by A popular and new Xbox Game Pass game is bombed with zero points on Metacritic. This week the Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate libraries have been updated on Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X and PC with some critically acclaimed games including Buses Narrative adventure meets RPG from a small team within Obsidian Entertainment, makers of titles like Fallout: New Vegas, South Park: The Stick of Truth, The Outer Worldsand many other notable games over the years.
Exclusive to the Xbox console Buses launched on Xbox Game Pass on day one, as all Xbox games do. And upon release, it received a Metacritic score of 88, making it one of the highest new releases of the year and one of the most critically acclaimed games of the year. However, its user rating is only 6.8 with 55 “negative” reviews. For context, the game has 116 “positive” reviews and then three “mixed” reviews. And most of those negative reviews are just straight zeros. It’s unclear how many bad actors act in ill will in the name of console wars instead of being honest in their ratings, but the bottom line is still the same: lots of zeros weighing down users’ ratings.
For example, there is the following review from Xbox4Lyfe, which appears to be clearly fanboyism: “I told myself I would give Buses a shot. After two hours of some of the most boring dialogue, boring scenes and boring “gameplay” I immediately uninstalled it. This game may or may not be for you. I will again high-quality games such God of War: Ragnarok!!!”
On the other hand, there are many reviews that appear to be genuine, like this one from Kreplik: “Buses. I do not know. The game gets almost nothing but 10/10s, and it’s not even a game. At least I didn’t understand the gameplay. I’ve gotten to the point where it’s boring and amounts to clicking through the subtitles. It looks like a western version of Danganrompa, which I couldn’t handle because of the tedious and annoying clicking through lines of text. So what if the plot is supposedly great, and the atmospheric setting. But it’s BORING! I’m at the age where I don’t want to spend my free time clicking through a line of text. I’d rather read the book.”
As you may know, Metacritic removes user reviews if they believe they’re malicious, but so far it seems the game’s many zeros have passed the snoop test and are standing. If this changes we will update the story accordingly. In the meantime, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think. Did you play Buses? Do you agree with all these zero ratings?
