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Words Of Wisdom said:
Khuutra said:
So you guys do see the ideal form of video game reviews as functioning as a buyer's guide, of sorts?

Consider Ratatouille and compare/contast the purpose of the restaurant review industry with game review industry. 

Please express your answer in complete sentences.

THat's a problematic question, since a restaurant review differs from game reviews in two key ways.

1. No two visits to a restaurant are going to be the same. A restaurant review only gives an indication of expectations, because the product you experience is going to differ in many key ways from the product that the reviewer experiences. So experience is not the only differing factor here!

2. A restaurant review, at its heart, talks about a consumable good - food. Cooking is certainly an art in much the same way that video game design is an art, but the implications of what goes into those two arts is very different. Food, at its heart, is a sensory experience, and rarely (if ever) makes a statement beyond the experience. Critical analysis of food must necessarily differ from critical analysis of other media of expression because the message conveyed is defined by the good consumed.

Restaurant reviews function as a buyer's guide because of the nature of food - there's nothing else to talk about unless you, the reviewer, are a cook who can talk about factors that contribute to the sensory experience and what that says about the process of crafting the meal. Video games are not necessarily subject to the same thing, firstly because anyone who plays games can talk quite a lot about what makes an experience work, and because video games provide a very different kind of experience.