Review scores in and of themselves are not bad. They are actually really great. They give you a quick glimpse of whether a game is good or not as viewed by a certain person or site. I like the */5 scores that the Escapist gives their games but sometimes I already know a lot about a game, I've been following it for months, so all I really need to know is whether it was good as everyone thought it was going to be. If I see it gets a really bad score then I'll usually look deeper into it and find out why and see if the problems listed would hinder my experience to the point that I wouldn't want it.
The real problem with review scores is how much emphasis is put into them. People will point to a game and tell you how bad it is with no other explanation then, "It got low scores." Companies focus on trying to get a high Metacritic score and will make stupid decisions because of this. People will Review Bomb a product because of some perceived slight. And quite possibly people will give something a good score just because they are paid to. Scores become this ominous thing that holds such a tight grip over the video game industry, and so many call for its destruction.
In reality the thing that NEEDS to happen is we need to change how we score games. There are many places experimenting with this in various ways. You can separate the game into categories such as Gameplay, Aesthetics, etc. and give separate scores for each of those. You can change the criteria on how a game is judged. You can give pass/fail grades to the games. There are a myriad of different techniques being tried, and I hope we find one that works the best, simply because the "Overall" grade that we tend to give games now a days doesn't really do them justice. But then again that's why you should read the review as well.
The real problem with review scores is how much emphasis is put into them. People will point to a game and tell you how bad it is with no other explanation then, "It got low scores." Companies focus on trying to get a high Metacritic score and will make stupid decisions because of this. People will Review Bomb a product because of some perceived slight. And quite possibly people will give something a good score just because they are paid to. Scores become this ominous thing that holds such a tight grip over the video game industry, and so many call for its destruction.
In reality the thing that NEEDS to happen is we need to change how we score games. There are many places experimenting with this in various ways. You can separate the game into categories such as Gameplay, Aesthetics, etc. and give separate scores for each of those. You can change the criteria on how a game is judged. You can give pass/fail grades to the games. There are a myriad of different techniques being tried, and I hope we find one that works the best, simply because the "Overall" grade that we tend to give games now a days doesn't really do them justice. But then again that's why you should read the review as well.