The controversy over the arbitrary number attached to games has become stupid beyond comprehension. In literature their used to be the theory that either writing was objectively good or bad, and on a gradiant scale based a set of criteria, and that it could only be judged as such by a small group of highly educated members that would dictate to the masses what was good and what was bad and how good or bad it was.
We moved past that. Except the gaming community that seems to have adopted it and to relish in it. The great irony of this is the ones they alow to dictate these objective ratings. Not a topic goes by where reviewers aren't called ass hats, money hats, biased, fanboys, haters, anything else. But their views are considered law, they the journalists (whom so many scoff at the term) are the modern equivalent of those early 20th century critics. The big difference is that those early critics gave themselves authority by means of their academia. Now they are, ironically, given authority by nothing else other the people that apparently loathe them.
Scores are decided by fans months before a games release and the critics must live up to these standards or will be flamed to hell by those that haven't even played the full game yet. Any deviation from the average aggregate metacritic score is evidence of their incompetence, and yet in the next round of reviews if they follow the pack they will be given a free pass. In today's climate, there is no such thing as opinion. There is metacritic and there is wrong.
I hold that the body of the text is the important part of the review, and the number exists only for the fanboy flame wars. Which lines the wallets of the apparent no nothing faux journalists that can't review a game worth shit unless they agree with the pre-concieved notion of the fans. If you can read a review and not know whether or not the game is for you without an arbitrary number at the end, then you are the ass hat and the sheep and the biased fanboy. The body of text will tell you the games flaws and it's strengths. It will tell you what it does successfully and what it needs to work on. It will tell you what type of game it is, and what to expect from your play experience. If you can't tell from that whether or not you'd like to purchase the game, then you don't know what you want from a videogame.
From here on out I will not use review scores for anything. I will not justify a games quality by refering to metacritic, I will not try to bring a game down because of gamerankings. I will not make stupid innappropriate comparisons of one game to another based on an aggregate score. That doesn't mean I will never mention a number in any context, but that I will never use it as evidence for or against a game. If you see me do that from here on out, feel free to call me on it. I will not argue, but appreciate you saving me from idiocy, sometimes a very contagious disease. I think if more people adopted this mindset it would reduce fanboy fights by at least a bajillion percent.
You can find me on facebook as Markus Van Rijn, if you friend me just mention you're from VGchartz and who you are here.
