Numerical scores from one to ten, one to hundred? Meh. Letters? What are we, in grade school? Stars? Forget about it. Should you play this, yes or no? Whatever. NO review metric? What, you mean we have to actually read and understand the words and draw conclusions from them? You're crazy. Stop it.
All of these review metrics are horrible and this is why Games Journalism Is Dying. And I found the man that is saving us all. He has a tiny furry friend. Meet Ceri Bevan and his small black and white kitten. He has a Tumblr called "Is It Better Than Playing With a Kitten?" He describes the purpose of the site well:
A tumblr for looking closely at the work of hundreds of people, over thousands of hours, costing millions of dollars, and asking the question – yeah, but is it better than a kitten?
The fact that a group of people practically obsessed with cats AND games didn't come up with this sooner is frankly baffling. Perhaps the truth of it is that if we actually used this scoring metric, it would reveal that many critical darlings are actually awful titles that don't deserve the acclaim they've garnered. See, for instance:
Halo: Reach (2010)
VS.
Kitten (2012)
WINNER
Playing with a kitten
People fear change, but game journalists out there: do not be afraid. Adopt the superior method of scoring games while you can, and you, too, can moralize to others over how awful journalistic practices that aren't The Kitten Score Metric are.
