Cory in the House for the Nintendo DS has become one of the highest-rated games of all time by user score. 2008 was a big year for gaming, seeing the release of Grand Theft Auto 4, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, and Dead Space, to name a few. However, 18 years later, none of those acclaimed and beloved titles remain in Metacritic's top 10 games by user review, but an obscure TV tie-in for the Nintendo DS does.
Most of the best-reviewed games on Metacritic are no surprise. No one will be shocked to hear that after Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept The Game Awards, it also sat toward the top of many users' favorite games. Fewer would expect to see Cory in the House revel in the same company. As strange as that may sound, it's true, and there's a chance the DS title's sudden and shocking hot streak isn't over just yet.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is No Longer the Highest-Rated Game on the PlayStation Store
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's reign at the top of the PlayStation Store charts has come to an end at the hands of a newly released sequel.
Top 10 Highest-Rated Games by User Score on Metacritic
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (9.5)
- Disney Cory in the House (9.3)
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (9.3)
- Heroes of Might and Magic 3 (9.3)
- Silent Hill 2 (9.3)
- Metal Gear Solid (9.3)
- Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence (9.3)
- The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (9.3)
- The Last of Us (9.2)
- Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne (9.2)
At the time of writing, Cory in the House holds the second-highest user rating of all time on Metacritic, boasting a 9.3 out of 10 with 2.3 thousand positive reviews. The game has just 163 negative reviews and no mixed feedback, and this overwhelmingly positive praise is enough to push it ahead of many titles that some might consider the best games ever made. Less surprisingly, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has the highest user ratings of any game on Metacritic, sitting well above the competition with a score of 9.5 out of 10 from over 23,000 reviews.
One look at Cory in the House's user reviews reveals how it landed so high in the rankings. The DS game's surge in popularity is simply a meme, with people flooding Metacritic with hyperbolic praise like "Disney's Cory in the House saved my marriage" and "this video game masterpiece isn't just good, but it transcends godhood." This has happened before, with users reverse-review-bombing the game back in 2013 for the joy of seeing it climb through the rankings, so it'll be interesting to see if it manages to take the number one spot this time around. After Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 shadow-dropped new DLC during The Game Awards, it garnered an even larger audience, so its sheer volume of positive reviews will be hard for Cory and the House to overcome. The gap between a 9.3 and a 9.5 is more significant than it may seem at first.
It's also worth noting that Cory in the House does not come anywhere close to the top 10 in terms of critical reception. The game doesn't even have a Metascore currently, as it has just two critic reviews, and both are negative. Cory isn't the only one that players and critics seem to disagree on, either. The number one game on Metacritic by critical score is The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which didn't break users' top 10. That may not be surprising, considering how Ocarina of Time is one of the most important Nintendo games ever made, but Clair Obscur and the Metal Gear Solid series are also noticeably absent from the critics' top 10. Titles like SoulCalibur and both Super Mario Galaxy games rank high in this list despite being absent from users' top-rated games.