The site Metacritic is OK in that whatever number it spits out for a game gives me a really rough idea of what to expect, though not according to anything the site was designed for. If it’s extremely high, like it is for Ocarina of Time, I realize I’ll despise it, because it’s for babies who have way too much of themselves wrapped up in a game. If there is a wide variation in “Critic’s” score versus “User’s” then the game is awful and we’re once again faced with the fact that many reviewers are whores consumed with working, somehow, for a game company. Reviewing is something they do in the meantime till their career really takes off.

I don’t know how else to explain that almost every single person on Caltrops hated Dragon Age 2, for completely different reasons. It wasn’t like it didn’t have support for the Mad Katz Throat Communicator and therefore opinion was split 50/50. Dragon Age 2 was brilliantly designed to offer something abominably unique to every single player, as if it were a fine selection of post-wedding hors d’oeuvre and you didn’t know enough people there to shame you into not stuffing as many of them down your face as possible.

Hating Dragon Age 2 is like trying to pick the best sweet in an European candy store. There’s this bit, where BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler says that what video games really need is a fast-forward button. There’s this bit, where LupoTheeButcher moderates a BioWare forum and can’t wait to give his own game a “10.” An applications engineer for BioWare did the same thing. They’re so proud of what they’ve put together here that they’re willing to throw any sense of etiquette out the door to mung aggregates. This means that absolutely no punches should be pulled on this insipid piece of garbage and it means that professional reviewers had a responsibility to be as strict as possible, if the people who made it are saying how perfect it is. What I’m talking about is, for professional reviewers, the nuclear option: the score 6.9/10.

None of them bothered to do it because they’re all whores. We’ll post reviews of people who played it in its entirety this week. HGLUAHGLUAHGLUA.