Ultimately while reviews can be a good indicator, in the end they are just the opinions of reviewers based on their experience.

To answer your main points

A. Agree wholeheartedly. For example, while I am sure a game like Ocarina of time is great. It was great years ago. I don't understand the argument that just because a game has a certain average review score that it should remain the best for all time.

B. Agree partially, while hype does greatly contribute, the product does need to be at least decent to get high scores.

C. Very true especially this generation.

D. A lot of them definitely are.

E. Also agree.

Great thread. You bring up many good points.

That's because the game actual matters even if all of the hype is there for the game, although I think we all understand if a game gets hyped, since it's natural for a development company to try and boost a game's appeal.

But, some people take reviews so seriously that it's kind of funny. A review doesn't matter if people are only keeping track of "AAA" titles (a term I absolutely can't stand) or trying to justify their massive affinity for a system. An unbiased review, which is kind of hard to come by, should highlight the goods and bads of a game, so a potential buyer of the game can get an understanding of the game. Way too many reviews that I've seen are based off of maybe 1-2 hours of play, which is definitely not enough to get a clear understanding of the game, especially with RPGs and other games that may be 30+ hours in length.

There is no doubt that some games are worse than others.

Question. Would everyone hate Haze if video game reviews didn't exist?

Those arguments I've listed, aren't my own. They are just general argumets one way or another. I said in my post, they are opinion, and have proofs on either side. The text after that is my argument.

Reviews are a necessary evil. They can be an easy way to save your $50 or $60 if the game you thought was gonna be great turns out to suck, like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or what have you. Now that doesn't mean you should look at reviews as the gospel or anything, and many people attach too much importance to them, but they are an important part of the industry.

This comparison isn't completely parallel, but it'd be like if we didn't have movie reviews. And you can apply a lot of the same arguments.

A. Standards change, so even if a movie is rated low now, it may be rated highly in five years, or fifty years.

B. Reviews aren't based off the amount of money a movie makes and how much the people like it, but how much critical hype surrounds the movie.

C. Standards differ between genres and different time periods.

D. Reviewers are corrupt.

E. According to the law of large numbers, with enough reviews, aggregate scores will be very close to "correct" estimations of quality.

See, the game ratings really aren't that different than movie ratings, all though some of the principles are reversed or slightly different.

Good thoughts as always Zen, reviews shouldn't be used in fanboy fights, or to prove one game is better then the other, really they're meant to be read seen if this game would be a game for you, you may have different tastes then the reviewer and a 5 to 7 game to him would be a 9 game to you scores are just there to show how much the reviewer himself/herself liked, it's a personal opinion.

You may find a reviewer that fits your tastes perfectly and you can usually judge if it's a game you want to buy. That's the best way to use a review it shouldn't be used to prove it's better then another game that's like saying my friend Ted liked Smash Brothers over Mario Galaxy, Ted has his own tastes while most people like Galaxy over Smash. It's trying to prove your point with someones opinion, there is no real scientific way to test games so there's no end result that's will show the quality of the game.

I do reviews for the site but if someone tried to prove how great their game is based off my opinion I would tell them they're just stupid, if you want to prove anything make factual statements to try and prove your argument.

I don't know what's more annoying, reviews or people who complain about reviews?

Zen, I agree with you, especially A-D.

LMAO!

Whilst there are exceptions and outliers with games which have been reviewed too favourably or too harshy the general statement remains true that a higher rated game is generally better than a lower rated game.

Take the Top 10 Xbox 360 games, then compare them to the next 10 down. The games at the very top outsell the games lower down substantially so by that metric they are better.

Taking a group of the top rated metacritic games reduces the outlier factor and so does taking a group of reviewers and averaging out the scores reduces the human factor which you can get when comparing game reviews from a single site.

I agree with this but the current review system is probably the best method we have of rating the quality of games despite it's obvious drawbacks , i wouldn't go as far as saying they don't matter but they definetley aren't very credible.

A. Standards change, so games rated now, who get low scores, are actually better than games from 10 or even 2 years ago.

>>>I don't think it would be possible to quanitfy a games quality in relation to games made X years ago and even if it was possible would the average user be able to understand them ?

B. Reviews aren't based off the quality of the game, but the hype surrounding it.

>>> True but at the same time the entertainment derived from the game could be largley due to the hype , I think the most important aspect of a game is it's entertainment value and if a reviewer feels entertained by a game partly because all his friends said the game was excellent then hasn't the end the developer intended been achieved ?

C. Standards differ between platforms.

>>> True but no one seems to care about this , it's our nature to compare even when comparison isn't fair . If some one goes to the shop to buy a game they'll have to choose between different genres wether they choose to or not . Comparison across genres is troublesome but also neccasery.

D. Reviewers are corrupt.

>>> Amen , let's hunt em all down.