Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I have Torchlight on the brain because I plan to release a review Monday. However, Runic’s little roguelike seems to be the flavor of the month, it seems newsworthy to note that the developer has posted an early version of the mod tools. So, I know it’s [...]

Blizzard is apparently trying to change the acronym MMORPG to mean Massively Monetized Online Role Playing Game. Gamasutra reports that the developer has opened a new pet store as a branch of the greater Blizzard store. The first virtual offerings available will be a Pandaren Monk and an impossibly cute miniature Kel’Thuzad. The pets are [...]

It’s easy to pick on numerical review scores. In fact, the internet is positively stuffed with examples. Reviewers call them irrelevant, and developers call them arbitrary and meaningless. Both scoff at Metacritic, and developers in particular have damn good reasons to undermine numerical scoring. Even I take the odd potshot and insist on using my own scoring system.

You’ve probably already spotted the disconnect. Everyone seems to hate numerical scores, but nobody stops using them (well, I did, but you can bet that my principles end where a publisher’s paycheck begins). So one of two things must be true: either everyone in the world is now and always has been stupid, or there is some legitimate merit to numerical review scores that nobody bothers to talk about. This looks like a job for sophistry.