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The most ridiculous game box quotes ever
Ever wish you could take back something you said? Imagine it printed on millions of game boxes
Please, never pick up a game you've never heard of and assume that it must be decent because some big publication said that it was "groundbreaking" or "a rollercoaster ride." Even if we said it.
Except in rare cases when they are pulled from early reviews, or when they appear on re-released editions of games, the quotes on the box come from previews. What is a preview, exactly? A preview is what's written after a bunch of PR people show off the best parts of a game, explain how conceptually brilliant it's all going to be, and tell the writer that the horrible glitches are "being ironed out."
There is thus a tendency for previews to contain a great deal of gross exaggerations. It's not malicious - writers don't open up their word processors and think, "I'm going to completely overhype this b*tch!" - it's just the nature of the system. Previews are based on a writer's sincere desire for a game to be good and the publisher's ability to make it look good. And, if all the brilliant innovations turn out to be plumes of smoke, justice usually comes as a scathing review.
But by the time the review is out, quotes like these have already been printed on every box...
The only things that may have ever shattered my perception of reality have been psychedelic drugs, and I'd still have a hard time saying they really "shattered" anything.
Stranglehold... Gears of War... Stranglehold... Gears of War. Sorry GamePro, but on a scale of "slow-motion doves" to "more awesomeness," Gears is at more awesomeness, and Stranglehold is at about 3.2 doves. Doves diseased with repetitive gameplay, finicky controls and lame multiplayer.
A change of pace? Like, you mean, slow? This isn't just a change of pace, it's a horse as opposed to a machine. A really fast machine, with wheels... you know, fun?
Above: Weeeeeeeeeee...
Psst... "Stuntman ROCKS!" is two words. And if you just meant "rocks," well, I don't know what geological formations have to do with the game.
If there's a more overused oxymoron in existence, I don't know what it is. Here's something you might not have expected, EGM: you gave the game 5.7/10, and your sister site, 1up, gave it a D+, saying "it makes you want to chew your arm off."
Grand exaggerations are supposed to be so grand that no one bothers to consider whether or not they're true. Like, "Castlevania is so damn good, the disk popped itself out of my PlayStation and performed triple bypass surgery on my cat without a single hiccup in gameplay. That's right, Symphony of the Night is a competent cat surgeon."
You don't say that you can't see it all, because if you have three save games with 100% completion each, then yes, you've seen it all.
This quote is a squarely in the realm of typical game writing in that it is dull, uninspired, and reminiscent of something that might appear in a sixth grader's book report. This quote should perhaps be revised to note that the graphics are comprised of images of clay, but that the graphics are not "made of clay."
Hey everyone, raise your hands if you've ever heard of Spy Fiction. Okay, those of you raising your hands - did it blow other PS2 games out of the water? No, no, not literally "out of the water," that's a stupid cliché the writer used because he couldn't think of anything original. Was it better than every PS2 game released before it? Let's see:
"A geriatric MGS clone" -Official PlayStation Magazine
"For a game with so many features, its greatest accomplishment may be using them to be so mundane." -1up
"With a clunky camera and a slightly awkward weapon system the battles consist of throwing grenades and hoping to clear the area as fast as possible." -IGN
Is that so, John Carpenter, director of The Thing, the film this game is based on? This is like putting a quote from Cliff Bleszinski's mom on the back of Gears of War 2.
"My son works on the uh, the Microsofts. We're very proud. Gears of... what? What was it? Gears of War 2! You're such a good boy." - Cliffy's mom
Do German writers often put two exclamation marks after percentages? Maybe that's all there is to German game reviews: they introduce a game, yell out its percentage score, then slap it on a table and drink a pint.
In case you can't read it:
"It's not just a new frontier for games, it's a new frontier for humanity." -Rolling Stone
I know that GTA has been a greatly influential series, but its overall effect on the course of human history is yet to be determined. When I think of new frontiers for humanity, I think of the industrial revolution, space exploration, quantum physics, the invention of penicillin, and the continuing possibility of a Red Dwarf movie.
But this is Rolling Stone, the same publication that says that every movie is "an explosive, action-packed whirlwind" or "the best film of the summer, maybe of the year" or "packed with orgasmic, groundbreaking crap-your-pants thrills that'll have you at the edge of your seat - you won't want to look away, or pee, even if you really have to because, Holy Mother of God, this has O-S-C-A-R written all over it in permanent marker."
