Hello.
Welcome to my latest dumb idea.
I have recently found myself spending a lot of time on the Xbox marketplace, specifically in the user review section. Is this because it is full of insightful, helpful tips on whether or not I should spend my hard-earned cash on a new game? No. God no. I suppose that’s the idea behind giving users a platform to review from, and in fairness it is a platform from which only users who have actually downloaded the game can use so that’s…good.
But crikey. What a glorious shit show.
What a cacophony of nonsense.
Between belly laughs I began to think that I could review the “best” of these reviews. I could, but should I? Probably not, but well, here I am.
Most of the reviews are just fine. The vast majority are fairly straight forward, with maybe a few spelling errors at worst. The concept of reviewing on the Xbox marketplace is simple enough, slap a rating out of five on it, couple of lines on your experiences, Bob’s your uncle. But some, some, delve into a dark corner of unintentional comedy which I just thrive on. Now I should mention that a lot of these more comedic reviews may have been made by ten-year olds, or by users who don’t speak English as a first language, and this is just a light-hearted look at the guaranteed disaster places which are public internet forums. I mostly mean no offense. Mostly.
For this first foray I want to tackle a couple of my favourite reviews taken from three of the year’s biggest games so far.
Starting with…
ANTHEM: LEGION OF DAWN EDITION
We’ll start with something reasonable. Which is difficult to find when looking through the user reviews of any EA game but here we go.
“Embarrassing” is the title of redbaron0’s 1-star review.
“Basically this game is not working gliches it crashes you should be embarrassed to release this game 80 pounds”
The baron appears to be going for a kind of Cormac McCarthy vibe here, forgoing any commas and just spewing the words out all at once, although they do forget the connectives that the great literate favours, and also he ditches the full-stop, which as far as I remember McCarthy does usually use. But hey, it’s 2019. Time to move on. I’m ready for a grim existential western written by the baron here, no commas, no periods, just a pure discharge of words flowing through us like the unavoidable passage of time.
I give this review a BLOOD MERIDIAN or THE EVENING REDNESS IN THE WEST out of 10.
Next up is Fangeta who gives Anthem a big 5-stars! The title of his review is “Fun”
“Fun”
Okay. Okay. Okay. Like Raymond Carver or Ernest Hemingway, Fangeta appreciates that less is sometimes more, that the words we put on the page can simply be the tip of the iceberg, with a whole glacier of subtext floating beneath.
I give this review a FUN out of 10.
Let’s switch it up and take a look at the reviews for SEKIRO: SHADOWS DIE TWICE.
MUFFINFLUFF3R [!] titles his 4-star assessment “Pull my hair…”
“This game is an abusive partner. It hurts me, makes me furious and leaves me broken, my cheeks damp with salty tears… but I keep going back. I love it. It hurts so good.”
Right then. Clearly MUFFINFLUFF3R is a bit of a poet, perhaps a poet with a penchant for E.L. James novels. 11 out of 13 people apparently found this helpful. I think I did too. I probably won’t be playing Sekiro anytime soon.
This review gets a 50 SHADES OF TENCHU out of 10.
Raios Rogue has a lot to say in their 5-star review. They start in the title, which is the lengthy “Git Gud cry baby Casuals or go back to call of duty”
“Japan is killing it First Resident evil 2 remake then Devil May Cry 5 and Now Sekiro all 10/10 must buy games this message is for all the crying casuals that. say this game is unreasonably hard. Steel yourself and get stronger, Being weak is nothing to be ashamed of, However staying weak is!”
Well first off congratulations to the nation of Japan for killing it! I’m sure they’re delighted to hear that. Secondly, this is a game with 80% 5-star reviews and an average of 4.5 on the Xbox marketplace. I’m not quite sure where all these crying casuals are. But wherever they are I’m sure they’ll be delighted by Raios inspirational messaging at the end there.
This gets an INFERIORITY COMPLEX out of 10.
How about something even more recent for our third and final choice? Mortal Kombat 11 perhaps? Yes. I’m glad you agree.
TootieCap505335 [guess the first 505334 TootieCaps were taken] loves the game and gives it the full 5-stars! They give their review the title “Fw”
Colour me intrigued!
“Just asking why do we have to unlock brutailes and fatatilys but i still love the game”
They’re just asking, but if they hadn’t explicitly said, you wouldn’t know. Another absolute maverick who has no time for punctuation. Slightly lost on what the Fw is all about in the title. Also amazed at those two typos, which have created not just one new Pokémon, but it’s second evolutionary form as well.
I give this a WHAT? BRUTAILES IS EVOLVING out of 10.
On the other end of the spectrum Vega DD is dishing out the 1-star punishment. They, promisingly, title their review “Keep politics out of games”
“I want my money back.”
Simple. To the point. Stupid. It is slightly astonishing that 10 out of 20 people found that review helpful. Please name an art form which is completely exclusive from “politics”? I assume that what the big chested Vega really wants kept out of games are characters who aren’t white, and female characters who aren’t drawn with the sole purpose of titillation. But perhaps I’m wrong!
I’m not though, am I?
I give this a THAT DOESN’T SOUND LIKE A JUSTIFIED REASON TO GET A REFUND, DIPSHIT out of 10.
Ooh and that’ll do us for now. The exciting prospect is that there is no end to hilarious, dumb, and stupefying user comments and reviews for me to assess and over-analyse, so there’ll be no end to this blithering! No matter how many people don’t read it.
run into words 