10 Video Game Review Scores Fans Lost Their MINDS Over
6. IGN Scores Sonic Unleashed Lower Than Sonic 2006
As this list will soundly prove, IGN is often a lightning rod for criticism against reviews that deviate from the standard distribution, and there are few more infamous examples than their assessment of 2008's Sonic Unleashed.
Even with the game receiving incredibly mixed reviews across-the-board, IGN shook out on the more negative side, awarding the game a 4.5/10 score.
This in of itself wouldn't have been particularly noteworthy given that other prominent outlets like Eurogamer and Gamespot were even more scathing in their critiques, but what truly made the famously passionate Sonic fanbase see red against IGN in particular?
Scoring it lower than 2006's Sonic the Hedgehog, easily the consensus-worst game in the series.
IGN's original review of Sonic '06 awarded it a 4.8/10 score, and given that the easy fan consensus was that Sonic Unleashed was at least a considerable improvement over Sonic '06, they lost their minds trying to make sense of this disparity.
This was, of course, entirely ignoring the fact that IGN isn't a monolithic entity and both games were reviewed by different critics years apart, but since when did fans ever want to hear cold, hard logic?
A cacophony of whining followed and all the usual low-effort drive-by jokes were levelled against IGN - the ever-original "you can't spell ignorant without IGN!" - even though both reviews were absolutely reasonable.
Most bizarre of all, perhaps, is that Gamespot reviewed Sonic Unleashed even lower than Sonic '06, and yet didn't receive a fraction of the harassment for doing so.