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Many people read a lot of the gaming journalism that is out there on the Internet. These types of people always freak out every time a game receives a lower score than they hoped for in a review. Why do some Baltimore gamers care so much what other people think of a particular video game?
Different people like different things. Almost no one freaks out about why certain people like or dislike certain foods or artwork, so why should games be any different? People can buy any game they want to regardless of what reviewers say about a certain title. Most of the reviews come out before the games hit store shelves, so how can a person say that a game deserves a higher score when he or she has not played the game? The perception of what constitutes as a low score can also be taken to extreme. If a particular game scores a nine out of ten, there are always people complaining that the game should have gotten a perfect score. People should be happy if a game scores a seven out of ten or above. The reason people want a game to have great scores is because everybody wants to know whether he or she will like a game before a purchase is made. Reviews are not going to guarantee anyone a good time. Only the person playing the game can decide whether he or she is having fun or not.
Another problem readers of game journalism have is that they always take one reviewers person opinion as the whole company's view on a game. Just because someone from IGN gives Kirby's Return to Dreamland a 7.5 does not mean that other reviewers at IGN feel the same way. Some might have scored the game higher while others might have scored it lower. One person's opinion on a title is not the final verdict for the whole company. This problem readers have also leads them to believe that just because one reviewer gave game X a "bad" score means that game Y will also receive a negative score as well. When Kirby's Return to Dreamland got a 7.5, the comments went on fire and everyone was wondering what score the new Zelda game would receive based on the Kirby review. The score of one game has no relation to another. Just because a reviewer scores a game not to the public's liking does not mean they hate all of the games a particular company releases.
The Kirby Return to Dreamland review did not say anything different than what most other reviewers from other sites said. Everybody agreed that the game was a very traditional Kirby game with the only standout feature being the four player cooperative mode. Each score might have been different than one another, but they all said the same thing. In the end, scores of games do not really matter.
People should not care about the score so much and start reading why a reviewer liked or disliked a certain game before running off at the mouth about how much he or she is wrong. Another thing people would be better off doing is actually playing a game to its completion before commenting on another person's opinion about a game. In short, if one has not played a game, then one cannot have an opinion of any kind.
