I look at the games I want and use review scores to validate whether a game is a worthy purchase. Basically I will already have a desire for the game and just want to make sure it is worth the money before throwing down the cash.I also use them to gauge interest in stuff I may have missed.

I hardly ever read a review, as I think they usually give away too much and I like to be suprised about what takes place.

Although your concern is valid, scores themselves are not bad. It's up to the individual to read further and know what kind of gameplay they enjoy, not to mention try something new now and then.

I've said this before, but I'll repeat here:

There's nothing wrong with reviewers adding a score to their games. The problem is with the gaming fanbase who lives and dies by the number given it. People flipping out over the Twilight Princess review is one of the most ridiculous reactions I've ever seen to a game review. If a highly anticipated game isn't given a "9," it's a huge disappointment and a disaster. Well, either that or the site is just biased and has an agenda. Yeah, ok.


Those little numbers they put on a review should be a seen as a suppliment to the review text, not an all-encompassing summary of it.

The problem with review scores is their inconsistency. One review can have a similar opinion about a game as another review, but the scores might be two points different. That annoys me as I like to use GameRankings as a decent guide for what to look for, then reading a few reviews; these outliers can really throw off averages for some games.

Even in the same magazine, each reviewer has their own opinions. Since the same reviewer isn't writing all the reviews, any direct comparison between scores of two games is suspect.

This is all well and good for me, it just makes me shake my head at why a game received a score after I read the review, but it's not good for the industry in general, when the general populace (and therefore publishers) are swayed a lot more by numbers than by a page of text that they probably don't read.

Even though it required an adjustment as I read through them, I liked what CGW tried to do (as Frisky mentioned) when they removed scores from the reviews. But reader complaints forced them to restore scoring.

Originally Posted by mik I'm sort of a proponent of keeping the review "score" to a simple: buy it, rent it, forget it.

I agree, also, I'm a huge fan of replayablity, and I feel that you should wait a month, before reviewing it and tell everyone your thoughts on its lasting power.

IGN is ALWAYS going to beat you, so why not try something different.

Originally Posted by SpreadTheWord Maybe most of the games that come out are "good"? If a game gets anything lower that a 7, I don't even read the review. Unless I hear good things about it from people I trust. Review scores are a good guideline for the age old question "Is this game worth my time?". The first thing I do is check gamerankings, If the average is over a 7 then I'll read some reviews. If not, I'll move on to the next game that looks cool. I don't have enough time to read every review, or enough money to try every game. A simple, thought out, score gives me a first impression that I can act on.

I don't think all games are equally good and deserve a 7 or above. If every movie or CD got a 7, nobody would pay attention to what critics say (which might be a good thing in some cases..) How can you decide if a game is worth your time if most of what comes out gets a high score?

When I look at movie review scores at Rotten Tomatoes or music reviews at pitchfork, I can look at the score and know whether the reviewers liked it or not and can guess the general flow of the written review. Reviews are supposed to be critical, scores should reflect that. When you go to IGN or gamespot etc. etc. and see a game with a 7 or 8, you never know what you're going to get in the written article. Sometimes they go off on a game's flaws and sometimes they praise it entirely, all while giving a very middle-of-the-road and consumer-stroking 7 or 8.

This is a repeating ethical issue in gaming/science/literature/movies. Review scores are numbers; numbers that represent real integers. Plainly they are just freaking numbers. Numbers are quanitities. Games as words are of quality or qualitative. To give more real value to a review on multiple levels of thinking people will give a quality a number based on personal experience.






For example...
How is your mood today on a scale of 1 to 5?( 5 being the happyest and 1 being the saddest) how would you rate yourself at this moment?



Honestly, read the review. The number does not mean anything unless the persona that is writing the review matches up to what you have to say. If there was a gaming review site out there that had any cajones it would not have a quantitative review section.


I say CAG should be the ones to do this. Do something different. I am tired of quantitative measures for lazy readers.

Originally Posted by KaneRobot I've said this before, but I'll repeat here: There's nothing wrong with reviewers adding a score to their games. The problem is with the gaming fanbase who lives and dies by the number given it. People flipping out over the Twilight Princess review is one of the most ridiculous reactions I've ever seen to a game review. If a highly anticipated game isn't given a "9," it's a huge disappointment and a disaster. Well, either that or the site is just biased and has an agenda. Yeah, ok. Those little numbers they put on a review should be a seen as a suppliment to the review text, not an all-encompassing summary of it.

Bingo. KaneRobot nailed it - or at least, nailed what I wanted to say. The score is merely an addition to the review, in order to compliment it, not summarize it, because if you can summarize an entire 40 hour game with one number, there's something wrong.

The entire problem lies within the fanbase, as Cheapy was mentioning on the latest Cagcast. They are entirely too fanatical, and instead of quoting why games are good, or bad, or whatever, most just stick to spouting off review numbers in their overzealous diatribe.

The meat of the review - the words - are what's important. So while Cheapy's Motorstorm review may be "50 pages long," I'd rather have that than a short, one paragraph summary. I understand that games take much longer to review and all, but if all reviews could be in depth ones, I think the score could be done away with completely, in favor for a more critical viewpoint.

of course I think it should be like the NYT and how they do reviews. Talk about strength and weakness and leave it up to reader to decide.

For audio reviews I don't think a review score is needed. Just talk about what you thought of the game and that is good enough.

They're good. What's bad is people taking the review scores out of context. Also when people bitch over review scores. Reviews are subjective opinions, nothing more, a number doesn't mean much if not taken in context.

We don't need to get rid of review scores, we need to get rid of dumb readers.

I don't like it when people get in pissing matches about how "my game scored better than yours!" or "this game got robbed!" or "it's a monstrous injustice that this game scored better than this one!" (like in one podcast I listen to). Also, scores are so subjective and fiddly - this game got a 9.1? Why not a 9? What gives it that extra 1 point? And generally, the full scale is not used. In theory, a 6 should be a decent but flawed game that some will enjoy, and even a 5 should be something that may be worth buying for a select few. In practice, people often view anything below 8 as worthless.

However, I'm not sure if going scoreless will solve everything. Computer Gaming World (now Games for Windows Offical Magazine) tried going without scores for a few months, and eventually switched back to scores because both their writers and their readers liked it better.

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I think reviews score are good for a quick reference. I go to Gamerankings to get a sense if I should even waste my time reading a review. The way I look at review scores is like this:

Based on Gamerankings compiled reviews:

9+: Crazy high, Probably very high quality game. Even if I have no interest in the game, I will read some reviews to see what the excitement is all about.

7-9: High quality game. May have some flaws, if I was anticipating the game, I read reviews to see what was done right and what was done wrong and make my choose based on that criteria.

5-7: Medicore quality. The game did some things right but has several flaws or a major flaw. I only take the time to read the reviews if I was already very excited about the game, otherwise I don't read the reviews.

0-5: Lousy. Don't waste time reading reviews, fundamentally flawed

No matter what the score is though, I read several reviews before making a purchasing.