10 Gaming Facts Nobody Wants To Admit
6. We Care WAY Too Much About Review Scores
While review scores can of course be a useful barometer to gauge a game's perceived quality and whether it's worth paying top dollar for, the average review discussion thread on social media almost immediately devolves into groan-worthy nitpicking over the aggregated number.
People lost their minds when Starfield got an 83 on Metacritic - a rock solid score albeit one that (quite rightly) indicated the game was very, very far from perfect. And yet, to some who couldn't face the prospect of it scoring less than 90, it indicated the game was a disaster.
Similarly look at a game like Death Stranding, which raised some eyebrows with its 82 Metascore - a much lower figure than most of Hideo Kojima's other games, yet it's a game that's still embedded in the gaming discourse five years later.
Nobody's saying you should buy a game with a 50 Metascore day-one, but there's something to be said for solidly entertaining meat-and-potatoes games that get a 65 or 70 - they're not reinventing the wheel and they might be a bit messy, but they're fun.
Yes, we all have limited time to game, but if you only lock yourself into playing the so-called "best" games according to an aggregator, you're going to miss out on some real gems that might vibe with you way more.