In this part of the year when the biggest launches of games happen review scores start to come out. Some people have expectations about some games because are followers of the franchise, the company who made it or may be just hating, but for good or bad some scores are different that you expected for the game. May be the score is too high or too low, the fact is that everybody start to comment about reviews. More often the peple complain or praise the review, do it with out actually playing the game.

I was one of those people until i realise that is not worth it and some times the reviewer is right (of course some times is not). Review score are for people who doesn't know the game, or the franchise and want to have an objective critic about the game before spend their precious money on it, and that is the problem i have with reviews objectivity.

When people start to complain about a review, the defenders of the reviewer, that appear as fast as the critics start to comment, and the reviewers themselves often take out the excuse that is "just an opinion". When somebody says that one game has a score and the other game have another score having the same problems, the other excuse is "diferent reviewers".

I have a problem with those excuses. REVIEWS ARE NOT "JUST OPINIONS", they most have some kind of objectivity, if not why is the value of it? what is the difference between a neighbor or a friend and a professional reviewer who is paid for doing that??. No people, reviews are not "just opinions" they must be objectives critics of a medium of entertaining, and of course have some kind of consistency between reviews and reviewers. When Tom Mc Shea gives a score is not Tom's review it's Game Spot review, when Richard George gives a score is not Richard's score it's IGN score.Review staff must have some kind of consistencies between each other in order to be more accurate and more objective.

I don't know what would be the solution: more than one reviewer per game?, editorial meeting? But in the end something must be done to reduce discrepancies in criteria so that the review score can bee most useful to the people who want to buy a game and is indecisive between two or more diferent games but only have money for one.

In Venezuela, where i live, is passing trough a "revolution" leaded by Chavez. This autocratic regime wants to get in side the lives of the people by making laws completely absurd. Chavez has one problem (actually a he has a lot of them) but in the problem i am going to discus here, is the only problem that is lowering his popularity in the 12 years he has been in charge of the country. That problem is personal insecurity, gangs robing and killing our society, a problem cause by lack of policy social decomposition and poverty. The congress (Asamblea Nacional) in order to fight against the insecurity, in their very lack of vision and intelligence, they made a law against video games! yes you read right, video games!...

They promulgated the law and make it official in March 3 2010 and states that "quienes por cualquier medio promuevan la compra o uso de dichos juegos serán sancionados con multas que van de 2 mil a 4 mil unidades tributarias" (who by any means promote the purchase or use of such games will be sanctioned with a fines ranging from 2 thousand to 4 thousand tax units". (the tax unit in Venezuela is about 65 BsF or 15,11 US$, so the penalty is about 30.000 to 60.000 US$, the minimal salary in Venezuela is 284 US$ per month). And also say "quienes los importen, fabriquen, vendan, alquilen o distribuyan serán sancionados con prisión de tres a cinco años." (who import, manufacture, sell, rent or distribute shall be punished with imprisonment from 3 to 5 years). If i sell, manufacture or rent a copy of call of duty, counter strike, halo, medal of honor, grad thief auto, mortal kombat, street fighter, resident evil, etc. i can be put in jail or if i review and recommend Halo reach or the next CoD i have to pay 30.000 to 60.000 $ in penalty.

This is just ridiculous they are taking my liberty away, any parent who want to protect their children form a violent video game should just read the label we don't need the government tell us what to do, besides they do not consider adult gamers they just think that only children play video games.

To put in perspective here are some punishments for some crimes in the "Codigo Penal" approved in 2000 by Chavez

- Burn a building with out victims 3 to 5 years of prison

- Poison public water supplies 3 to 5 years

- Having sex with a teenager from 12 to 16 years old, 16 month to 18 month.

- Induce an under-age to prostitution 1 to 4 years

- Beat up a pregnant woman and produce the abortion of the baby 4 to 6 years

- If for negligence a child die 3 to 5 years

- Rob with out arms 2 to 6 years

- Kidnapping 4 to 8 years

- Fraud 2 to 6 years.

So i can be put in jail the same amount of time that a kidnapper or an underage pimp if i import, sell, etc. Halo or other violent video game. And not only video games, also is punished violent toys like nerv or water guns, for example, and that is BS because they are penalizing something that is completely legal in any country and the violence on the streets is not going to drop because of this stupid law. I only hope that the congress change this law sometime but it seems impossible because there are many laws that are more important in the political agenda so it seem that the owners of video game consoles have to be conformed with only Mario Games, Sports Games and Music Games for a while.