No, it wouldn't standardize experiences; no idea where you got that idea from. I'd suggest watching some figure skating performances and let me know if they're all the same. They have different music in them and the movements have to be done in sync with the composition of the music. If it did, we'd be seeing triple axels for 4 minutes straight.

Criteria can always be updated to reward certain elements that are more interesting. The benefits is that the scoring elements are transparent - available for everyone to see. This wouldn't entirely stop gamedevs from making whatever games they want because profits will still the #1 priority scoring system businesses operate by. Case in point: any video game sequels that sold poorly, but had better sequels came out of it like Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link, Devil May Cry 2, Final Fantasy 2, etc.

And yet 9 judges get to do it every 4 years in front of millions of people without much resistance at all. If my claim is totally ridiculous, how on earth is this scoring system still acceptable? That's because judges still have to judge figure skaters by their presentation and musical interpretation in addition to technical feats. You still have your emotional 'subjectivity' still in there, but there's a hard constraint to how much it plays in scoring. That's really all I'm asking for. Yes, it's totally fine if you like a game that wouldn't score high on a standardized scale. And that's why I suggested a peer-reviewed criteria to determine that, which can incorporate your suggestions of how games can be judged. No, a standardized review wouldn't remove human experience because humans are still part of the equation - there's just less emotion. How am I able to compare reviews between critic A and B if A places more emphasis on story when B places more emphasis on gameplay?

In a way, reviews already are standardized by your favourite critics. My personal issue issue with this is that some of them aren't being transparent with the way they review items. It's relevant here because as the OP suggests, nostalgia and emotional-driven reviews are inaccurate in scoring a game, especially by users. We've seen this time and time again with joke games, politicized games, and polarizing sequels (most helpful review is 5 stars, but overall rating is 3.4 and 2.4 for verified owners?). Again, limit the emotions from reviews and you get less extreme variabilities.

I give up. It's like teaching Urdu to a badger.

Well, I welcome any more criticisms you come up with. If my hypotheses can withstand scrutiny, it furthers its validity.

Reviews are open and free for people to say what they like. Are you going to write the list of commandments on what can and can’t be written? What about brought reviews, you going to track them down? What about 10/10 or 0/10 reviews. Reviews are just personal opinions, read them, ignore them, it makes no difference. The problem is you seem to put stock in them.

Was this for me?

In my vision, people can add whatever comment they want so long as the game is rated fairly based on the set criteria established by a panel of experts with peer review. It's not dissimilar to job interviews in weeding out outliers.

Reviews fueled entirely by opinions aren't reliable and that's exactly why I don't trust them. See my examples above. Most people know those ratings for Arabian Nights are a joke, politically-motivated actors were review bombing Tonight We Riot, and some people can't be objective with separating franchise bias on games like Desparados 2. My suggested solution would remove those variances and make ratings more reliable and transparent.

If the majority of a large sample size of ratings set by the criteria give it a 10/10, then it's a 10. The same goes for a 0/10. But if a game is rated at 8.7/10 and someone gave it a 2/10, then you can easily remove that outlier. The criteria solution would seek to tighten those variances so that 2 would've came out closer to a 7/10. Simply put, it removes bias of vocal minorities.

There is an important duty of a reviewer to link a game to others in its series if they can, since people are often going to want to compare them that way. (Especially "going back" if they play a new one, are the older ones worth it?

But it's also important to try to make sure the individual review stands on its own, too.

If you omit either of these, you're likely not going to be very helpful. (Outside of review that highlight critical issues, like DRM-presence, or epilepsy issues, etc.)

For instance, my review on Simulacra 2 is mostly taking the game on its own, but I absolutely compare it to the previous entry.

