Search/Recent Changes
DBTropes
...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!

Reviews Are the Gospel

 Reviews Are the Gospel
type
FeatureClass
 Reviews Are the Gospel
label
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel
page
ReviewsAreTheGospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel
comment
For whatever reason, gamers tend to, on the whole, place more stock in professional reviews of works than fans of any other medium. Only second to news, reviews of the newest games are the main attraction of most gaming sites and magazines. In fact, review scores are just as likely to be used as personal opinions in Console Wars debates or to argue which of the newest killer apps is the best.
Of course, while there's nothing wrong in placing some stock in the opinions of others, review scores shouldn't be regarded as authoritative, simply because reviewers are, like everyone else, human beings with their own personal tastes and preferences. Not to mention that reviewers are not exactly always trustworthy. Worse still, professional reviewers are often just people with a job, and usually view gaming as a burden in order to complete their jobs, instead of a genuine hobby. Naturally, this causes them to often have different tastes than ordinary gamers, and enjoying the product is at best only a small part of their rating and at worst isn't even considered.
On the surface, one could say there's some logic behind all this — after all, purchasing a $60 game is a far riskier endeavor than buying a $15-20 book or a $10 movie ticket, so it makes sense that many people might look to something, even if it is a bad source. However, over-reliance on reviews is just as common in areas where software piracy is ubiquitous. Another reason, perhaps, is that video games as a medium demand more time and attention from us than most other entertainment forms, so most of us need to be discriminatory in the games we play. It's worth mentioning that reviews are not without biases. What the critic finds to be So Okay, It's Average, you might find awesome because it is practically tailored to your tastes and desires in a game; and the polar opposite happens as well, often leading to Hype Backlash, Critical Dissonance and It's Popular, Now It Sucks! situations.
Culturally speaking, this deference has existed for awhile, as aftershocks from The Great Video Game Crash of 1983. One of the big problems of first and second generation video games was the general absence of any detailed information about games. This leads to many upset consumers who had to guess whether a game was any good and quickly became frustrated to discover they just put a lot of cash down for a Porting Disaster or imitation of an arcade game they thought they liked. This is the reason for the "Nintendo Seal of Quality" — which wasn't supposed to mean "awesome game" so much as "playable game" and "Nintendo has licensed this game to be sold" (the first and second generations also had games that were not licensed by Atari, which was part of the problem as they never had to go through quality control — quality here meaning "playable"). Unfortunately, many seem to see reviews as the only means to obtain their information, even though far more objective outlets exist, many of which can not be bought like professional reviewers can.
This mentality often hurts some works when people believe a reviewer's word to be law. Oftentimes, reviewers will become rather jaded and tend to be a tad cold towards works that they don't particularly love years down the road. Not to mention, some reviewers often have a Bias Steamroller, which can also cause them to take points off of a work merely because they have certain pet peeves, or add points because they like the franchise. In some of the worse cases, this leads to people Praising Shows They Don't Watch or Complaining About Shows They Don't Watch. An even worse case than that is when someone starts an argument with another because the latter likes or dislikes something that a reviewer has given a different judgment to, and the former does not have an opinion of their own but is making judgments based on what the reviewer said.
The outcome overall is that games will sometimes cater to what developers believe will get them a good review score instead of what fans will like. After all, what is the point in making games people will enjoy if the reviewers will hate them and no one will buy games that the reviewers hate irrespective of their actual worth or potential?
This mentality began to decline, at least in regards to video games, after companies like Ubisoft were found to be attempting to fix reviews through threats of withholding the games or money in advertisement unless reviewers gave a positive review. Because it is a business, reviewers are often very wary about angering the people who are paying a large portion of their salaries (ex. through advertisements). Hints of a shift began with websites and magazines saying things similar to, for instance, "7 is the lowest we can give this without Sony pulling advertisements". The withholding of advertisements and review copies of games has been mentioned before. For instance, after the Kane & Lynch and Assassin's Creed fiascoes, the developers felt that the reviews were not fair considering the advertisement money that they had contributed. Nintendo Power was also known when it was around for its refusal to criticize any game that was developed or published by Nintendo.
Of course, the reason that publishers want good reviews in the first place is not out of any sense of pride but due to some correlation between good reviews and good sales. Quick! How many people among you, your friends, and your family would be willing to buy a game that rates 3 out of 10 with the reviewer panning the gameplay? How many would at least be willing to look at and consider a game that got 9 out of 10 with the reviewer praising the gameplay? For developers, reviews may be much more a point of pride but even then, developers will worry about the monetary aspect if only because they risk losing their jobs if their game flops too hard.
