Hard Games to Review

[jon]

I was thinking the other day about College Hoops 2k8 for the PS3 and how much I love it. Now, the game has a number of serious flaws, and it's just so difficult to even in my mind grade it. For instance, players sometimes miss wide open layups and the annoying pop up of the female reporter gets in the way of the action. Also, the menu is relatively difficult to navigate. But in spite of all those things, it doesn't really effect the fun factor for me. It's still unbelievably fun. And it got me to wonder, what grade should it get. The VGC gave it a C (although the Xbox 360 version got a B+). And i think sometimes is it an A+ or just a C game with great qualities? What other games are hard to review?

[eneuman96]

Any game that prioritizes story over gameplay. How do you judge it appropriately if the story is excellent but the gameplay itself is tedious?

[Sut]

Shadow Dancer (Master System) - in a lot of ways it's an awful, rushed port which is missing loads of content. So it should get a really low score, but despite the green skinned enemies, brutal difficulty and short length it still has that Classic Shinobi gameplay. I know it's bad but I have so much fun with it and frequently replay it, I can now finish it with one life. So it is hard but learnable and fair unlike......

Quake (Saturn) - Technical marvel, shouldn't be able to run on the Saturn, out performs the N64 version, part of the holy trinity of Lobotomy games so B+ score right ?
But it's soooo damn hard ! No checkpoints, bullet sponge enemies, dodgy hit detection. Everyone loves it. I really dig the early levels but the later levels are just frustrating torture chambers. Give me Duke Nukem or even 32x Doom any day.