AOW3, Planetfall, Evil Genius 2, Phoenix Point (as I'm writing these I realise they're all strategy games) are examples of reviews, excluding EG2 since it's on Steam, that all have false information in the pinned review. I'm coming to this from the perspective that if I am new to a series I'm interested in the opinion of older fans about a newer game, but when it's blatant lies or detailing how the game isn't some fantasy that someone has cooked up inside their head, it's worthless. hehe I don't know how much I agree with this because games are already really malleable products. I guess film production can be a parallel to game development since they're both team efforts. So are any of the non-liked Star Wars films less Star Wars because the story or theme is done in a different way or are they just bad films set in that universe? I think they're just bad films and my nostalgia shouldn't be the the determining factor that I don't like it. Fallout 3 not being an isometric CRPG doesn't make it less of a Fallout game, more than it makes it not a CRPG.
As far as using an established property to sell a game I think this is based on expectations and not having to do with the quality of the game. So the Montreal Deus Ex games make no thematic sense in the Deus Ex universe but HR is enough of an homage to carry the license. Now be a publisher and release the game as Altered Carbon: Human Revolution, the sales aren't going to be as a good, a team of developers will feel unrecognised for the work that they put into a product and a lot of people may not play the game because it's not a proven property.
I really don't care if publisher use a license and make an entirely different game, just make the game good.

These examplaes you are listing are quantifiable judgments and not based on feels. I don't have a problem with that. I don't see the DRM listed anywhere on the Steam page for AoE2DE, and this is a big point of mine as well, there is so much disinformation that people put in reviews. Maybe that DRM is in there but I don't see it listed anywhere.

I addressed this above but specifically to your example, there is a doom rogue-like and a doom rpg. Doom is one of the most modded games of all time. When does it stop being a Doom game when it's modded or changed into different genre?

If a game has been dumbed down I think that is also a quantifiable metric, i.e. fewer systems, etc., but a lot of reviews are this game is not a copy of the the original therefore I don't like it.

This is only normal when the review is making a value judgement of the game based on it's own merits and not in comparison to their beloved classic. Because the way they most likely play their precious is with fan patches or in a post release patched version. So to make one to one comparisons between a game that has had thirty years to patch versus a two to four year development cycle is disingenuous.

I partly agree.

Here's the thing though: A lot of sequels do absolutely live in the shadow of the predecessor, especially those whose plots are inseparable. Deus EX: Invisible War, for example. It's supposed to be the followup to one of the best showings for the original Unreal engine, and absolutely crashes and burns, and cannot be separated from it.

My issue with Gog gamer reviews, and why I no longer read them, is I found too many that started with: "loved this game as a kid." The reviews all went on to rate and describe the game from the gamer's memory of decades ago... NOT from playing the game recently.

Playing a game as a kid, that was recently released with current coding and graphics, on current systems, is NOT the same as an adult, playing a game from decades ago, that may have very outmoded graphics and coding, that may not work at all on modern systems. Honestly, how many things in your adult life do you enjoy based on the recommendation of an 8yr old? How useful is a nostalgia review that's fogged over all the flaws and bugs and boring and immature elements, not to mention being incapable of viewing the subtlety and nuance as a jaded and seasoned adult, but rather the sparkly shiny explody tastes of a simple inexperienced child?

IMO the point of a review is to try to present an OBjective description of a game, and others can make decisions based off that. Too many people though seem to describe games off their own emotional experience, which doesn't help anyone else. I've taken to watching let's plays to get the best sense of whether I might like a game, as that shows actual gameplay, art style, UI... and thus does the best job I've found of understanding what a game is like.

obviously Tactics was the best FO game.

Ok, but can you give some examples where this has happened, and you disagree with their notion? Not saying that it hasn't happened, just want some examples.

And for the love of everything that is dear and holy, can you please use linefeeds more often with your wall of text? Modern people are used to twitter-length messages. Bah, I'll top that! It belongs to top 1000000, easy!

I base that on having so far played the first 5 minutes of the game. I've been meaning to play it now as I've finished Fallout 1-2 + Tactics one or two years ago, but now I am still busy finishing Icewind Dale 2 first...

it is better than fallout 1

That's because Denuvo is the only DRM Steam list. Their own Steamworks & CEG, remnants of SecuROM & GFWL, Arxan, etc, are hidden. PCGW lists them very clearly though, which goes to show why "negative" reviews that comment on such "off-topic" things are often most honest & helpful than the game description itself.

I think people grasp the difference between a Total Conversion mod of an engine that reuses an engine for a different branding vs inappropriate branding. That's exactly why Heretic, Hexen, Hedon & Strife are not called "Doom 3-7" and why Doom 5 made as a platformer would be downvoted to oblivion by comparing it with other games.

