Why go scoreless?
As I mentioned in previous posts before (here, for example) it is of my opinion that game scores really have no place when one is properly trying to evaluate the experience. What’s to differentiate a 10 for a first person shooter game in one respect, and in comparison, to a 9 that a popular role playing game might have received from the same publisher/magazine/writer? At its best, scores quickly inform the reader of which games to “avoid” and which games are the “must-have”; one made more prominent by the rise of aggregate sites such as Metacritic and GameRankings, where only a quick look is suffice to form one’s opinion.
However, these scores have become so ingrained and artificially standardized by those who read it that many seem, for example, to scoff at any game receiving an 8 (insert similar score/percentage/grade here) or below, and – most alarmingly – tend to ignore the actual text of the review that offers much more detail than one could get at simply gleaning at what is really an arbitrary number. Are scores useful? Yes, they are: consumers can arm themselves with knowledge of which games have earned their cash, and publishers and developers alike depend on scores for healthy evaluations of the game at market (though obviously, there are exceptions to this – licensed titles for example).
But are they necessary? Not at all. Hopefully, through the course of my reviews, I intend to reinvigorate what is really becoming a stagnant process in gaming journalism – I want the reader to actually read the text, and from there form a better opinion than blindly judging a game by its score alone. This would require, of course, thoughtful and interesting writing, and I realize that responsibility is something I must live up to if I expect the reader to even be remotely interested into the words I type into this blog. After all, no one is going to read through a reviewer’s manifesto of Hyper Space Flight Attack 4 if the writing is boring and bland to begin with.
Why only games on the PS3 and PSP?
While I try not to be a Sony-centric game blog, the fact of the matter is that the only “current-gen” systems I own are the Playstation 3 and the PSP, and thus I’m much more limited to what I can review games for, and as an extension, write impressions of. I may occasionally have the chance to play through a 360 or Wii game once in awhile through the use of friends or family, but for the most part, I’m sticking with what I’ve got.
Update: I have since bought a 360 from its recent price drop, so now no more excuses for the lack of reviews there : D