That last quote was in reference to High School Musical 3.
If this game was a turning point for the genre, shouldn't, you know, anyone have heard of it or played it? Let's see what the reviewers thought:
"It has the most idiotic aiming scheme in any WWII game." - Official PlayStation Magazine
"Everything in this title borders on barely functional, from the blurry graphics (no, that isn't Vaseline on your TV screen) to the imprecise targeting." - Game Informer
"...Combat Elite could have been fantastic. But that's just wishful thinking. " - IGN
The Precursor Legacy is a great game, but to say that its world has no peer is to deny that Mario, and every other great platformer, exists.
Really? That might have been true if this game was released in 1970, but I'm pretty sure that in 2004 movie effects looked significantly better than what could be rendered in real-time on a PS2. Just sayin'.
Above: Did Peter Jackson direct this?
Also, a quick side note: I know I've probably done this too, but can writers please stop saying that games "boast" things, and especially that they "boast an array" of things? It's probably one of the most frequently occurring clichés in game writing, just behind "While this game isn't perfect, its flaws are made up for by..." and "If you're a fan of the genre..."
I would be a fool to take a shot at any Tribes game - they were outstanding. Better than Halo, even.
I haven't played one in four years.
If the game is big, and it is full of action, then there must be as much action in it as it is big (the bigger the game is, the more action it would take to fill it up). So we know that the amount of action in the game is dependent on the bigness of the game, but we don't have an objective measurement of the game's bigness, so we don't really know anything. Let's just call it "a hell of a ride" and move on.
Yeah, it could have been, but then it wasn't.
Does anyone even remember this stunningly unremarkable game? Even mentions of it on the Database of Everything (the internet) are sparse. From Wikipedia:
"The player takes control of either Ruff or Tumble, a brother and sister who are sleeping and trying to free 40 "Winks" from a man named Nitekap, and his evil accomplice, Threadbear. In the storyline, "Winks" are small, white creatures which make dreams, and "Hoodwinks", which are green and of a similar size are what are responsible for nightmares."
Gee golly, watch out Mario!
Ever wish you could take back something you said? Imagine it printed on millions of game boxes
Please, never pick up a game you've never heard of and assume that it must be decent because some big publication said that it was "groundbreaking" or "a rollercoaster ride." Even if we said it.
Except in rare cases when they are pulled from early reviews, or when they appear on re-released editions of games, the quotes on the box come from previews. What is a preview, exactly? A preview is what's written after a bunch of PR people show off the best parts of a game, explain how conceptually brilliant it's all going to be, and tell the writer that the horrible glitches are "being ironed out."
There is thus a tendency for previews to contain a great deal of gross exaggerations. It's not malicious - writers don't open up their word processors and think, "I'm going to completely overhype this b*tch!" - it's just the nature of the system. Previews are based on a writer's sincere desire for a game to be good and the publisher's ability to make it look good. And, if all the brilliant innovations turn out to be plumes of smoke, justice usually comes as a scathing review.
But by the time the review is out, quotes like these have already been printed on every box...
The only things that may have ever shattered my perception of reality have been psychedelic drugs, and I'd still have a hard time saying they really "shattered" anything.
Stranglehold... Gears of War... Stranglehold... Gears of War. Sorry GamePro, but on a scale of "slow-motion doves" to "more awesomeness," Gears is at more awesomeness, and Stranglehold is at about 3.2 doves. Doves diseased with repetitive gameplay, finicky controls and lame multiplayer.
A change of pace? Like, you mean, slow? This isn't just a change of pace, it's a horse as opposed to a machine. A really fast machine, with wheels... you know, fun?
Above: Weeeeeeeeeee...
Psst... "Stuntman ROCKS!" is two words. And if you just meant "rocks," well, I don't know what geological formations have to do with the game.
If there's a more overused oxymoron in existence, I don't know what it is. Here's something you might not have expected, EGM: you gave the game 5.7/10, and your sister site, 1up, gave it a D+, saying "it makes you want to chew your arm off."