Also said to be a phenomenon among fans of live theatre. Indeed, reviews can influence the act itself over time, replacing actors or modifying scenes slightly.
The exploit of this mentality is also a common marketing practice. Books often make a big point of showing that they are a bestseller or are written by the author of a bestseller or quote positive reviews on the back, movies run trailers after release that say something along the lines of, "Critics agree — this movie rocks", and video game advertisements often show scores from sites like IGN and, like books, quote the reviews. This is also part of why there exist "Game of the Year" releases; the key word, of course, being "part of".
Lastly, one particular trend found within the sphere of general media review sites is the Top Ten List. The Top Ten List is a listing of such things as the "Best Games of this Generation", "Best Albums of the Last Ten Years", "Best Television Shows of the Last Ten Years", etc. While such lists can be helpful every now and then in influencing the commercial decisions (as in "decisions relating to commerce") of potential customers, they too need to be taken with a grain of salt. First and foremost, such lists have generally been known to be put together by a thick "pack" of authors ranging from anywhere between four to one hundred different authors. Therefore, there is a tendency for there to be a good bit of disagreement between the writers regarding what does and what does not belong on the lists. Second off, authors of such lists are often worried about possible fan backlash. As such, they often choose to play it safe by avoiding the inclusion of entries that have a high likelihood of getting them loads of hate mail and angry forum comments. Music-based lists are particularly prone to such backlash, which is part of the reason why they tend to heavily favor "fan approved" genres like indie/experimental rock and rap/hip-hop over more polarizing genres like pop and country. It should also be noted that top ten lists are forced to encompass a wide range of genres, resulting in a lot of "apples to oranges" comparisons, such as (in the case of a video game list) a sports game being ranked just above a role-playing game. So, just like the lack of an appearance on a "top ten" list had ought to not make a certain video game unworthy of your time, being on such a list had ought not to automatically make it worthy of your time either.
Perhaps the most important thing to understand is that, whilst a review could give good insights into a game's technical competence, it can't answer the crucial question of whether said game is right for you personally. Tempting though it might be to snag the latest AAA game getting 9's and 10's across the board, there are also many important personal considerations to take into account. Would the game's 60+ hour length eventually turn you off to it (i.e. cut into other commitments - including other games that you might be playing or want to play)? Does the game sound like it would offer little that other games in your collection don't already offer? Do you personally dislike the genre/franchise or just feel burned out by it? All are important questions that cannot be answered by somebody else's review for a game. Ultimately, only you can look at a game and determine whether or not you would like it.
A Subtrope of Misaimed Fandom. Over-adherence to the word of a critic can lead to He Panned It, Now He Sucks! if the critic ends up giving an unfavorable review to something that a fan loves.
 Reviews Are the Gospel
fetched
2024-02-18T05:14:55Z
 Reviews Are the Gospel
parsed
2024-02-18T05:14:55Z
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to ArcadeFire: Not an Item - IGNORE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to FunnyMoments: Not an Item - IGNORE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to InUniverse: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to JamesAndTheGiantPeach: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to OneHitWonder: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to SeriousBusiness: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to SmartMark: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to ThisVeryWiki: Not an Item - UNKNOWN
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingComment
Dropped link to accentuatethenegative: Not an Item - FEATURE
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingUnknown
JamesAndTheGiantPeach
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingUnknown
ThisVeryWiki
 Reviews Are the Gospel
isPartOf
DBTropes
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_160c1407
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_160c1407
comment
Inverted by Metallica's album St. Anger, which got positive reviews and won multiple awards... despite being reviled by nearly every fan of the band (or even genre), and eventually even by the band itself.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_160c1407
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_160c1407
featureConfidence
1.0
 Metallica (Music)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_160c1407
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_1f818da5
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_1f818da5
comment
Of all of the Channel Awesome community, no one suffers most from this than The Cinema Snob. Yes, many movies he reviews really are bad. But keep in mind that he is also a parody of True Art critics. As such, he will pan the occasional average movie for the sake of comedy. People will take him seriously. While it is typically easy to tell when he actually does hate a movie and he isn't acting, sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. For reference, he once praised the movie Salo. For the sake of decency, we will not summarize it further, but suffice to say that the movie was 50% artsy pretentiousness (something that True Art critics like) and 150% concentrated evil. People thought he actually liked it, even as his praises were interspersed between scenes of him either throwing up on camera, or trying desperately not to (and ultimately failing). Brad Jones even said he struggled to write positive things about the movie.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_1f818da5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_1f818da5
featureConfidence
1.0
 Channel Awesome (Website)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_1f818da5
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_23490305
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_23490305
comment
Some people took X-Play's reviews far too seriously, despite the fact that everyone knew their hatred of certain genres and even certain series of games, their tendency to give most games a 2/5, or on the flipside, their strange ability to read far too much into their scores.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_23490305
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_23490305
featureConfidence
1.0
 X-Play
