| Strategyking92 said: I believe a reviewing system should be as such: edit: and this way people couldn't bitch about .5 points off of a certain version because it would literally mean nothing in the categorization. This would also more often than naught remove any slight bias tward a late port. |
The trouble with that is: who're you advising to buy or rent or avoid the game? A game could be a definite buy if meant for kids aged 5-8 in love with the Merc's cartoons, and a definite avoid for an horror-hungry teenager.
One thing is the description and critical analysis of the game per se, the other is judging it as a product that people can buy, and in this second idea of what a review can be you should take in account the variety of the public.
That's where all the confusion comes when reviewing games that don't add much to previous experiences, or for late ports. Do you rate an incrementally better game as better than the original, or do you rate it in the context of people having already played the previous? Who should buy, rent or skip the new one?
My point is that the what the game is, what it tries to be and how good or bad it fares at reaching its goals should be mandatory in the final synopsis of a review. Anything less is misleading, including any kind of score or consumer advice.
In this sense, I see nothing wrong with some reviews being attuned to the mainstream commercial trend, and others being completely independent. Different kind of public will look for the Cannes' palm d'or badge under a movie poster, for Ebert's quotations or for glowing reviews from the "Family fun" newsletter.
Which, once again, points to the fact that we should have more variety in how game reviewing is approached and less self-referential short-circuiting between publishers, reviewers and core gamers community. It's an unhealthy relationship.
