Well today "The Darkness" got an 8.5 from the new review system. This marks the first decent game to get the new review treatment. But just how good is this game? Is it "old review system 8.5" good? Or better? Or worse? We will never know. Perhaps it would have scored an 8.3 on the old review system but it got moved up to an 8.5!?! Or was it moved down from an 8.7? 0.o

For now the new review system is annoying as hell, because we don't have enough reference points to base it off of. Only a few games have been rated so far.Eventually we will be able to tell which games are better based on the frequency that Gamespot doles out awards and demoters. If a certain demoter or award becomes a rarity then we will know that the game reviewed either has a fantastic high point, or a terrible mistake contained within. If an award or demoter becomes common place we will learn to ignore it or shrug it off.Eventually we will be able to say, "Game B got X awards/demoters, and game A got Y awards/demoters, so even though both games got a 9.5 we know game B is just a little better than game A.

Then again we might start to argue over which demoters, and awards count more towards the overall quality of the game? "Doesn'tmindshortgames McGee" might think a game is worth picking up based on it's "fantastic multiplayer" award. However Timmy "Playsbyhimself" might argue that the very same game is just too short to be worth his while.

Even though I despise the new 0.5 review increments because they belittle the intellect of the gaming community (as if we can't comprehend 8.7, or 9.1), I have to say that the old review system was a bit flawed. Anybody that has done a game review here on gamespot has probably punched in the individual scores for tilt, value, sound, etc., only to find out that the reviewinator 2000 brings up a number that you personally disagree with. Even though the computer says 8.9 you might feel that the game deserves higher or lower. This is because everybody values different aspects of a game differently. I for one am obsessed with gameplay, and I never count graphics or sound into my review scores. I would rather play Ocarina of Time with out of date graphics than play Forza "OMG!! Teh cars are photorealistic" Motorsport 2.

In a perfect world we wouldn't have lost the 0.1 increments, but gained the new icons. In a perfect world the gamespot team would listen to our complaints. But I think once we have enough reviews we will be able to differentiate between the quality of games despite parallel review scores.