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_23490305
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_261c8d3f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_261c8d3f
comment
In-universe example in The Simpsons: the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Criticize Dinner" has Homer become the Springfield daily newspaper's restaurant reviewer, and his general inability to discriminate against anything edible leads all the town's eateries to do a roaring trade. However, when this attitude incurs the ire of his fellow reviewers, Homer then takes the opposite tack and scorns every single restaurant. Furthermore, his disparaging comments about the seafood restaurant Frying Dutchman appear in its window pasted over a poor assessment by a health inspector.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_261c8d3f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_261c8d3f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Simpsons
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_261c8d3f
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_28757a4a
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_28757a4a
comment
At times, Benthelooney's fanbase have fallen under this (especially after his rant videos were Un-Cancelled). The most prominent example is Phineas and Ferb; while it was a reasonably popular show before, after Ben had critically praised Gravity Falls and made subtle hints that he no longer liked Phineas and Ferb due to its formula, bland atmosphere and characters, many other people had started to agree with him and some people who were once fans of the show had begun hating it for the same reasons. Similarly, Family Guy, which had a massive hate bandwagon before, worsened once Ben became popular.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_28757a4a
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_28757a4a
featureConfidence
1.0
 Benthelooney (Web Animation)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_28757a4a
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_309df9ea
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_309df9ea
comment
The last part of Atop the Fourth Wall's Ultimates 3 review has Linkara berate the fans for buying into this, going so far as ridiculing them for accepting his reviews as the gospel, to explain why he thinks crap stuff like what he usually reviews continues to get published. Turns out, it's his Evil Knockoff Mechakara doing the review, while Linkara was on vacation...
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_309df9ea
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_309df9ea
featureConfidence
1.0
 Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_309df9ea
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3431c7b6
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3431c7b6
comment
Angry Joe's reviews of the Risen games were controversial for some, with people complaining about the fact that he was too harsh on the games. Of course, many of Joe's fans just assumed that he was right without playing the games themselves, despite there being other, less negative, reviews (with the first game being generally well liked, and the second one receiving mixed reviews). Then Joe released a video where he played around with Risen 3, spending the entire video criticizing it, particularly the combat system. This again led to accusations that Joe wasn't really taking his time to actually familiarize himself with the game and made very little mention about anything else, and the video received backlash from fans of the series. Some of his fans still accepted his word, however, arguing with anyone who had anything positive to say about the game. That, by itself, is not particularly notable, but some of his fans even spread onto sites like Amazon.com leaving 1 star reviews of the game with one line reviews, mainly pointing out the same criticisms Joe made in his video (often ignoring the rest of the game, like exploration, quests, skills, etc.), with at least a couple of reviewers even mentioning Joe by name.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3431c7b6
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3431c7b6
featureConfidence
1.0
 Angry Joe (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3431c7b6
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3d472ec3
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3d472ec3
comment
Bohemian Rhapsody pokes fun at this: the movie shows Queen's first release of "Bohemian Rhapsody" on the air, overlaid with pop-up quotes from reviewers as one might see in an ad, except the reviews are all horrible; all of them were taken from actual negative reviews the song got in 1975. Of course, the audience knows that the song went on to become a huge hit and one of the band's Signature Songs.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3d472ec3
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3d472ec3
featureConfidence
1.0
 Bohemian Rhapsody
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3d472ec3
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3fd6b9d5
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3fd6b9d5
comment
This has actually happened a little bit with him averting some of the well-placed nostalgia. Before he reviewed Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, some user reviews varied from "awesome", to So Okay, It's Average, mostly saying Castlevania and III were better. Then when he reviewed it, it seems a lot of people actually hated the game a lot more than they originally did. And even if that was his first game he reviewed (it shows if you see the video), a later review had him say that despite his criticisms and complaints, the game was still an okay game.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3fd6b9d5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3fd6b9d5
featureConfidence
1.0
 Castlevania II: Simon's Quest (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_3fd6b9d5
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_436dff03
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_436dff03
comment
Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, due to their system of deriving an overall score for all the available reviews, are often regarded as providing a definitive stamp of quality (or lack thereof). While this is more understandable than most examples, the fact remains that some people take it too far, and act as though liking a film scoring 33% on Rotten Tomatoes is empirically indefensible (if not a challenge), despite the obvious logic that one third of professional film critics liked it. Compounding the matter is the fact that these faulty ratings are commonly cited as points of endorsement in movie commercials. Additionally, actual video game companies have incorporated metascores into their business practices; this includes awarding development teams bonuses based on metascores, and deciding on a target metascore before a game has started development.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_436dff03
