I love review talk. Let's talk about why this question even gets asked. Foremost, it isn't wildly understood that a review is subjective and is not objective. For those that do understand that reviews are subjective, the question of developing trust in what you are reading, must then be asked. Every reviewer, reader, and person, has their own unique experience when playing a game, reading a book, etc. Once we are able to develop this understanding, we are able to throw out the wild rantings of a "fanboy" and take into account the complaints of a review from someone who disagrees.
One of the most recent OXM related discrepancies I can think of(certainly not the last), is when Megan Whatt reviewed Dead Space. She gave the game a 6.5 which according to metacritic, was the lowest score given by any reviewer. Now as many of us on these forums know, that OXM's review process is somewhat of a collective agreement of what a score should be. I am not certain on how exactly this process works, but in the long term, it has Megan's name on it and "her" score. It is assumed by many that it was her doing. Even though Dan, Mitch, and others came out and said that it is a collaberative score, it is still Megan who will be doing the development of "trust" in this particular review.
I mention the previous review, because the more interesting question to all of this, is "Why did this user have such poor experience with this game compared to others?" After reading her review, I think the problem was that the score was on the bottom extreme is what bothered those that came out in droves to respond specifically to that review. The review was fine and she made her point, it was the numeric value that sent everyone into a tizzy.
Bill wrote:
Pills here!
