Sometimes curiosity with opinions from many, many others on games can create interest. Strange as that sounds, it’s true.
(Ed. disturbing sidenote: this article was written before another new game was released on December 7, 2023 called The Day Before (Steam – curiously, this was pulled from Steam shortly after launch, leading to Valve doing something it rarely does: offering refunds to anybody who bought the game, regardless how long they played), this was also a giveaway in the PGM discord and cost me $39.99 USD. Luckily, I was able to get a refund on this and giveaway game(s) that would actually be played instead.
Little did I know that The Day Before would go on to quickly become one of the most negatively reviewed game on Steam ever. Way more negative reviews than Skull Island: Rise of Kong. In fact, see what I had to say about it in MCAP’s Discord in the image below when news that the company shut down their own discord server and were encouraging gamers to refund the game on Steam.)
Most times I avoid games that have mixed to negative reviews, but will admit a small amount of curiosity to the really, really bad games. If a game seems so bad to many, that it actually seems worth checking out to see if it’s truly that bad. The worth of a game is subjective to each gamer, anyway.
Meet Skull Island: Rise of Kong (https://store.steampowered.com/app/2097890/Skull_Island_Rise_of_Kong/), released and quickly earned very, very bad reviews, with many saying it’s one of the — if not the — worst games of 2023. According to a report, the publisher had a tight deadline and not enough developers to make it good via Report: Awful King Kong Game Was Made In A Year By Overworked Devs:
a new report claims it was made by a small team of developers on a tight budget in just one year, putting the studio in a situation where making something good, both quickly and cheaply, would be nearly impossible.
GamingBolt has footage and a review where “we played it so you don’t have to.”
One of the other worst games of 2023, just in case anybody is curious, is Lord Of The Rings: Gollum (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1265780/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_Gollum/). Metacrtic ranks it the worst of 2023 in their annual list: The Worst Videogames of 2023
Haven’t played that one either, but apparently, some are reverse review bombing Skull Island (falsely giving it positive reviews) so that it has a little higher score than Gollum, leaving the absolute worst score for that. Strange, but true, according to this article from dexerto: Gamers are review gaslighting Rise of Kong to make sure Gollum is 2023’s worst game
As of this writing, I have Skull Island in the back of my mind, if for no other reason than morbid curiosity. Maybe, I’ll give it a go and perhaps report back here with an update.
Otherwise, like many horribly reviewed games, it will go in the “not in this life” category. Has anybody reading played Skull Island: Rise of Kong? Is it as dreadful as (many) folks are saying? Let us know in the comments below.