For those of us who follow games and game development, they are pretty meaningless. I’m usually aware of a game that might interest me at least a year before it’s released. I know who’s opinions I respect, and I’ll know a lot about a game before it hits the shelves. (I’ve been fooled by the hype on occasion - Doom - but not often.)

The point- the value of review and it’s form is dependent on the target audience.

Yes, because video games are different from movies and music. You admitted as much yourself with your suggestion that sub-scores are a lot more useful in video games than general scores.

Rob

Taking your example, RJ, DDR will probably have a consistent 6 or 7 in the “Graphics” category; this is relative not to Halo 3, but to other DDR titles released. Let’s say a DDR title is released in the next 6 months with grainy videos, disgustingly polygonal dancers, and choppy framerates for the backgrounds; that gets it a lower score compared to other DDR games. If the next version has graphics commensurate with the rest of the series, then it gets a 5-7 for the graphics score. If, however, it goes above and beyond what’s expected for a DDR game’s graphics (face-mapping onto a nice-looking dancer model using Eyetoy/x360 Vision, for example), the score will go higher. Obviously, for some games, graphics will be emphasized less, and if there must be an overall score, the graphics score should be weighted less in figuring out the overall. DDR is sort of a bad example; but, replace it with “generic WW2 shooter” and you get the picture. The comparisons should be made within the genre or the system, and should be contemporary (ie six months after Halo 3’s release, the bar goes higher for the same graphical score as Halo 3).

Oh, and I don’t see the Buffalo News or any other newspaper movie critic in a huge rush to abandon the “star” rating system for film. So, film and music criticism is more mature, and uses a numerical/mathematical rating system, but video game criticism isn’t as mature but in your opinion needs to abandon such a rating system? I think a better idea than to scrap numerical ratings altogether is to more clearly define, for the readers as well as the reviewers, the criteria for which ratings numbers are assigned.

….you can tell I’m a software developer. “It’s not wrong, the requirements were just unclear!”

Honestly I think the number ratings are part of why I’ve procrastinated my participation on Netcrack into pretty much nothingness. Half the time I just can’t make the numbers apply. Or they don’t produce a relevant result.

How would you make a graphics ranking for a DDR game? I suppose yeah, the images are or are not distracting to the game play. But is that even related to say, a graphic rating of Halo 3? Does DDR not having crisp realistic players make it any more or less of a good game?

Rob

On the other hand, disliking something tends to create controversy. I really should review Final Fantasy 12 soon. It seems to be pretty well praised and frankly, I don’t like it. It’s got good points but I haven’t thought about touching the game in months. It’s boring. The battle system sucks balls.

At the same time, I took a bit of flack for writing a positive, non cynical review of Pokemon Diamond.