ratings.
Not really, remember you're only seeing the games that received the worst reviews. It gives you a skewed perception that Cyril is rubbing his hands with glee at :-)
Those guys are brutal. I'll agree 100% about Hydlide though lol.
Wow. Was their point scale only two stars max?
They wernt wrong about half of em😅😅
I guess they only picked games that were modern and popular at the time so no et since it was old and no action 52 or raid 2020 because they were too obscure . it reminds me of the logic used by movie reviewers when they call an average movie worst movie of the year because they ignore low budget movies.
That's not the released NES version of Days of Thunder you're showing gameplay of.
With nearly 70 games, lots of title cards to make and tons of editing in not a lot of time, it's possible that mistakes were made when it came to the gameplay. Especially if I'm not extremely familiar with the game (or that version) in question. This is probably one of those examples of me snagging the wrong clip. Sorry about that.
Yeah....ESwat was not a beat em' up and was a great game in 1989. Double Dragon 2 was also great but came with a learning curve. Once you got the strange kicking down it is fantastic. Anybody that says Duck Hunt is "ideologically bad" should be horse-whipped (I'm talking about the reviewer not the host)
Who the hell is game zone magazine??? This was the worst list of all time
A short-lived UK gaming magazine from 1991 and 1992.
(Despite this comment section) Guess I'll be the guy that defends what was written about Double Dragon 2. I like it but let's not pretend the control scheme isn't annoying with B being a right attack and A being left no matter what direction you're facing. Still there were a few games on here didn't deserve the hate, particularly Ms. Pac Man, Flicky, and Duck Hunt.
While it's true that this comment section is largely pro-Double Dragon II, it's okay to not like the game. You bring up valid criticisms, and I get how somebody might give it top scores. However, what people are reacting to is what feels like an excessively low score, coupled with the mean review. Compared to the rest of the Double Dragon II reviews, this one is completely out of step with their peers. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being the contrarian.
1 star review for Double Dragon 2. Tells me everything I need to know about this rag. I’ll stick to Game Players magazine. These idiots don’t know a good game from their asses in the ground.
I disagree with quite a few of these!
Duck Hunt, Double Dragon 2 and ESWAT is on this list....wow.....and they REALLY dont like the Master System 😂
Robocop, snakes revenge, and double dragon ii are def not one stars. I’d honestly put double dragon ii as 4 stars, and rate it above the original.
Way above the original Double Dragon. Double Dragon II is one of the best games in the entire franchise.
Rad Racer being easy 😂
A lot of these are good.
Double Dragon II!
Double Dragon II is bad? GTFO.
6:35 ROTFL!!!
No.
Game Zone hated light gun games.
@@DefunctGames it's a one screen boredom fest.
Rad Racer is a classic. Boo.
what is the brown smelly stuff they keep talking about
Todays word of the day is ‘crap’
And "Sad"
If U want a zapper game for Master system, Gangster town is the bEST ONE! nd firs shark total crap? That game is awesom,e!
Agreed! I actually worked on the Retro-Bit release of Fire Shark back in 2020. My name is even in the instruction manual. That game is a lot of fun.
Once you said Double Dragon 2 i turned off the video
Hey, I didn't pick these games. The fact that Game Zone was so wrong is the fun of this video.
This guy is trying to be a bargain bin AVGN, but falls short.
But I must admit, 3 games did earn their "critiques": Super Hydlide, WrestleMania & Zany Golf. 😅
Just a reminder that these are not my opinion and I am NOT trying to be the Angry Video Game Nerd. I am reading from Game Zone magazine, which I clearly mention in the intro (and in the name of the video). Anger is not my brand.
This video is craptastic!
Talking crap in an annoying voice is not big of clever. Fireshark is one of the best shooters on the genesis and Double Dragon 2 on the nes is great too.
I'm sorry you find my voice annoying, but you do realize that I'm not the one talking crap, right?? I love both Fire Shark and Double Dragon II. Your comment makes no sense and is just insulting.
@@DefunctGames I apolegise, sorry.
Double dragon 2 on the NES? Mystic defender? Space harrier 3d? Really?
Beginning of the dark castle review, "it's rare for electronic arts to slip up," lol.
Gangster town is awesome. Seems like they liked the master system, just not most of the games which is understandable since most of those ports were crap. They seem to have a affinity for writing about "crap" too.
QOTD, can't pick between Double dragon 2 and mystic defender being one star. Pretty hard reviews there.