Welcome to the reintegration of an arguably ancient SG feature, Review of the Reviews. In this feature, we essentially take on Metacritic at their own game, but rather than summarizing every review into a score, we use words. Words are better, right? Better than numbers? I mean, what was the last binary play you went to see versus the last literary one?

Words > Numbers. Come, read some words with me.

As you’ve no doubt noticed, Dragon Age is scoring pretty well in reviews. Even when you cast aside the entirely broken Metacritic aggregate system, the individual scores – be they out of ten, out of a hundred, out of five, letter-graded or starred – are trending very well.

I haven’t played the game beyond what I saw at Eurogamer Expo this past weekend, but based on the console SKUs alone, I’d have to question any review that heads up that high. Don’t get me wrong, I respect the talents of the reviewers in question, but I do find myself questioning, “Is it fair to judge a multi-platform title based on your time with its primary platform?”

I’m sorry, but after playing the PS3 version first hand, that game – no matter how deep and involving the world may be – was a reiteration of a stereotypical fantasy setting running on a platform that simply couldn’t render it effectively. As I understand it, the Xbox 360 version suffers from similar technical difficulties as well. The PC however – by all accounts – runs flawlessly.

Can anyone understand where I’m coming from? A game review should represent all platforms, or specifically represent one. When a PC-centric website gave it a 94, I had no problem with that. They exclusively reviewed the PC version, stated as much, and judged it accordingly. But when reviewers form one score to summarize all the platforms – especially in this case – I feel it’s unfair to the reader.

One website I frequent scored Dragon Age: Origins at 75. This is the lowest score I’ve seen thus far. Why don’t I have an issue with this? Simple. The reviewer in question explicitly stated that the platform being reviewed was the Xbox 360. Secondly, he went on to point out every issue with that SKU, from frame rate, to poorly rendered textures, to PC-centric gameplay minutia being poorly integrated into a console control scheme. This, for me, warranted a lower score. A 75 doesn’t necessarily mean the game was bad, just that it has some undeniable faults that a player cannot ignore.  I’ve played one of the two console versions, trust me, this is a fair criticism.

The game is currently rocking a 91 on Metacritic. I don’t want to get into the whole, “Metacritic’s faults” debate, but I do feel it’s necessary to point out the obvious here. 90% of these reviews were based on the PC. If you read a review that only points out one or two faults with the game, it’s undoubtedly a PC review. Same goes for any score above 90/9/4.5/****/whatever.

Here’s the bottom line people, this is a game that was built for PC, and the console versions were an afterthought. BioWare are entirely within their right to do it this way as well, because let’s be real here; anyone who hasn’t read this thought-provoking article, what I just wrote up is going to see a review score of 90+, think “Wow, that game must be good!” Buy the game on 360/PS3, and then instantly regret that decision.

After all, it’s not BioWare’s fault you were mislead. You can blame the more moronic shameless reviewers for that. Or at least blame yourself for not paying enough attention to the review.