What Exactly Is Jim Sterling Reviewing? Not Much Apparently

[rocketpig]

steven787 said:

rocketpig said:
Steven, I think the main problem lies with the aggregation sites themselves, not with reviewers like Sterling.

Though your points on how well he explained his dislikes in this particular article are spot-on. He didn't do a very good job of explaining the things that dragged the game down in his eyes.

You're right, it is mostly with aggegation but they do have a purpose.  I like having one place to look for all the reviews.  I tend to ignore the total scores, but they are interesting.  It's just like tracking sales, it doesn't really matter but it's fun.

I like Metacritic because it puts all those reviewers in one place. It's a great tool to get an overall feel of a game or movie within minutes by reading 3-4 reviews about it.

On the other hand, I think the score is entirely useless. In fact, I think it's worse than useless. It's misleading and seems to manipulate people into group-think because they don't want to appear to be the odd duck of the aggregate group.

Actually, this thread inspired me to write an editorial. It should be up some time between now and Saturday.