Should reviews include a score?

What you guys/gals think?

Of course. As arbitrary as it may seem, a numerical score is the best way to summarize a reviewer's opinion on a game. It's just like how a doctor will ask you "on a scale of 1 to 10 how much does it hurt?", well a reviewer must ask himself "on a scale of 1 to 10 how much did I enjoy playing this game?"

Thats a good point

Now that you mention it, they shouldn't. People say that reviews are good for describing the game, but scores just put a false value based on bias from the reviewer.

Without an opinionated score we could just read the descriptions without the reviewers personal opinion thrown on top via a worthless number.

An opinion, no matter how simple or complex, can't be represented numerically, if you ask me.

I see scores as nothing more than a tool used to appeal to the impatient ones who merely want to see which games numbers closer to 10/100/5 stars, or whatever it may be.

Yes. Sometime all you need is an overall score, rather than an indepth review of the game.

Often, I'd rather just look at the score to see if it's a quality game, and then find out about the story and gameplay through playing the game its self.

I like scores for reviews. If I'm not in the mood to read an entire review, then, if I'm on GameSpot, I look at the score, emblems (if any), and then The Good and Bad.

Absolutely. Scores and the written review go hand-in-hand. I want to know exactly how good or bad a game is and the scores help clarify the write-up for me.

As it stands, the "score" given in a review represents nothing more than that particular reviewer's enjoyment of said game. It does not in any way represent the quality of the game in respect to others in its genre or on its platform, nor does it tell us anything about what is in the game and how it may or may not appeal to our personal tastes.

I'm against scores altogether. They just end up misdirecting the point of a review: telling us about the game itself.

I use the scores a lot. Here is how:

I figure the best way to evaluate a game before I buy it is to play it. So my first stop would be the local video store to rent it. But they have hundreds of games there. So I need a good way to narrow it down to pick a few to try. Usually that is by the metacritic score. If a game gets at least a 75 metacritic score or better than I give it a chance by renting it even if I don't think it looks that great. I'm surprised often by how much I end up liking a game that got a good score that I didn't think I would like.

This wouldn't work with just reviews since I would need to read 100's of reviews and think it over, which would be a lot of work. And since I do this for enjoyment and not for a 2nd job, the score is a good approximation for me.

Yes scores are useful. If I am looking forward to a new release and it gets good scores, I feel safe in buying it without needing to read the reviews in great detail (I really hate spoilers, especially ones in reviews).

On the other hand, if a new release I'm looking forward to gets bad scores, it sends up a red flag for me, meaning that I have to do more research and read the reviews in detail and seek out other sources of info to see if what the reviewers are complaining about is something that will bother me.

Also, I think it is interesting reading reviews that have a very different viewpoint than my own. Low review scores attached to games that I like help me find those reviews when I'm in the mood to read them. Scores are a very convient way of helping me decide which reviews I want to read. I can't really think of any other fast and easy way to classify reviews.