Metacritic’s relevancy in the gaming industry continues to rise year on year. The review aggregator is the leading source for many gamers when they are contemplating buying a game and want to see the critical and fan perception.
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Consequently, most game developers and publishers are becoming increasingly conscious about how their games perform on the site. High scores can secure developers high profile work in the future and will often boost sales for publishers. On the flip side, low scores can have damaging effects, costing publishers money, and potentially putting development teams out of work. For this reason, it’s unfortunate to see games receive scores that seem to underrate the product. The teams behind the ten games on this list can justifiably feel hard done by not have received a score of at least 80.
10Bugsnax
Young Horses, who are best known forOctodad: Dadliest Catch,were thrust into the limelight in November 2020 when their colorful adventure gameBugsnaxlaunched with the PlayStation 5.
Despite not reaching the 80 mark on Metacritic,Bugsnaxreceived plaudits for its loveable character designs, surprisingly intricate character development,and clever puzzles. The game scored 71 on PC, 79 on PS4, and 74 on PS5.
9Hotshot Racing
Hotshot Racingaimed to take players back to the fun times of arcade racers and it does exactly that. The game has a fantastic sense of speed with tight drifting mechanics and offers boost functionalities for even greater speed. The single-player campaign can become stale fast, but the multiplayer is one of the most enjoyable split-screen and online experiences from this year.
Hotshot Racing’s scores ranged from 71 on PC to 79 on Xbox One.
8Call of Duty: Warzone
It was only a matter of timebefore theCall of Dutyfranchise hopped on the battle royale train, and their initial attempt inBlack Ops 4was followed up in March 2020 withthe free-to-playWarzone.
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Call of Duty: Warzonenarrowly missed out on the 80+ mark, with scores of 78 on Xbox One and 79 on PS4 and PC.
7SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom: Rehydrated
THQ delighted fans in 2019 when they announced that they were teaming up with Purple Lamp Studios to remakethe cult classicSpongeBob SquarePants: Battle For Bikini Bottom.
Reviews of the game weren’t kind, and it’s the lowest-rated game on this list with scores ranging from 71 to as low as 66 on the Nintendo Switch. However, fans adored the game and in stark contrast to the critic score,it has a huge user score of 8.9 on PS4which puts it aboveGTA 5,The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,andSkyrim. It’s hard to argue that the platformer is anywhere near the quality of those three games, although its critic score does seem unfairly low.
6PGA Tour 2K21
There was once a time where golf led the sports genre of gaming. TheTiger Woods PGA Tourseries, in particular, had numerous excellent releases,includingTiger Woods PGA Tour 2003andTiger Woods PGA Tour 2005which have Metascores of 93 and 91 respectively.
The issue is, these games were near perfect, making it difficult for subsequent releases to find ways to make improvements.PGA Tour 2k21doesn’t buck this trend, although its issues are few and far between making its scores that ranged from 72 to 78 seem harsh.
5Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuitwas released in October 2020 and let players build race tracks around their house through the use of radio-controlled cars and mixed reality.
Granted, as a game, there isn’t much depth to it. But it lets players live out a childhood dream that should earn it a score of at least 80 alone.
4Star Wars: Squadrons
EA’s latestStar Warsgame took players to the skies and tried to recapture the magic ofStar Wars: X-Wing AllianceandStar Wars: TIE Fighter.
Star Wars: Squadronscertainly didn’t do a bad job of this. The game has a fantastic collection of maps,intricate flying mechanics, and excellent online play that makes players feel like they’re in a real dogfight.
3Resident Evil 3
Following the enormous success of theResident Evil 2remake which earneda whopping Metacritic score of 93 on Xbox Oneandwon Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards, it was only a matter of time beforeResident Evil 3gotthe same remake treatment.
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It’s hard to argue that theResident Evil 3remake holds a candle toResident Evil 2,but the game’s Metascores which were as low as 77 seemed harsh and were likely a result of the high standards thatRE2set.
2Moving Out
On the other end of the gaming spectrum to the nightmare-inducingResident Evil 3,is the physics-based gameMoving Outthat simply requires players to move house.
The words “physics” and “simply” may not be ideal ways to describe the game though, as the game has extremely exaggerated physics, tricky puzzles to solve, and tons ofFrogger-like obstacles to traverse making the act of moving house even more stressful than usual.
1Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wildis already being described by some as not just the bestZeldagame ever, but the best game ever made, period. The game’s success led Nintendo to make the unconventional move of announcing a direct sequel, something that is rare in theLegend of Zeldaseries.
Nintendo didn’t just capitalize on the success ofBreath of the Wildwith a direct sequel, but with a spin-off game too. As the title suggests,Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamitytakes players back to the age of calamity, and lets players battle it out in a fantastic successor to the Wii U’sHyrule Warriors.
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