Can complex opinions really be expressed numerically?

[Not G. Ivingname]

Can one really compare Up and Inception? On the one hand you have an emotioned based epic designed for all ages about the adventures of an old man, a boyscott, a talking dog, a giant bird, and a flying house, on the other you have a thinking man's science fiction about letting go of emotion and what is real. Can you really compare what is designed to provoke thought and what is meant to provoke tears? Well, according to Metacritic, you can and Up is better (96% vs. 87%). Is that all their is to opinions, numbers? Can you really quantify the feels you got after that first 10 minutes of Up? Is their anything really logical or mathmatical about feeling sad about an animated person we barely heard speak?

Can we really compare Flower to GTA or Hitchhicker's guide to the Galaxy against Alice in Wonderland? All these examples are in the same medias, but are really worlds apart. Yet the same rating system that governs Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: the game applies to CoD 4. Direct comparisons between things of the same genre are quite easy (Incredables vs. Fantastic Four) but for completely different genres made for different audiances and with different directions?

Should we really make everything into a number?

 

[Synonymous]

He's perhaps not the best first name to bring up in a videogame debate, but Roger Ebert hates the star system [http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/09/you_give_out_too_many_stars.html] for many of the reasons you list. I don't think he touches on this in the article I linked (though he kinda does here [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20001203/ANSWERMAN/12030304]), but he in general uses the stars to gauge how successful a movie is at what it's trying to do and not in an absolute this-movie-against-all-others sense.

I have to agree there. Numbers are a useful general guide, but you have to rely more on the review itself to gauge where and how the author thinks it succeeded and failed. A title in the 7 range might be just unremarkably competent all the way through, or it may fall down severely in a couple areas yet contain some great mechanics and moments you won't want to miss. Of course, brains are lazy and attracted to facile quantifications of a game's quality, but a reader has to resist distraction and take some responsibility for his or her own edification at some point.

Of course, Metacritic's methods of converting reviews into numerical values have spawned debates all their own.