Grand exaggerations are supposed to be so grand that no one bothers to consider whether or not they're true. Like, "Castlevania is so damn good, the disk popped itself out of my PlayStation and performed triple bypass surgery on my cat without a single hiccup in gameplay. That's right, Symphony of the Night is a competent cat surgeon."
You don't say that you can't see it all, because if you have three save games with 100% completion each, then yes, you've seen it all.
This quote is a squarely in the realm of typical game writing in that it is dull, uninspired, and reminiscent of something that might appear in a sixth grader's book report. This quote should perhaps be revised to note that the graphics are comprised of images of clay, but that the graphics are not "made of clay."
Hey everyone, raise your hands if you've ever heard of Spy Fiction. Okay, those of you raising your hands - did it blow other PS2 games out of the water? No, no, not literally "out of the water," that's a stupid cliché the writer used because he couldn't think of anything original. Was it better than every PS2 game released before it? Let's see:
"A geriatric MGS clone" -Official PlayStation Magazine
"For a game with so many features, its greatest accomplishment may be using them to be so mundane." -1up
"With a clunky camera and a slightly awkward weapon system the battles consist of throwing grenades and hoping to clear the area as fast as possible." -IGN
"My son works on the uh, the Microsofts. We're very proud. Gears of... what? What was it? Gears of War 2! You're such a good boy." - Cliffy's mom
Do German writers often put two exclamation marks after percentages? Maybe that's all there is to German game reviews: they introduce a game, yell out its percentage score, then slap it on a table and drink a pint.
In case you can't read it:
"It's not just a new frontier for games, it's a new frontier for humanity." -Rolling Stone
I know that GTA has been a greatly influential series, but its overall effect on the course of human history is yet to be determined. When I think of new frontiers for humanity, I think of the industrial revolution, space exploration, quantum physics, the invention of penicillin, and the continuing possibility of a Red Dwarf movie.
But this is Rolling Stone, the same publication that says that every movie is "an explosive, action-packed whirlwind" or "the best film of the summer, maybe of the year" or "packed with orgasmic, groundbreaking crap-your-pants thrills that'll have you at the edge of your seat - you won't want to look away, or pee, even if you really have to because, Holy Mother of God, this has O-S-C-A-R written all over it in permanent marker."
That last quote was in reference to High School Musical 3.
If this game was a turning point for the genre, shouldn't, you know, anyone have heard of it or played it? Let's see what the reviewers thought:
"It has the most idiotic aiming scheme in any WWII game." - Official PlayStation Magazine
"Everything in this title borders on barely functional, from the blurry graphics (no, that isn't Vaseline on your TV screen) to the imprecise targeting." - Game Informer
"...Combat Elite could have been fantastic. But that's just wishful thinking. " - IGN
The Precursor Legacy is a great game, but to say that its world has no peer is to deny that Mario, and every other great platformer, exists.
Really? That might have been true if this game was released in 1970, but I'm pretty sure that in 2004 movie effects looked significantly better than what could be rendered in real-time on a PS2. Just sayin'.
Above: Did Peter Jackson direct this?
Also, a quick side note: I know I've probably done this too, but can writers please stop saying that games "boast" things, and especially that they "boast an array" of things? It's probably one of the most frequently occurring clichés in game writing, just behind "While this game isn't perfect, its flaws are made up for by..." and "If you're a fan of the genre..."
I would be a fool to take a shot at any Tribes game - they were outstanding. Better than Halo, even.
I haven't played one in four years.
If the game is big, and it is full of action, then there must be as much action in it as it is big (the bigger the game is, the more action it would take to fill it up). So we know that the amount of action in the game is dependent on the bigness of the game, but we don't have an objective measurement of the game's bigness, so we don't really know anything. Let's just call it "a hell of a ride" and move on.
Yeah, it could have been, but then it wasn't.
Does anyone even remember this stunningly unremarkable game? Even mentions of it on the Database of Everything (the internet) are sparse. From Wikipedia:
"The player takes control of either Ruff or Tumble, a brother and sister who are sleeping and trying to free 40 "Winks" from a man named Nitekap, and his evil accomplice, Threadbear. In the storyline, "Winks" are small, white creatures which make dreams, and "Hoodwinks", which are green and of a similar size are what are responsible for nightmares."
Gee golly, watch out Mario!
