Do Game Review Scores Matter? 88
jasoncart writes "This piece on Ferrago discusses the use of review scores and the significance they play in gamers purchasing decisions. Ultimately, according to columnist Ben Parfitt, review scores are pointless." From the article: "Few things wind me up more than when what appeared to be a well-balanced and thoughtful gaming discussion descends into a successive barrage of review scores and Gamerankings ratings."
Reviewers are robots. (Score:5, Insightful)
The best judgement of a game (because of the above), is to see anomalies in gameranking.com listings. If IGN or Gamespot or Gamespy or EGM give a review that seems to be an anomaly, ignore it. It's a bought review.
Always read the review giving a game the lowest score. Or stop reading reviews with scores altogether. The latter works well for me.
article summary (Score:5, Insightful)
a system meant to reduce all that is to be said about a game to a single-digit number somehow leaves the smaller nuances unsaid.
stunning.
Q:Do Game Review Scores Matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Scores help to narrow which games to look at. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Answer: NO! (Score:3, Insightful)
Example?
Not challenging ya really, I was just wondering if a AAA game company released a 1.0 stinker.
Do Game Review Scores Matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Reviewers are robots. (Score:4, Insightful)
Gamers might not get money for review scores, but you guys seem to have an uncanny ability to give scores thatseem to match the text of the reviews. For example:
And, right after claiming it's one of the best games of the year, the score is 3/5. The same score that "Hamtaro ham-ham games" and "The punisher", where the text of the review says "but to spend $49.99 on this game only proves that you're either a huge Punisher fan (which is fine) or that you enjoy "punishing" yourself". To me, that makes as much sense as Chewbacca living in Endor.
Bigger sites coomit the same sin (just read the Halo 2 review in gamespot, and then look at the score), but if you guys want to gain the audience that gamers once had, you have to do better than this.