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_436dff03
featureConfidence
1.0
 Rotten Tomatoes (Website)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_436dff03
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_49cb0175
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_49cb0175
comment
A notable example is his review of Ralph Breaks the Internet, where, among other things, he felt that the story was a "cinematic disaster" overall, that Ralph and Vanellope's character arcs were a mess and made the both of them look bad, and viewed the "Oh My Disney" sequence to be more of a cynical advertisement than a fun love-letter to Disney's filmography. While these were already common criticisms of the film among its detractors beforehand, Schaff expressing them caused the movie's reputation to go down the toilet and become regarded as one of the Disney Animated Canon's worst entries overnight.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_49cb0175
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_49cb0175
featureConfidence
1.0
 Ralph Breaks the Internet
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_49cb0175
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51507cf2
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51507cf2
comment
Something Awful gets this big time. Expect the opinions of the SA staff or the majority of its users to be upheld as the standard for educated and critically-founded opinions. Case in point: Cry of Fear was universally praised by Survival Horror fans until site creator Rich "Lowtax" Kyanka made a series of Let's Play videos on his YouTube channel brutally deconstructing and tearing into the game and exposing its should-have-been-glaring flaws. The response that SA-registered forum members and YouTube commenters witnessing the game was absolute, 100% negative, and the hundreds of thousands of people who praise the game are mercilessly criticized should one of said "goons" ever encounter them.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51507cf2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51507cf2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Something Awful (Website)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51507cf2
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51dca720
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51dca720
comment
The Critic himself has tried to avoid this on several occasions, stating out-of-character that if someone likes a movie he doesn't, that doesn't make them wrong (and vice versa). YMMV on how much success he's had on this front; for instance, after his final Old Versus New (Manhunter Versus Red Dragon), the characters page for The Silence of the Lambs began to parrot the observations he made on the two films (the most obvious being his comparison of William Petersen's version of Will Graham and Edward Norton's version).
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51dca720
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51dca720
featureConfidence
1.0
 Manhunter
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_51dca720
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_52e0e617
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_52e0e617
comment
In 2012, Phelous's negative review of the 2009 TV movie Turtles Forever led to a lot of panning of said movie around the Internet, including a few negative edits on its TV Tropes pages. Up until that review hit the Internet, though, there were very few (if any) flat-out negative reviews of the movie.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_52e0e617
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_52e0e617
featureConfidence
1.0
 Phelous (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_52e0e617
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_55e96943
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_55e96943
comment
A similar phenomenon hit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989). Prior to the AVGN's review, the reception was all over the place. After he reviewed the game, the game's reputation took a nosedive, with newer reviews pointing out the game's flaws that his original video. Now, the game's reception is mostly mixed, with complaints about its difficulty and how the game was an In Name Only adaptation.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_55e96943
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_55e96943
featureConfidence
1.0
 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_55e96943
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5d4da198
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5d4da198
comment
In-movie example: In Spider-Man 3, Mary Jane is removed from the lead of a play after reviews panned her.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5d4da198
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5d4da198
featureConfidence
1.0
 Spider-Man 3
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5d4da198
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5ffa1979
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5ffa1979
comment
Parodied by Scott The Woz at the end of his Devil's Third review. After claiming it wasn't that bad, he pretends to flip-flop after seeing a professional review give the game a 3.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5ffa1979
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5ffa1979
featureConfidence
1.0
 Scott The Woz (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_5ffa1979
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_60a9e4fb
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_60a9e4fb
comment
Fans and critics of The Mysterious Mr. Enter tend to believe this, as anything he praises or criticizes will inevitably become praised / criticized for the same thing, just because Enter said so. Mr. Enter tries to invoke this in a more positive way in his Admirable Animation series. In that series, he points out exceptionally well-made pieces of animation and underrated gems, in an attempt to direct viewers into checking them out.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_60a9e4fb
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_60a9e4fb
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Mysterious Mr. Enter (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_60a9e4fb
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_6276800c
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_6276800c
comment
The Nostalgia Critic has experienced this from both angles. Different sections of Fan Dumb either trashes someone who disagrees with him, or trashes him for disagreeing with them:
Just try saying that Rock-A-Doodle and Tom and Jerry: The Movie were alright movies anyplace on the Internet. You're sure to be flamed by legions of Nostalgia Critic fans. This is also because, before he reviewed them, the movies weren't very well-known, and now people only know about them because of the Nostalgia Critic reviews.
