BitMob put up an interesting article by Suriel Vazquez yesterday entitled, "Avoiding the 7-9 Scale: An Exercise in Different Review Scales." It discusses a variety of scoring systems professional game reviewers use to rate games, and some of the strengths and weaknesses of each. Given the ridiculous (and mostly arbitrary, and totally overblown) power of the Metacritic score, it's a worthwhile discussion.
The author has concluded that, to better serve his readers, he needs to use some kind of scoring system himself:
I'm not exactly in the position to demand that sort of attention from my readers, either. I'm a relative amateur in the field of video game writing, so I must make concessions to the reader before I can expect them to trust or relate to my point of view. Rather than being a crutch, review scores are a way to hold myself accountable. My text and score should more or less match -- with a certain amount of wiggle room for interpretation -- and if they don't, then it's because of my failure to properly articulate my thoughts. I need something to keep my writing in check; otherwise, I focus on nitpicks and make a review take on a different tone than I intended it to.
