My problem with game reviews is partially because they're based on a school grading system. Except in school, the rules are different.
If you receive a 10%, you basically wrote your name on the top of a page and wrote a paragraph about carnivals when you were supposed to write a five page paper on astrophysics. Anything from 10-60% means "so incomplete that I can't even grade this properly". The REAL grading scale starts at 60%, which removes 3/5ths of the actual scale from even being considered.
How on earth do you grade a game at 30%? What did the game do, cut out at 20% completion, call your mother a slut, kick your puppy, and then make the console explode? It's ludicrous and makes ZERO sense when you think about it. So reviewers are grading on a four point scale on top of awarding damned near every game obscenely high grades for repeating what their predecessors did before them. There is no sense of reward for actually doing something different and advancing video games. So what if Portal challenged how gamers think about their medium? Fuck, it only received a 9.5. OBVIOUSLY, retreads like Halo 3 and GTA IV are BETTER because they copied their own formula and updated graphics. The same goes for Braid and other games that are truly outstanding. THERE IS NO SENSE OF ACHIEVEMENT WITHIN THIS SYSTEM.
Meh. People may complain about movie reviews but I'd rather see a critic have the balls to say "I didn't like Apocalypse Now and this is why" instead of blindly awarding the movie with a 9 or better because everyone else thinks it's great.
Yahtzee referred to game reviewers as "circus seals". I can't think of a better way to put it. They spend a lot of time doing tricks for free shit (fish or a totally sweet Rockstar North jockstrap which is mildly ironic considering the lack of testes found on the average reviewer), and they're naturally formed to have their head right around waist-height to a human for other, more obvious, reasons.
No trick, no treat.
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