sorry i had to.

Phantasmagoria 2 is so bad it's hilarious. That's why it has such a high score.

I bought Sacrifice and just couldn't get into it and many consider that an overlooked classic.

Sacrifice was (and still is) a great game, but it´s final enemy was too difficult

Aw hell...

Another point: It's certainly not a good idea to look at the games here and say, "well, a lot of 4 and 5 star reviews, these must all be a real classics!". When you list all the available games by user rating, though, you'll see a bunch of truly brilliant games at the top, all of which are very much worth your money. User ratings are helpful, you just have to know how to deal with them.

This is a site that exists for nostalgia. In some cases people aren't rating the game they are rating Christmas 1996 and all the memories associated with the game. Though, in the case of Phantasmagoria 2 I think people are mostly rating Spoony's let's play of it (I heard that Curtis!)

Based on average reviews. I gave a certain game a 1 (*Cough*Empire Earth 3*Cough) and that didn't really help much to begin with.

This. One of the top-rated reviews for that is a Spoony reference.

If you are referencing MDK2... I played it for the first time 3 years ago. That is hardly nostalgia talking.

Good for you. I didn't. But that's another thing you have to take into account when looking at other users' opinions: they're just that, opinions. And personal tastes vary wildly. One man's garbage is another man's gold, and all that. Port Royale 2 might be a good game, I don't dispute that. I personally hated it, but that just means that it isn't a game for me.

For me? Die by the Sword. I hate that game. Absolutely hate it. Not at all worth the $5.99 I shelled out for it. I'd also put Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic here, but I don't really hate it, just think that the first one is far, far better, and that I should have just went got that one by itself instead.

I mean Port Royale 1, didn´t play Port Royale 2. I understand that many people didn´t like it, but I don´t think it deserve to be hated.
Maybe some GOG games as Empire Earth III, Master of Orion III and Sensible Soccer 2006 deserve that...

The thought occurs that some people have different tastes in games. There are games here I wouldn't consider playing, because I don't like that particular style of game. Doesn't mean they're necessarily bad.

Regarding the universally panned games here, it's probably because of how GoG licenses the games from the publishers. IE they had to licence the entire Empire Earth series, or not at all.

It's easy to blame everything on nostalgia, but that's not as predominant as one might think. There's actually a kind of natural bias that occurs. Different people have different tastes, but for various reasons people tend to rate only those games which they most enjoyed.

Like Roberttitus I played MDK2 for the first time less than 3 years ago and I loved it. No nostalgia there.

It might be only me, but when i review a game [not here] from, let's say, 1999, i try to see it from the perspective of 1999. Old games won't get younger, i don't see the point in looking at it from the 2010 perspective to draw a serious conclusion. I use "present" only as a guideline, like "this would become a standard 2 years later" etc.

Since, i've never played Kingpin (in 1999 i retreated to the 80s games, due to the sheer ugliness of the 3d trend, and only recently picked a few neat titles from the era), but if violence and swearing was cool back, that fitted a 1999 game, then i don't see why it's a bad thing.
Actually, judging by modern [hip] music, movies and games. Violence and swearing is even more "in" then ever.

This is not a rant, i completely understand You disappointment in user reviews. So am i!
The problem is not only on the users side. EVERY [to my knowledge] single score review system is biased, screwed, untrue, etc. Games with 'better' sound of GFX will have higher scores than games with 'worse' sfx/gfx, but vastly superior gameplay.

I wish we had a serious scoring system.

Just a thought..