14 Most Surprising Metacritic Scores Of 2017

9. Knack II (69)

Every console's launch has at least one infamous title that becomes the punch-line of jokes for the remainder of the system's shelf-life, and for the PS4, that game is Knack.

Though hardly a terrible platformer, it was rather on the uninspired side and proved jarringly challenging for a game fundamentally aimed at kids, resulting in it scoring just 54.

While Sony was saying all the right things about Knack II, namely that the difficulty had been curbed and it placed a greater emphasis on co-op multiplayer, was it really reasonable to expect anything more than a mild improvement over the original?

A 60 score seemed about right for this one, but you know what? Knack II is actually a legitimately solid platformer. Flawed, absolutely, and far too long for what it is, but the co-op elements work superbly, the gameplay is dynamic, and yes, it truly is worthy of a Metacritic score higher than Star Wars Battlefront II.

This is clearly a game made by people with passion, which is more than can be said for EA's big-budget "Star Wars casino". That it triumphed over Star Wars, albeit just barely, is one of the year's most mind-boggling - not to mention hilarious - video game stories.