This also applies to other movies he's reviewed. For example, in The Flintstones movie, he appears to trash it at first because "It's The Flintstones", and he prefaced the review with an admission that he didn't even like the original show. Immediately after; several people were blindly agreeing that The Flintstones sucked for the same reason. This also happened to Stephen King's IT and Stephen King as a whole, (even though the Critic has praised some of the movies based on his works before) when the response wasn't He Panned It, Now He Sucks!.
This is despite the fact that Doug Walker has gone on record that most of the time he doesn't actually hate the movies but he does Accentuate the Negative for comedic effect. Most of the time they're just mediocre to decent movies, albeit with genuine flaws (although, what movies don't have them?). A lot of the flaming comes from his fans missing the point.
The melodramatically titled and huge IMDb list "Movies that are destroying the planet Earth" consists of nothing but films reviewed by either the Nostalgia Critic or associates.
The Critic has gone against this notion a few times, once out of character (by listing 10 popular movies he hates and 10 unpopular movies he likes), and once in-character (where he did a negative review of the James and the Giant Peach movie that was constantly interrupted by guntoting fans to make him give a glowing review). Doug never believes that he is the gospel and wants people to stop seeing him as such — a good way of seeing this is to watch both his and Spoony's "Best/Worst of the Decade" lists and noting the overlap — quite a few are Worst for one, Best for the other. Also, for the As Himself review of It Follows, he apologized for not getting it, and actually asked people who would blindly agree with him not to comment.
This resulted in a Funny Moment for the Critic: After taking shots at Mara Wilson in a review, some overzealous viewers took it upon themselves to harass the actress online just because of this. Never mind that the movie he reviewed was hardly the most well-known of her films, and that the actress herself had a great sense of humor regarding her films. Never mind that at the time she was a freaking child who had little to no control over the quality of the films she was in. Detractors felt she had to be informed of what some (popular, yet the grand scheme of the internet) random guy said about her. She originally even mistook the Alter-Ego Acting for Doug being an unpleasant guy himself. But this led to Doug and Mara proving they were better people, culminating in her cameo at the end of Critic's A Simple Wish review, as an Eldritch Abomination inflicting her vengeance on him in the form of Doug/Critic's shameful teen home movies.
The Critic himself has tried to avoid this on several occasions, stating out-of-character that if someone likes a movie he doesn't, that doesn't make them wrong (and vice versa). YMMV on how much success he's had on this front; for instance, after his final Old Versus New (Manhunter Versus Red Dragon), the characters page for The Silence of the Lambs began to parrot the observations he made on the two films (the most obvious being his comparison of William Petersen's version of Will Graham and Edward Norton's version).
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_6276800c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_6276800c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Nostalgia Critic (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_6276800c
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_65268dd1
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_65268dd1
comment
This is quite prevalent with Schaffrillas Productions' fans, particularly with his opinions on Disney and Pixar films. To his credit, however, Schaff himself largely discourages this mindset among his fans.
A notable example is his review of Ralph Breaks the Internet, where, among other things, he felt that the story was a "cinematic disaster" overall, that Ralph and Vanellope's character arcs were a mess and made the both of them look bad, and viewed the "Oh My Disney" sequence to be more of a cynical advertisement than a fun love-letter to Disney's filmography. While these were already common criticisms of the film among its detractors beforehand, Schaff expressing them caused the movie's reputation to go down the toilet and become regarded as one of the Disney Animated Canon's worst entries overnight.
