Keep this in mind when you’re reading a video game review from your favorite publication.
To quote Destructoid:
If a videogame review that you disagree with is posted online, you are duty-bound to respond and shame the writer into committing suicide, because it’s just that crucial. Of course, you need to be armed with the proper responses, and fortunately, we’re here to help. Come with me as I show you exactly how to respond to a video game review. That no-good writer who trashed Uncharted 2 by giving it an 8.5 will be crying into his oatmeal by sundown!
It goes on to detail, in humorous fashion, how you, the everyman on the street bouncing from IGN to Eurogamer to Edge to 1UP to Kotaku to CrunchGear when I get around to it, should react to a review of your favorite video game. Hate the score the reviewer gave the game? Call him biased! Upset that a game you hate got a 7.5 instead of a 7.0? (That’s why I don’t give numbers in my reviews, which are always entitled “Wherein we discuss [Game],” because I think they’re dumb.) Make wild accusations about conflicts of interests, as if every video game reviewer is a stock holder in a video game publisher.
I have no stock in anything, for the record. That’s a rich man’s game.
Now, we can use this as an opportunity to discuss what y’all look for in video game reviews. I do know that when I was younger (let’s say around 13), the first thing I’d check was the review score. “Yes, they gave Zelda a 5.0 for the fun factor~!” I didn’t pay much attention to the review itself, just the score. Today, it’s the complete opposite. I’d rather sit through a really long Edge review and not see a score (like the magazine did with Fatale) then see some 200-word quickie with an 8.0 tacked on the bottom for good measure.