Why review scores are pointless. Or are they?

As far as I can remember every time I read a review in a gaming mag (which I continue to spend money on, by the way) or on a website it’s always been adorned by a number, a few stars, a letter etc. I’ve always refrained from looking at any of the aforementioned symbols before I got through the body of the review. Sometimes I would just ignore them completely, which, admittedly is kinda hard since they almost always are very prominent on the page. I guess, what I want to discuss here, is why the scores are such a prominent part of the game review (or the review of a movie or a CD for that matter), and why I think they shouldn’t be.

Mirror’s Edge Review

Before I start, I’d like to point out that I played the game on PC

Run, vault over a fence, run onto a solar panel, jump from it on to a small building, slide down a tightrope, run, wallrun, turn and jump on to the rail to your left, run over a pipe hanging at 10th floor level between two buildings, jump down, roll, wallrun again and take a leap of faith from a piece plywood on to a pipe on the other side of the road,climb up….. What I just described was the first 30 seconds of the first chapter in Mirror’s Edge. And trust me, it doesn’t slow down. In fact, quite the opposite