I don’t think I have ever scrolled down to the bottom of a videogame review to see how many out of ten it was awarded and based my decision on what game to by on that number. In fact, I think the only reason numbers are present in reviews these days is so fanboys can know which comment boards to flame.

Back in the day, I used to use scores as a basis for comparison–How good is the new Zelda in comparison to last gen’s version? How good is GoldenEye in comparison to Perfect Dark? How good is Halo 3 in comparison to Solitaire? You know, that sort of stuff.

The HDR Knowledge column on GameSetWatch about game ratings and reviews. The column tries to find the meaning behind review numbers in the world today.

While that may be nothing more than conspiracy, there is incongruency in the text of the review itself. Is a game that is not for everyone a bad game? Not every person enjoys action games like Halo, yet the series (deservedly in some regards) receives superb reviews. Why then does a game like Dodonpachi or Ibara receive disappointing reviews for the same reason? Does a small audience for a game mean the game itself is bad? This cannot be the case, as some “diamonds in the rough” such as Treasure’s Sin and Punishment, and Sega’s Panzer Dragoon Saga received fantastic reviews in their time, largely attributing their lack of success to either lack of exposure, or poor marketing.

Some good games do still go under the radar even after receiving very high reviews of scoring. Psychonauts comes to mind.

Scores are not terrible, but they are inherently flawed. Something is seriously wrong with attributing a numerical score to a subjective activity as reviewing, especially when, past graphical and aural prowess, the gaming rating criteria are in many ways, unexplainable. Not many can explain why Halo, a game series with uninteresting and often terrible single player level design is still so incredibly fun, nor can anyone explain why Super Robot Wars, a series that has largely remained unchanged for 15 years, is still so addicting in each installment.

I am a supporter of a world without numbers on reviews. Many top gaming outlets have tried at one time to do away with them, and I applaud the ones that have succeeded. Even if one reviewer absolutely hates a game, their comments and description may sound appealing to a reader who is a fan of the genre. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

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EA wants a single platform. Like several other outlets, I wouldn’t have seen the comments coming to the BBC.

Gerhard Florin, Executive Vice President and General Manager International Publishing for Electronic Arts, recently told the BBC that incompatible consoles make life harder for developers and consumers and that he can see a day when set-top boxes replace the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360.

His argument that individual consoles will eventually be replaced is based upon online gaming’s take off recently. Florin thinks that we will one day be able to boot up a single unit and stream games to our console. I doubt the success of a completely streaming game delivery system for all gaming. Just look at the Apple iPhone community that tried to get everyone to work with online widgets. Users are crying out and hacking their individual iPhones just to be able to take advantage of actual third-party software.

I like the fact that there are multiple hardware companies simply because it drives innovation and competition for that killer app game. I think having all games streaming online would make the industry stagnate–worthless.

Besides, console-makers and techies in the gaming industry are always looking to make things bigger and better. Right now, we have developers and media outlets debating whether Xbox 360 can continue to dominate the hardcore market with PS3’s having the ability of BlueRay storage. There are rumors now of an HD-DVD 360 hitting the market in the future. Streaming games would take some time to become the preferred delivery method. While they compliment the catalogs of current gaming stations, there is no way they could take over without significant improvements on Internet speeds and hardware.

The topic might be worth revisiting years from now, but maybe EA is just looking far beyond their 10 year plan.

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Vista has been driving me nuts lately…

My Bluetooth hub, coming through my USB hub for my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse from Logitech, has completely stopped being recognized by the hardware, and I have had to turn off Aero and all the graphical animations of Vista to keep it running smoothly since in the process of installing Vista, half my RAM was burned up. Now, I can replace the RAM, but I seriously have considered whether I should make a move back to XP. My system ran fine then.

The only problem with that scenario is that I will probably want to cut back to Vista when SP1 comes out in Q1 2008. I guess I will just tough it out. I can pick up another 1 GB stick of RAM and maybe the graphical enhancements will come back online. Then, my only problem will be my absence of a Bluetooth hub and lack of several other custom drivers for my computer system.

To top things off, my MDA touch screen is starting to become unresponsive. My tech is not being good this month. No twinkie.

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