Reviews are just that, reviews...

Metal Gear Solid is a funny old series. Although massively loved and admired by its fans, those skeptical of the series have dismissed it as being overblown, and not seen on par with series such as GTA. There are always many complaints about the cutscenes, the controls and quite a lot of things which have become 'Metal Gear Cliche's', and this makes reviews very difficult to actually judge.

A few years ago, I read a lot of reviews, a lot of previews and generally a lot of game  related texts.I still read reviews nowadays, but find I take them with a pinch of salt, rather than deciding if I buy a game based on review scores. I even don't look at aggregate scores such as those on Metacritic , as these may also be misleading.

It's common that people get really wound up about a good or bad review, depending on how they love the game, or that people single mindedly focus on one review score from one magazine or website. This has become paticulary clear with regards to the review scores of Metal Gear Solid 4. As far as I was concerned, I was going to get it, as I've played all the previous games (minus the 'Acid' PSP games), and enjoyed the majority of all the games, minus the odd bit here and there.

I read the 'Nega review' on Joystiq which takes all the negative points from various reviews and  stiches them into one. Now this highlights all the parts of the game which are fairly criticised, but does not dispute the fact that this game does a incredibly good job of tying up the majority of the loose ends.

However, I did find it odd the way a recent technology blog on the BBC website talked  about the game. The blogger took a look at the Metacritic rating, dismissed it and then focused mainly on two review scores, Eurogamer and Edge, which both gave it 8/10. Now I could be accused here of simply sticking up for MGS4 and that the game is not as good as I think it is and it simply doesn't deserve a 'perfect 10'. But, I believe that without playing any game, a review is simply a wrote up opinion, and using any review, no matter how good the reputation is, without playing the game is not good practice.

Hence, why I always give my opinion about a game on this blog, if I believe it's going to have to do a lot to make it better, I mean it, and vice versa. Anyway, I'm off to psychologically prepare myself for a 24 hour race next week, wish me luck!