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I have a confession to make.
I thought Mario 64 was mediocre.
Ahh that felt good. OK, how bout this: I didn't enjoy Dark Souls and I found Mario Galaxy boring. (Winces, waiting for lighting strike.)
It's not you. It's me.
Nothing? No lifetime ban from the Internet? No video-game police banging down my door to revoke my gamer's license? I should've got that off my chest sooner.
But my dark addiction needs to come to light, and I doubt I'm alone: I am hooked on numbers and reviews, mostly 8.5's 9's and the almighty 10. They may have different street names, like A+, 90 or Excellent, and they may come from different dealers, but the result is the same: an expectation that you should enjoy a game. Mario Galaxy received top marks from Metacritic, a 97/100 and the reviews provides a skin tingling high to a user like me.
But I am sick of this life, waking up in an alley, $60 poorer and not enjoying my big name purchase.
I call it the universal quality=enjoyment disillusionment, the idea that a 9.5 review means you should receive a quantifiable increase of enjoyment over a game reviewed at 7 or 7.5.
This antiquated idea left over from the NES era when excellent titles were few and far between has left us scrambling to keep up and agree with critics. But should a country music fan feel compelled to keep up on the best music coming out of the hip-hop scene or vice versa? Instead we should be enjoying the unique tastes and experiences we can individually appreciate. And now that game titles rival the diversity and richness of mediums like film and music, and it's time to quit cold turkey.
It's time we started living for ourselves again, realizing that we each have unique styles and preferences, those games that we just "get." I may not crawl up the leaderboards in Call of Duty online, but I will play through Gearbox's Borderlands three, or four times. That game was "made for me," and no 8.5 should make me feel I should quit and play a 9.
Four playthroughs means you're enjoying yourself.
The problem is these number pushers won’t let us go willingly, and they know our addiction, (I'm looking at you Metacritic, you Kingpin of critics). I read these reviews and start planning purchases and even play like a reviewer, critiquing level design I read about, comparing graphics like IGN taught me and dismissing anything without a ticket on the hype train or gold star bus.
So review dependency, we're through. I don't need you anymore. I am the only critic that counts, and I am giving all your reviews and elevated opinions a big fat zero. But don't take my word for it.
