There's some crap going down on the internet. Surprise, its bullshit! A game comes out, gets a parade of good scores, and one review comes along and gives it less than the others and that reviewer inevitably gets shit on by raging fanboys of that particular game. But, if you know the reviewer than that review can give you the best possible information.

Let's talk about Jim Sterling. I'm gonna show some love for him. This guy is a great reviewer. Why? You ask?

Not because I agree with him but because you can get to know his likes and dislikes. he puts himself out there. Because of that you can garner more information from each of his reviews. I can learn more about a game reading a badly scored review that I disagreed with from Jim than I can a perfectly scored from a site I don't know. As a perfect example taken to the Nth degree, go to Metacritic and check Battlefield 3's reviews. There's a 100/100 from Eurogamer Spain. The Spain division of Eurogamer gives it a 100/100! Awesome!

Click on the full review. It's in Spanish. SO HELPFUL. LET ME USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE FOR AWESOME BROKEN ENGLISH. THANK YOU, TRUSTED SOURCE.

Jim, on the other hand gives it a 7.5/100. Oh noes! I can't possibly read that review because its different than the others, can I? I, and you, in fact, can. Because Jim is out there giving his opinion everywhere and I can garner some good stuff from it. He typically doesn't like X and Y, Battlefield probably has some of that. But, he loves Z, and oh, yup, definitely there. It doesn't fucking matter if I agree with him, it's more important that I know the person or outlet giving the opinion.

Giantbomb.com is another great example of a website you can trust the information from. Again, not because I agree with everything, but because you meet and get to know each guy on the site from the videos and podcast. So when Dragon Age II gets a decent score and you see its Dave doing the review, you instantly get different information from his pros and cons than you would from say, Jeff. Not more information, not better information, just different and perhaps more useful if you come at games like Dave does or more like Jeff does. And, when Jeff reviews the next NFL Blitz game, you know he is knowledgeable and will be critical, based on the last episode of the Bombcast. He was talking about himself owning an NFL Blitz arcade machine at some point and loves the game. When Kane and Lynch 2 got a score from Jeff Gerstmann who from what we know, got canned from a previous job for giving the first one a review they didn't like, I think we can be pretty sure we can know that he isn't going be fluffy with the sequel if he doesn't think so.

In that respect, knowing your reviewer is more important than the score they give. It helps weed out the, I don't want to say, unhelpful reviews from the helpful ones. When POKEnerds.com gives Pokemon Battle Force for the 3DS a A+ editors choice award, it's not exactly helpful for you, right? But, if one of these reviewers that you know and read regularly gives it a recommendation for Game of the Year, might you look at it, at least? Perhaps a young family member likes Pokemon, you can recommend it, unless you constantly disagree with that reviewer, in which case you might safely not.

Twitter is great for this. A lot of guys/gals are on there and you can see what their personality is like. They often talk amongst each other about new games, a lot of times before the game is even launched. They group up and have multiplayer nights. You can see what movies they enjoy sometimes. Couple this with the podcasts that they do and you easily get a sense of the games they will like and dislike or be completely indifferent to all the while getting the input you probably crave: VIDEO GAMES.

So, the next time you read a review and you think how could they possibly give this game that score? Take note of who wrote it. Look up their twitter or website profile and see what other games they scored. You might feel justified in knowing that this person who gave an gave an awful score to Battlefield gave an awesome score to Deadly Premonition and you can safely believe every single word they say. Ever.

Or more seriously, remember that one friend who told you to go to the theaters to see Ghosts of Mars because it kicked so much ass...? You never believe that guy again, right? When he tells you Green Lantern was awesome, you're like, "Pssh! Sure it was awesome.... =/"

It's like that. Think of how helpful that guy is.

There is only one Master Chief. He is the lone figure who can save the galaxy now! Of course, unless you count the mute guy that's also in Spartan Armor who is basically a pair of eyes and a gun. He is your co-op partner. And you don't need to explain why he isn't in the cut scenes. He's there for one reason, because it makes your game more fun. And, I want to know what games you guys think would be more fun if they added co-op.

I always say this, "Add co-op to your game, I don't care if it breaks something" The response I get from friends "It doesn't need it." Well yeah, I know it doesn't NEED it, but I want it. I like playing games with friends, whether it be online or side by side. It makes it more fun! I'll give you an example of a game that "didn't need it" and it may have even broke the game a little: Dead Rising 2. Online co-op could break that game and if you ask some one who loved the first one they'd probably say that adding co-op wasn't a necessity. But Capcom did and it was broken.

But, that's because they restricted it. You couldn't leave an area without your partner and Dead Rising is a time sensitive title so if you had a jack ass of a partner, you basically had no chance of completing your run through. But, they didn't have to do that. They could have let the person trying to complete his missions go on his merry way while the jack ass tried on dresses and hats. There's two consoles, we have loading screens, you could have done it so it wasn't a mess.

But, it did let you chop zombies together so satisfyingly that co-op was still a blast despite that mess of a system it had.

So I want to give my answer and then hand it over to you guys. This was inspired by some twitter messages between listeners (Tony and Steve) and myself. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Add co-op to that shit. Yeah, yeah, it'd break something, but with a little awareness of how it might and you could fix it or at least make it workable. Let the players roam as far away from each other as they wanted. Let the players share quests, so if Tony picks up the quest Steve gets it too, even if he's across the map. If there is an important quest item have it drop into the pocket of the host (or make two copies, who cares just let us leap across the countryside improving our Acrobatics skill together) You must allow both players to level up and keep that progress on that character if they go back to their single player quest. None of this Fable II mercenary shit. Fuck that. I want MY GUY to be there. One guy wants to stop and take a rest even though the other guy is in a fight, too bad, gotta wait. One guy died in a dungeon and wants to reload, just let him do it. Loading screen. Done. Tony is back, loaded into the current time. It doesn't have to make sense because it's just fun! I don't even think it would add a bunch of development time. You make the game, write some netcode, let another player drop in, and done.

So what game would you add co-op to? How would it work? Would it break something and how could you fix it?

Today, I'm going to introduce a new concept tentatively called the Riot Response. We've got one goal in mind for this, we want to hear something out of your mouths. If we manage to do that, I'm going to make it a weekly part of the site. 

Lately, there been a lull of newly released games and it is around now where we start digging into the well, so to speak, for stuff to bide our time with until the fall when releases start happening at a machine gun firing pace. So my question is simple this week: Whatcha been playing?

Me, I've been really cracking down on competitive Starcraft. The entire exploits, I'll leave for another post but I'm doing awesomely, though I am still making my way through Bronze League (the lowest one). The Amnesia the Dark Descent Let's Play is going on hiatus for an unknown amount of time. About that, I can tell you that it is an amazing game, but just the way that my 24 hour cycle works it's tough to fit in night by night. Don't count on it being out of the picture forever, though. And, it will free up time for me to do other games in that format. I am working on Bastion, which is a pleasure. It's possibly going down as one XBLA's best titles right next to stuff like Braid, Limbo, Monday Night Combat, and Shadow Complex.

While you're here hit up the home page and check out the new articles from our community.

Oh and look at this sequence from Saints Row the Third. So smart.

Anyways, how about you? Whatcha been playin' dawg?