ALL GAMING ENJOYMENT MAY BE REDUCED TO INTEGER FORM, CARRIED OUT TO THE ONE HUNDREDTH DECIMAL PLACE.
GOD HAND: 74.9% FROM GAMERANKINGS DOT COM.
THE HIVE HAS SPOKEN.
ALL GLORY TO THE HIVE.
*cough* *hack* Ahem.
Pardon me. I thought that might be a good way to get your attention.
I'm using this topic to stand up and say, first and foremost, that review "scores" mean absolutely nothing at all. One disturbing trend that I notice in these forums is that people have a tendency to form their opinions around games they have not played based on the consensus of pseudo-journalistic mancildren and womanchildren who wouldn't know how to deconstruct a piece of narrative if it was made of LEGO. This cannot stand, people! We cannot allow our views on a game to be based on the consensus of people we don't know, especially when it's a game that we've never played and we don't know how qualified they are to view it in the first place.
The entire point of a review is supposed to be the communication of complex opinions, not a breakdown and quantification of different areas of review that can be scored on a 1-10 or (more commonly) a 1-100 scale. When we read reviews we are looking for the impressions that people give according to what they communicate in text: the number doesn't mean anything. The review says everything. Yahtzee is a better reviewer than 95% of gaming "journalists" simply because he doesn't subscribe to any paticular metric, and rarely even coms out and says whether he even likes a game. Endorsement isn't a part of the reviewer's job, it's simply a communication of values.
Games are among the most subjective of all art forms and operate according to different values than in any other medium, but certain principles remain the same while being ignored by gaming journalists at large: firstly, video games are meant primarily to entertain, and if a game is entertaining then it is good.
I want to note that there is a difference between "good" games and "important" games. "Important" games, which have an impact on gaming culture, tend to review better than games that are merely good. This does not make them better games - God Hand is not as "important" as Devil May Cry, but it is a considerably more entertaining game and better according to that metric.
Anyway, I'm having trouble focusing. The point is this:
Don't let reviews determine how you view games. There is a diference between "poorly reviewed" and "bad".
Anyone disagree?
ODIN SPHERE IS AN 82.0 ACCORDING TO GAMERANKINGS DOT COM.
ALL GLORY TO THE HIVE.
