Hmm, how can I explain this...

Here is my favourite PSP game so far;
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/psp/phantasystarportable?q=phantasy%20star%20portable

Here is one of my most hyped RPGs of this generation;
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/whiteknightchroniclesinternational?q=white%20knight%20chronicles

One of my favourite PS3 games (Although I traded it in, nuuuuh!);
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/untoldlegendsdarkkingdom

My favourite PSN game;
http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps3/zombieapocalypse

Now you tell me if you think I find reviews relevant or not...

Little to not at all relevant. Since the last gen, the amount of fanboys turned journalists have made most reviews biased in one form or another.

Word of mouth is far more important to me, talking to actual people who own a specific console who have played the game ON that console.

Personally, I think sites like metacritic are useless and should be discarded and even outright mocked.

Back 10 years ago when there was limited resources and few people had access to the internet, things like Magazine reviews and even limited online reviews like IGN were somewhat necessary, because people didn't have access to simply going online and seeing all the news articles and footage of a game before release.  Now adays however, review sites are pretty much just a luxury, even obsolete, in a world where we have nearly all the same access to the resources of the reviewers themselves.  Heck, aside from 'high profile' games, many times we even end up getting the games before major sites and magazines even review them, if they review them at all.  I had Muramasa: The Demon Blade 2 weeks before it was reviewed.  And Dragon Ball: Revenge of King Picollo a month before it was reviewed on IGN.

So what's the point of reading reviews?  They tend to just focus on high profile games, have bias to certain types of games and try to bend their reviews towards the whims of the masses.  As I said before, I can simply go on youtube or gametrailers and get a better sense of what a game is like than waiting near launch and trying to figure out what a reviewer wants me to think through a review.

RPG fans won't like reviews scores these days because those don't get high scores anyway.

I like meta because it gives a idea of what multiples sources think of a game and I can go read about it. I also watch trailers, gameplay and sometimes try a demo. All of those things counts.

What's funny is the people who claim review scores aren't important are the same people who comes to IGN and edge thread to throw that usual " ouch " comment when a game gets a 7.

Okay, you're still missing the point.

Watching footage and reading about the game lets you know what the game consists of; its mechanics, its presentation, etc. Reviews are there to tell you how well those things work, and if they come together to form a great game (or if some aspects are good while others falter). If getting the scope of how good a game is was as easy as just watching footage, I'd already know how good most games are months before they come out (and Lair would be an amazing game). By the way, being able to purchase games before they get reviewed doesn't make reviews obsolete. If I can buy a game a month before reviews come out, how does that makes reviews pointless? It just means I purchased a game before a reviewer could make a write-up of it. Big freakin' deal. 

And your logic isn't that great in the last paragraph either. Reviewers generally score well regardless of whether or not the game is high profile (see the reviews for ICO or Okami). And again, how does going on Youtube and Gametrailers give you an idea of the quality of a game? I'll use Spiderman 3 as an example (even though it's a movie). Because of the massive amount of previews for this movie before it came out, I already knew all the characters and most of the cool action scenes. And from those scenes, I thought it would be a good movie. However, the reality was very, very different. And how are these video sites not biased themselves? The most popular videos are always going to be the ones with the best parts of the game. They're not going to show the unpolished parts, or the ugly parts, or the parts that are just flat-out terrible (unless it's a joke movie).

I didn't miss the point.  I just repeated my point yet again.  That review sites have various bias they put into their reviews that make it so you can't exactly trust their opinions.  Whereas videos and 'pure' news sites tend not to do that, only sticking to showing you the actual game content and information.

And despite your example, yes, you can see both the good and bad of a game from video footage.  I could tell early on the good points and bad points of most of the games I bought in recent years, simply by looking at videos on sites like gametrailers and youtube.  Gametrailers don't handpick videos to show, only the ones that make the game look good.  They show videos wherever they find them.  I've seen videos that show glitches, bugs and etc in games (like the recent footage of Sonic 4).  But I still consider it a better judge of a games content than a reviewer, who only points out things he/she wants to bring up and then gives a 'score' based on how they 'felt' playing the game.

If the reasons why a game gets a given score are justified by facts reported in the review that are meaningful for my tastes, I tend to trust them, although I search around about the issues that matter for me to have confirmation.

Now days you can pretty much predict what the scores will be before the reviews are even given. Hype/popularity and budget of the game series plays a dominate role in influencing the scores. I do look at them, because they will tend to slant a game up or a down a bit from what the predetermined score is supposed to be. However GTA4 highest game of the gen was a complete joke. If you pay attention to how the games are actually reviewed and find out about the lavish 'review events' reviewers are taken too, and then the reviewers pretend that they're above the influence and that there great weekend had no influence whatsoever in what they score a game is sad. I'm enjoying the hell out of MAG and so are thousands of others with it's 77 metascore, it just tells many of us that game reviewing is severely broken, and/or corrupt.

Reviews should answer the questions "Who would like this game?" and "Who wouldn't like this game?" instead of stamping a big universal number on it for everybody.

I hate reviews for saying "wah wah wah, it didn't change" when a retro game comes out. It's like they missed the point entirely. Mega Man 9 got bad reviews saying it was too hard. They were basically penalizing a game for doing exactly what it was trying to do (like giving a black and white film a bad review for lacking color). PlayStation Official Magazine UK only reviewed the PS3 version, and gave it a 50, its lowest score, pulling the average down for that version, hahaha. (Mega Man 9 averaged 83 on Wii, 82 on XBox 360, and 77 on PS3.) They had this wisdom to say about the game: "Great stuff for masochists who think progress ended with 8-bit gaming - not so much if you're looking to have fun." How can somebody be so anti-retro and then review a retro game and troll its fans? That's really unprofessional.

Where's a film reviewer who gives every sci-fi/military epic action blockbuster a 9/10 review and then trolls fans of romantic comedies and art-films? They'd be laughed out of film criticism, but they're more than welcome in game criticism.

I will look at the near 10 games...

I won't look at the near 6 games (well unless it's wii games... or Dynasty warriors... or other games I know are good despite the scores).

in between, I use the reveiw text mainly...


(I really buy my games based on titles and cover art.... a game with a great art will be great... that is how I discovered Warcraft II and RTS games =)