This week we challenge commonly held assumptions about criticism, writers, review scores, finishing games and much more. So much more, in fact, we had to split the episode in half. Plus, if you're a Borderlands fan, get ready to hate us. Our quick hit is less than flattering. Featuring Chi Kong Lui, Brad Gallaway, Mike Bracken, and Tim Spaeth.

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For your reference, the eight myths we discuss are:

1. Critics should be required to finish games before writing a review.
2. The goal of a "proper" game review should be to inform the reader as to whether they should or should not buy a game.
3. Those who write about games are not journalists, rather, should be considered "enthusiast press" or simply "games writer."
4. There is no difference between a "review" and a "critique".
5. The explosion of blogs, podcasts, and Twitter has rendered formal game reviews obsolete.
6. Individual game critics and review sites are under constant, unrelenting pressure from publishers to change scores.
7. Game scores are often purposefully tweaked to either generate controversy or avoid it.
8. A reader should not need to be familiar with the author of a review in order to derive value from it.

Topic and Game References:

• Borderlands Review
• Red Faction: Guerrilla
• Diablo II
• God of War
• Muramasa: The Demon Blade Review
• Bionic Commando Review

X-Play's Guitar Hero: Smash Hits review explanation:

Please send feedback and mailbag questions to podcast (at) gamecritics (dot) com.

The Brainy Gamer blog featured a terrific post today directed at Infinity Ward's questionable "FAGS" advertising campaign, in which Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels decries grenade spam.  It's covert advertising for Modern Warfare 2, of course, although the acronym with which said message is provided is obviously the source of the most worry.

So the word is basically out, and the level that has been causing all the commotion has been revealed to be used as a scene-setting device—basically establishing some context for the player's actions in the rest of the game. That was pretty much what I expected, but… it was also relayed that wherever this scene appears in the final retail version, it will be preceded by a warning about "graphic content" and the option to simply skip it and jump right into the part where the player goes back to being a "good guy".

Sometimes Even An Umlaut Isn't Enough

HIGH The world is metal.

LOW Almost everything else isn't.

WTF "Everybody thinks I'll betray them someday. Now gasp as I betray you!"

MadWorld comes closer to the kind of inherently "ethical" gameplay that Miguel Sicart (The Ethics of Computer Games) associates with the voyeuristic gorefest Manhunt. Sicart calls Manhunt an exemplary ethical title in the sense that it offers a "closed, mirroring" ethical system of gameplay that compels the player-subject to adhere to rules that become increasingly ghastly and, if fully utilized, so depraved that it causes the "virtuous" player to be self-reflective. This realization, though tied to unethical gameplay, is itself an ethical end-product of the design and the experience of the player.

My favorite game to play on travel recently has been Chessmaster: The Art of Learning for the PlayStation Portable. It's not a great chess game by any means, but it was a digital download for my favorite portable system, and it's good for playing quick sessions just about anywhere.

The odd thing is, I've been playing chess almost rabidly as of late, and not just on the go or in the bathroom. I've enjoyed playing Chessmaster again so much—just sitting around on the couch or playing at my desk for hours on end—that I've encouraged my girlfriend to take part in a few real games of chess now and then, and it's quickly become one of the little joys of our living together.

With the release of Left 4 Dead 2 just around the corner (it streets on November 17th for the PC and Xbox 360) expect to start hearing more about the game. Gamestop teamed up with Valve to create this new teaser commercial for the cooperative zombie-slaying game, which highlights not only a bit of what players can expect in the follow up to the wildly popular original, but to also convince players to pre-order their copy through Gamestop so they can procure the in-game American Baseball Bat weapon. Ah marketing…is there anything you won’t do?

I guess this means I need to get my red-ringed Xbox 360 fixed posthaste…

Stranded (And Bored) In The Wasteland

HIGH Millions of guns to choose from, theoretically...

LOW The "adventure" is pure contrivance, utterly lacking a soul.

WTF Where's the onscreen mini-map? Why do weak guns auto-equip?

Bland Name, Tasty Game

HIGH A new, predatory twist on puzzling.

LOW The difficulty of the final third feels haphazard and unrefined.

WTF Rainbow-colored regurgitation.