Shrek Forever After was, for quite some time, viewed as a thoroughly So Okay, It's Average film responsible for sending the franchise back to the swamp, with the best thing most people could say about it being that it was better than Shrek the Third (a low bar to clear). Then Schaff reviewed it and had almost nothing but good things to say about it, viewing it as an emotionally satisfying capper to the series that expands on themes introduced in the first two movies in a way that Third largely did not. Public opinion warmed up to Forever After not long after, and it's viewed as, if not on the level of the first two Shrek movies, then at least enjoyable in its own right.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_65268dd1
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_65268dd1
featureConfidence
1.0
 Schaffrillas Productions (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_65268dd1
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_67f3e2a5
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_67f3e2a5
comment
Retsupurae tends to draw overzealous fans who take their criticisms of let's players and games too seriously, despite them mentioning several times that they only do their riffs for fun, and don't consider themselves to be serious critics. Expect to see many games that are otherwise considered classic or, at worst, average, get torn apart in the comments, and if you dare say something positive about something they riff on, be prepared to be called a fanboy or accused of wearing nostalgia goggles. You'll also notice that in cases where they riff on a game that one of them actually likes, people will be more positive towards it, even if it wasn't regarded very highly before.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_67f3e2a5
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_67f3e2a5
featureConfidence
1.0
 Retsupurae (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_67f3e2a5
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_746814ae
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_746814ae
comment
An in-universe example occurs in the Arthur episode "On the Buster Scale". Buster, Brain, and several of their friends see Giant Exploding Robots 3D in theaters. All of them except Brain like it until Brain delivers a detailed criticism of the movie, which changes the minds of everyone except Buster. Buster begins to review movies in the newspaper that his mom works for, but he has nothing but praise for every movie (all of which involve robots, aliens, monsters, superheroes, and/or explosions). Brain decides to counter this by starting a movie blog, where he rates every movie unfavorably. Their friends keep flip-flopping on whose review to take - until Buster and Brain decide to review a movie together. This is ultimately averted at the end, when their friends call them out on this, with Muffy stating that they have their own opinions.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_746814ae
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_746814ae
featureConfidence
1.0
 Arthur
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_746814ae
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_852cd420
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_852cd420
comment
This also applies to other movies he's reviewed. For example, in The Flintstones movie, he appears to trash it at first because "It's The Flintstones", and he prefaced the review with an admission that he didn't even like the original show. Immediately after; several people were blindly agreeing that The Flintstones sucked for the same reason. This also happened to Stephen King's IT and Stephen King as a whole, (even though the Critic has praised some of the movies based on his works before) when the response wasn't He Panned It, Now He Sucks!.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_852cd420
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_852cd420
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Flintstones
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_852cd420
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_8c87469c
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_8c87469c
comment
While The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword attracted a Broken Base on release like nearly every game in the series, it was mostly well-regarded at the time. After Egoraptor trashed the game in one of his Sequelitis videos, backlash against the game skyrocketed, to the point where admitting you like it in some circles will get you attacked.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_8c87469c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_8c87469c
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_8c87469c
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_93542e0c
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_93542e0c
comment
Shrek Forever After was, for quite some time, viewed as a thoroughly So Okay, It's Average film responsible for sending the franchise back to the swamp, with the best thing most people could say about it being that it was better than Shrek the Third (a low bar to clear). Then Schaff reviewed it and had almost nothing but good things to say about it, viewing it as an emotionally satisfying capper to the series that expands on themes introduced in the first two movies in a way that Third largely did not. Public opinion warmed up to Forever After not long after, and it's viewed as, if not on the level of the first two Shrek movies, then at least enjoyable in its own right.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_93542e0c
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_93542e0c
featureConfidence
1.0
 Shrek Forever After
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_93542e0c
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_959e6cb
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_959e6cb
comment
An article in Kotaku claimed that Japanese gamers were dissatisfied with Dragon Quest IX entirely because the Amazon Japan review scores were extremely low. In addition to the strange idea of gauging game quality via Amazon scores, the article became something of a laughingstock when it got out that the scores were the result of a spam attack by disgruntled users of 2chan.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_959e6cb
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_959e6cb
featureConfidence
1.0
 Dragon Quest IX (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_959e6cb
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_971e8e24
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_971e8e24
comment
Possibly due to their media coverage and approval from celebrities such as Simon Pegg and Damon Lindelof, the RedLetterMedia reviews, particularly the Star Wars prequel reviews have been taken seriously by fans to the point of attacking people that don't agree with them.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_971e8e24
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_971e8e24
featureConfidence
1.0
 RedLetterMedia (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_971e8e24
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_976efc02
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_976efc02
comment
MST3K has spoofed this a few times:
After watching Laserblast, they note that Leonard Maltin gave the movie 2 1/2 stars. This prompts Mike to get a book of Maltin's collected reviews and read them over the credits, noting which films are "empirically" better or worse than Laserblast.
Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders features a local newspaper reviewer that's full of himself and tells Merlin to "wow" him or be given a bad review. This is then mocked mercilessly and then given a skit where Tom Servo and Crow attempt to destroy each other through the power of negative reviews:
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_976efc02
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_976efc02
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mystery Science Theater 3000
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_976efc02
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_9a0cb5f4
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_9a0cb5f4
comment
An in-universe example occurs in the Bob's Burgers episode "Moody Foodie," after the restaurant is given a scathing review from the titular food critic (who has ruined several other businesses beforehand). It gets to the point where Teddy (a loyal customer) decides the burgers somehow don't taste as good, then quotes the review when questioned about it. In the end, when Bob tries to force the Moody Foodie to give him a do-over and opens his mail, it turns out that Bob is a Hypocrite- the package was a DVD for a movie that Bob never watched, but hated anyway because a critic gave it a negative review.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_9a0cb5f4
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_9a0cb5f4
featureConfidence
1.0
 Bob's Burgers
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_9a0cb5f4
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a485ad0f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a485ad0f
comment
The Angry Video Game Nerd:
This has actually happened a little bit with him averting some of the well-placed nostalgia. Before he reviewed Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, some user reviews varied from "awesome", to So Okay, It's Average, mostly saying Castlevania and III were better. Then when he reviewed it, it seems a lot of people actually hated the game a lot more than they originally did. And even if that was his first game he reviewed (it shows if you see the video), a later review had him say that despite his criticisms and complaints, the game was still an okay game.
A similar phenomenon hit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989). Prior to the AVGN's review, the reception was all over the place. After he reviewed the game, the game's reputation took a nosedive, with newer reviews pointing out the game's flaws that his original video. Now, the game's reception is mostly mixed, with complaints about its difficulty and how the game was an In Name Only adaptation.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a485ad0f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a485ad0f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a485ad0f
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a851d974
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a851d974
comment
The Nostalgia Chick has a lot of teenage male fans who enjoy trying to prove their masculinity. She tears apart girly movies for a living. You do the math.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a851d974
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a851d974
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Nostalgia Chick (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_a851d974
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b4e89049
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b4e89049
comment
Just try saying that Rock-A-Doodle and Tom and Jerry: The Movie were alright movies anyplace on the Internet. You're sure to be flamed by legions of Nostalgia Critic fans. This is also because, before he reviewed them, the movies weren't very well-known, and now people only know about them because of the Nostalgia Critic reviews.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b4e89049
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b4e89049
featureConfidence
1.0
 Rock-A-Doodle
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b4e89049
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b66b61ca
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b66b61ca
comment
While Rayman Origins was a bit of a flop in its first month of release, Ubisoft greenlit a sequel on the basis that Origins averaged roughly an 89 on Metacritic across all consoles. That led to Rayman Legends which has also been acclaimed, but also flopped. This time, Ubisoft pulled the plug, and Rayman hasn't been seen since except in spin-offs.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b66b61ca
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b66b61ca
featureConfidence
1.0
 Rayman Origins (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b66b61ca
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b80b5c0d
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b80b5c0d
comment
This unfortunately happened to Sonic Frontiers shortly after its release. The average score on Metacritic was around 72, and therefore disparaged as being So Okay, It's Average by people who would have otherwise viewed it as a Surprisingly Improved Sequel and thought the game would Win Back the Crowd when Sonic Forces couldn't. Three things to note here. One, 72% is seen as more than "just average" by most accounts. Two, the threshold for being "good" on Metacritic is 75, meaning that the game was only a few points short of being in the green. Three, the score was dragged down by notably negative reviews that went out of their way to nitpick at every slightly negative thing they could think of while ignoring most of the positives (the prime example of this is Digital Trend's review, which scored the game 2/10, and later admitted to being deliberately negative, since their second review of the game was a much more believable 8/10).
