These are really quite something.
Posted mainly as an excuse to link to Newsnet Scotland, which is vital ongoing reading for anyone with any interest in events in North Britain generally, in the case of the "Lockerbie bomber", or simply in the BBC's increasingly open disregard of the impartiality laws which are supposed to govern its conduct.
It's one of the most-observed truths of videogame reviewing that the entire concept of scoring is, as practised almost universally in all forms of current print, broadcast and online media, fundamentally broken.
Everyone knows that the marks awarded in game reviews – whether out of five stars, ten points or 100% – are not in fact sequential numbers as we were taught them in arithmetic lessons, but abstract ciphers whose true value is heavily encoded. In videogame reviewing, 4 isn't any bigger than 2, 6=7, and 10 is more than twice as many as 9.
And therefore – since the sole and entire point of scoring is to attach an instantly comprehensible numerical summary of the reviewer's opinion to the text – videogame review scores are functionally almost meaningless.
Wings Over Scotland is a (mainly) Scottish political media digest and monitor, which also offers its own commentary. (More)
