Posted By: herooftimegafcomments about how the Podcast Crew's parents are in bed

Dear God, man, where do you get these crazy ideas of yours?

But please, send mail. If we get a good question (i.e., one that's genuinely interesting) we'll spend some of our time in the podcast answering it.

My question: How come you haven't had cool people like the head of GAF on the show? ;)

We're working on getting everybody in as a regular! Chris and Steven are our first two regulars, I'm sure Rich and tonight's "guest", Andy Thornton, will also become regulars.

Larry and I try and rotate the 3rd spot each week, the 4th spot is for the guest. For example, this week we're probably going to have Steven as our third, unless Rich wants to jump on and be our 3rd tonight!

I could be a guest too since I have my internet radio show, I've had 3 years experience on internet radio!

I have a question, since I'm too lazy to send it in:

What's your opinion on girl gamers?

Posted By: i_like_pizzaPersonally, I think the current review system is a joke, and needs a serious overhaul.

There is no one review system.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaI definitely don't think that simple evolutions of previous games like SMB and GTAIV deserve to be considered nearly "perfect."

You put it in quotes so whom are you quoting? Most reviewers would tell you that their top score does not equal "perfect." Typically it means something closer to "among the best." If a reviewer or outlet chooses to make their top score mean perfect, that's their problem and not the industry's.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaI think it's stunting the growth of the industry.

The industry continues to have record growth despite a weak economy particularly for the middle class that makes up most video game purchasers.

There is no one set reviewing system for the movie industry either, but quite often you see movies getting universal praise or universal criticism. It is the same in the game industry. The same thing that pleases one reviewer greatly is likely to please one reviewer greatly as well.

I know that most people wouldn't regard a perfect score as a perfect game. But the fact is that if a game isn't perfect, it doesn't deserve the highest score possible. Then it becomes impossible to distinguish between games which have supposedly reached the upper echelon.

But I don't even really want to get into that.

My gripe against the system (even though there is no "unified system" there really is) is that games are receiving too high of scores, suggesting that they are better than they really are. If a game gets 98%, I better not have any complaints about that game or even hear of any complaints about that game. Without a doubt, I believe that SMG was the best game of last year, but I wouldn't have given it more than a 9/10. There were a lot of people who had legitimate gripes against that game, and it was just a simple evolution of what had already been put forth in SM64 and SMS. These games that we're playing and accepting as great games are not really that great. There is so much more that could be done with them.

I gave you a legitimate question for the mailbag, and I got two responses that weren't really even in response to what I was talking about. So, unless you get it now, don't bother responding in the mailbag. Oh, and for another view on this similar to mine, I believe vgchartz.com has an article about this call "this one goes to 11" or something like that. It talks about some of the things that I have said, that with so many "perfect" scores, we're just prolonging the current state of mediocrity in the gaming industry. We have announced what we expect our games to be, and it's not really all that great.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaI gave you a legitimate question for the mailbag, and I got two responses that weren't really even in response to what I was talking about.

The responses were pertaining to the statement you started your question with.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaWhat's your take on the current trend of games getting massively huge scores from reviewers

You're starting your question with an assumption, one that many would not agree with. There's two parts to your assumption. One is that games are being scored too high. All outlets are different and score on different scales and those scales change over time (1up most prominently changed how they score in the past year), so it's hard to judge how high a game is being scored in an accurate way vs. say how games were scored five years ago. And some outlets choose to score games based on the current market, so if nothing noteworthy is coming out in February, the game might get a higher score. The other part of your assumption is that games getting high scores is a trend, which I would argue that it is not. Over the past 25ish years of gaming coverage, there have always been games getting scores higher than they deserve. Also, typically games will skew higher on the review scale in the first year or so of a console's life because of the flashy new graphics in the games.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaI wasn't talking about fiscal growth. I was talking about the evolution of games.

Even then it makes no sense. The correlation you are making between high review scores and the quality of games doesn't make sense. If you ignore everything I just said and assume that there really is a high review score trend going on right now, I'd say it's still not a problem. Not in my entire life of gaming has there been as much innovation and creativity in video games as there is right now. You are paying too much attention to GTA IV and Mario I'd say. If you look at everything from indie PC devs to flash games to downloadable games to retail, you'll see there is a ton of "growth" going on.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaThere's certainly no need to be so condescending as you seem.

Sorry, that's not meant to be condescending, just me vehemently disagreeing

Posted By: i_like_pizzaGet over yourself.

I've stated my reasons, and whether or not you agree, I think it would be a good topic for the mailbag. I find it extremely hard to believe that everyone thinks the current review system (declared unified or not, you know it is, because pretty much everyone gives the same games the same scores) is fair and right.

I think it's a good topic, and I would hope not EVERYONE on this site would disagree with me, because I know that almost every person I have ever talked to happens to agree.

Posted By: herooftimegafRemember that if you have a question NOT to post it here, but to SEND IT to the mailbag: GAFPodcast@gmail.com.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Sorry, i_like_pizza, but I hereby dock you -1 points for failing to follow directions.

Posted By: i_like_pizzaHaha, I didn't read the manual. I'm a guy.

Is that why your table has 8 legs and you have a couple of 1 legged chairs?

Posted By: PolsterI read the manual and I'm a guy. Point?

Yes, what is your point? ;op

Stereotypes, bro... stereotypes. Pizza's just making a joke because a common criticism leveled at men is that they don't read manuals, diagrams, or maps. It doesn't apply to all males, naturally. You read the manual, I read the manual, Pizza didn't read the manual. It's all kosher. :o)

No I made the manual. I added some nice scents to it and it's in pink paper. =P