Welcome back to "Backhanded Box Quotes," a collection of measured, thoughtful criticism from the user reviews of Metacritic and elsewhere on the Internet.
Wayne LaPierre, the National Rifle Association's No. 1 mouthpiece, emerged from Oz's curtain this morning to condemn the worst video games of American culture. Funny, the NRA made one itself: NRA Gun Club, released in 2006 for the PlayStation 2. Here's what people said at the time.
NRA Gun Club
Crave Entertainment
Released: Oct. 2, 2006.
Critic: Brian (Metacritic)
• "I'll give it an overwhelming thumbs down."
Score: 2.
Critic: GamesRadar
• "The feeling you get from holding an actual weapon in your hand might grant some intoxicating sense of power, putting as it does the power to end a life in your hands. Of course, the same could be said of a hammer."
• "NRA Gun Club may be useful for demystifying gun ownership for wannabe weekend warriors, but it sure as hell doesn't qualify as much of a game."
Score: 2.
Critic: Ian Nelson (Amazon)
• "Perhaps one of the single most horrendous games to ever come from a third-rate game creator."
• "NRA Gun Club could very well be the single worst game in the history of games."
• "This game is pure garbage, and Crave Entertainment should be as ashamed of itself as I am."
Score: 1 star.
Critic: Jeff Gerstmann (then of GameSpot)
• "Absolutely pure in its devotion to awfulness." (Note: This was the lone bullet point under the heading "The Good.")
• "This is the sort of hastily slapped-together game that should have been a free bonus for subscribing to the NRA newsletter or something."
• "Most textbooks are more entertaining."
• "This game promotes violence—you're bound to rip the disc out of your PlayStation 2 and fling it across the room almost immediately after putting it in."
• "Since the game doesn't let you reload the weapons or press the safety, you don't learn much."
• "NRA Gun Club's awful gameplay and presentation make it an effective though unintended antigun message: Guns are boring."
Score: 1.6
Critic: GarrisonO. (Metacritic)
• "This game completely sucks!!!"
Score: 2
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