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b80b5c0d
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b80b5c0d
featureConfidence
1.0
 Sonic Frontiers (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b80b5c0d
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b9f400c8
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b9f400c8
comment
In real life, the film Gigli opened to overwhelmingly negative reviews after weeks of bad press and negative hype. Critic Amy Dawes, writing for Variety, dared to express her opinion that she kind of liked it in spite of the stupid story, which got her fired from Variety.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b9f400c8
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b9f400c8
featureConfidence
1.0
 Gigli
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_b9f400c8
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_be7d29db
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_be7d29db
comment
The new cases of this stem from Brows Held High, which usually have commenting sections filled with complaining about the quality of the film, people stating that this is why they don't take whatever political thing it might be addressing seriously, and comments running from "this isn't art" to encouraging selective censorship of art. All for just some films that you often wouldn't see outside of film festivals and your DVD player.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_be7d29db
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_be7d29db
featureConfidence
1.0
 Brows Held High (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_be7d29db
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ccae327f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ccae327f
comment
Do not disagree with Spoony from The Spoony Experiment on Final Fantasy VIII. You are obviously a blind fanboy if you do so (and you're gay or a yaoi fangirl). This is now starting to spread into Final Fantasy X as he has moved his targets there. The Spoony One is an exaggerated Internet persona though, so the real Noah Antwiler won't really berate you for it.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ccae327f
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ccae327f
featureConfidence
1.0
 The Spoony Experiment (Web Video)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ccae327f
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_d494343b
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_d494343b
comment
Seems to have happened with Iron Maiden's A Matter of Life and Death, which got five-star reviews much to the confusion of most fans. The reason fans found this confusing was that A Matter was praised for its long songs, repetition and bleak feel — the very criticisms given to the Blaze Bayley albums which people were encouraged by critics to avoid.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_d494343b
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_d494343b
featureConfidence
1.0
 Iron Maiden (Music)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_d494343b
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_dffb9d98
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_dffb9d98
comment
IGN's annual "Top 25 [Insert Console Here] Games" lists tend to garner a lot of debate from fans. For example, their "Top 25 Nintendo DS Games of All Time" list was heavily criticized for replacing Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story with Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (a game that, until then, had never even charted on a Top 25 list).
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_dffb9d98
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_dffb9d98
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_dffb9d98
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ec80dae4
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ec80dae4
comment
Many people take Yahtzee's reviews seriously, despite his known aversion to praising any game, including good ones; while there are a relatively large number of games that he likes, Portal is the only game he has been unable to find a single fault in.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ec80dae4
featureApplicability
-1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ec80dae4
featureConfidence
1.0
 Zero Punctuation (Web Animation)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ec80dae4
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f31d7d98
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f31d7d98
comment
Drawn Together was given an "F" by Entertainment Weekly, so a show was made where the characters read the review. They didn't believe at first, but then build a small shrine to Entertainment Weekly and pray to it for a better score. Then they take matters into their own hands and storm the Entertainment Weekly offices, killing everyone inside. Entertainment Weekly responded by reviewing that episode and giving it an "F" because they didn't want the first "F" to get lonely.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f31d7d98
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f31d7d98
featureConfidence
1.0
 Drawn Together
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f31d7d98
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f634206e
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f634206e
comment
In Ratatouille, a world-famous chef's reputation and life were destroyed by a harsh critic who had a personal grudge stemming from a differing opinion.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f634206e
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f634206e
featureConfidence
1.0
 Ratatouille
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f634206e
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f67012a7
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f67012a7
comment
The melodramatically titled and huge IMDb list "Movies that are destroying the planet Earth" consists of nothing but films reviewed by either the Nostalgia Critic or associates.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f67012a7
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f67012a7
featureConfidence
1.0
 IMDb (Website)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_f67012a7
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_faf84cd
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_faf84cd
comment
A quest in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines requires you to find a way to force a food critic to give a restaurant a bad review. Apparently this single review will be enough to destroy its reputation and force it to close down, despite it already being a fairly well known and successful business.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_faf84cd
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_faf84cd
featureConfidence
1.0
 Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (Video Game)
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_faf84cd
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ff463df2
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ff463df2
comment
Shows like Mega Babies and Johnny Test mainly gained their notoriously rabid hatedoms by way of the "cartoon community", mainly through members of it such as The Mysterious Mr. Enter.
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ff463df2
featureApplicability
1.0
 Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ff463df2
featureConfidence
1.0
 Mega Babies
hasFeature
Reviews Are the Gospel / int_ff463df2

The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingCategory2
Audience Reactions
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingCategory2
Common Fan Fallacies
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingCategory2
Criticism Tropes
 Reviews Are the Gospel
processingCategory2
It Sucks
 ManCalledTrue
seeAlso
Reviews Are the Gospel
 Game Dev Tycoon (Video Game) / int_eddf723f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 The Stanley Parable (Video Game) / int_eddf723f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 MarzGurl (Web Video) / int_eddf723f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 The Dom Reviews (Web Video) / int_eddf723f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel
 The Critic / int_eddf723f
type
Reviews Are the Gospel