Kotaku helped to broach the subject a little earlier today, and as this is something that I have an opinion on I figured I would throw my hat into the ring also. Although we here at InAnotherCastle are not the largest site, the recent debate on what acceptable reviews are in the gaming world has been odd.

I would first like to point out my opinion; the number given at the end of a review is not nearly as important as the review itself. It is not the reviewer’s fault that gamers seem to be anti-review reading and instead would like to base their hopes, dreams, and opinions on an arbitrary number given to a game that, five years from now, will be viewed as obsolete.

Video games are not necessarily a material item, they are not something like a car or, as GameSetWatch’s analogy goes, a camera. You cannot simply approach a video game from a cold, technical standpoint, but you also can’t write off technical aspects and review it simply as an emotional investment. That is where the medium and its evolution gets confusing and is also where any scoring system lacks. The answer isn’t to find some sort of agreed upon, universal scoring system in order to render sites like metacritic and gamerankings useless, the answer is to better condition readers to actually form their opinions based on the review itself and not the number that brings up the rear.

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Godspeed.

In the ‘I can’t believe we used to think Madden 1995 looked realistic’ category, I figured this needed to be posted. It has been making the rounds on the internet and it is pretty much mind blowing to see.

It is a comparison of allegedly real time in game Crysis screenshots and the reference pictures they are based off of.

And you people wonder why I sink my money into the bottomless pit that is computer gaming.