Literally the entire definition of a sequel or franchise for entertainment media is "expectation of continuity of theme". People always have and always will judge new games on how they fit in with old ones precisely because that's the whole point of branding something "a series" and publishers themselves encourage this when they deliberately market the game with an older brand "Doom 2016! Everything you loved about Doom 1993 and more!". If you want to release a new game to an established series with totally different gameplay and avoid a backlash, then you simply release it as a "spinoff" or "sister series", eg, Contract Jack is not No One Lives Forever 3, Dusk '82 (demake) is not Dusk 2, etc. Icewind Dale & Neverwinter Nights are not Baldur's Gate 3-4. Plenty of games devs who understand this get it right. It's only the ones floundering under the modern trend of calling 100x different games the same name out of lack of creativity / marketing laziness that seem to have the "identity crisis in reviews" issues...

First of all "their precious" makes it sound more like you have an intrinsic bias against people who play older games. Secondly, a 30 year old game like Doom that's been patched has usually had basic stuff like widescreen support, mouselook or modern DirectX renderer added. Someone making a new FPS today without those things would still be downvoted for being more backward vs 30 year old games. So they aren't judged the same because they aren't starting from the same position.

Likewise, take games like the Divinity Original Sin's. They typically need a dozen patches then an Enhanced Edition then another few patches before the game is finished. It may be "unfair" for you to read a review written on release day to comment on a bug that later gets removed, but literally no reviewer on the planet is going to replay the game 18x times in 18x months then go back and rewrite their review 18x times based on 18x patch changelogs just to make you happy that reviews read 3 years later are 100.0000% accurate and not 99.9998% accurate.

So you ultimately seem to be arguing that no-one should leave any negative review for the first 18x months of a game's lifespan just in case a patch changes something (which affects positive reviews too, eg, a patch that introduces unwanted gameplay changes) if it even references an older game in the same series even once. And telling game reviewers "it's their fault" for not waiting until a game is fully patched before reviewing it whilst the publishers aggressively push pre-orders 2-3 years in advance of that moment is not a particularly honest stance when it comes to actually pinning the "buggy games get downvoted" blame where it lies - squarely on the developers / publishers who could have given the game extra time in development, but chose to rush it out the door and naively expect reviews to still be "a shower of roses"...

No, it was in relation to the original poster.

In terms of your suggestion, who is going to pay for all that? GOG can’t even get release thread links right, and make a point of never fixing anything other than galaxy. So who is going to police this? How are you going to interview to see if their “opinion” is valid. Who is it for anyone to say someone else’s opinion, regardless of how they come to it, is? Are you going to chase down industry “experts” or youlubers who are obviously brought and paid for?

Nah, it’s clearly completely pointless and never going to work. Simply put reviews are there, read them and make up your own mind. Heck, you can’t even rely on release information (just look at cyberpunk), or promises or details from developers. You however are surely capable of looking at some screenshots, reading some text, and coming up with your own independent thought?

^ This. "OMG. I just typed the word 'series' into a dictionary and discovered it means 'individual titles arranged into a greater collection with a related theme'", ie, people will judge the whole as much as they do the parts. It's literally the core meaning of the word, the whole point of labelling them as a group and nowhere is this more obvious than when a series of games get officially sold as a trilogy or collection later on. The "we want you to compare them for positive free marketing whilst hypocritically telling you not to compare them for negative bugs / unwanted gameplay changes" is only a more pronounced problem today vs the past because back in the 90's game's devs actually came up with new names for new ideas / gameplay changes whilst today's obsession with branding reuse has ended up more like this...

^ Definitely this too. You want a reduction in "this game is massively buggy" release day reviews? Forget about shooting the messenger and start re-incentivising the concept of making a good first impression BEFORE you get paid by banning the extremely anti-consumer combination of pre-orders + review embargoes where "professional" game reviewers are literally getting paid to HIDE problems with games pre-release whilst the publisher pockets the pre-order money on the back of false media representation... (Puts on "fake surprised face" when post release the negative amateur reviews made by people not under embargo turn out to paint quite a different picture than the paid for industry over-hype 'suggested'...)