Topic: Should you play a poorly rated game before condemning it on the interwebs?

[S-U-P-E-R]

Actually, Game Informer reviewed Eternal Darkness a year before it came out (5 months before GAMECUBE launched in the USA), complete with a final [low] score and a 3-paragraph write-up -- based on the E3 2001 build that debuted only a month before this issue came out.  This is my ground beef with them, and they've done a remarkable job of covering up/erasing any evidence of this catastrophe.  I thought "how the **** did they review it?  I only played this demo at E3 a month ago like they did!  Did they get a GAMECUBE?  I WANT MY GAMECUBE!"

This is incredibly hilarious to me and I am interested in any relevant links to this. Also in who wrote it.

[Mikintosh]

Well, the process got slowed down to make room for WiiWare.

Which also hasn't really shown its promise, especially from Nintendo's own 1st-party development teams. There should already be a slew of games like Dr. Mario RX Online, and there aren't. I mean, My Pokemon Ranch?

[KDR_11k]

There's a steady stream of third party games for WiiWare, Nintendo doesn't interfere much and seems to be focussed mostly on really niche titles (Art Style, MaBoShi, Bonsai Barber), giving third parties no excuse like "only Nintendo games sell!".

[Stratos]

Well, the process got slowed down to make room for WiiWare.

Which also hasn't really shown its promise, especially from Nintendo's own 1st-party development teams. There should already be a slew of games like Dr. Mario RX Online, and there aren't. I mean, My Pokemon Ranch?

There's a steady stream of third party games for WiiWare, Nintendo doesn't interfere much and seems to be focussed mostly on really niche titles (Art Style, MaBoShi, Bonsai Barber), giving third parties no excuse like "only Nintendo games sell!".

Nintendo's goal with WW is very different from Microsoft's goal for XBLA. Nintendo specifically created WW to give new and indie devs a chance to flourish and shine. That is why they tend to not put a lot of big name 1st party stuff on the service. Look at how Mario and Link dominate the VC sales chart. The same thing would happen on WW. They put one Mario game up to garner interest and in fact none of the 'Nintendo' made WW games were not made by 1st party devs. I believe all of them have been confirmed to be made by 2nd or 3rd party studios on commission from Big N.

[Rize]

If a score is low enough, a game is probably junk.  However, some games deliberately feature old designs that are still of interest to certain gamers (Etrian Odyssey and the recently released Dark Spire).  Sometimes get major deductions for being short (which might not bother some consumers).  Point is, you ultimately need to look out for your own tastes.  If there is a game that interests you, carefully read the reviews to see why the scores are what they are.  If a game is getting an average of 80% because it's kinda short and has no multiplayer (but is otherwise good), you might like it just fine if you don't care about length and don't use multiplayer modes.