Still, I would love to know WHY Nintendo left out the multiplayer GP mode. What was their reasoning against allowing friends and families to unlock things together?

And you have the right to give Mario Kart a C+ based on those “flaws” that apply to all of Nintendo’s target audience of newly married couples who enjoy playing Mario Kart together.

I have the right to call that score (sorry, Alan’s Score) dumb. The bad dumb, and not the good D.U.M.B. Sorta like the opposite of the good bad. So it’s actually the bad bad, and not the good bad ala RUN-DMC.

I stand by my 7.7, because the lack of a multiplayer GP mode is not only a huge omission, but it also negatively affects my personal experience with the game. Here’s the thing: Courtney loves playing it with me. Not only is that just the sort of thing that Nintendo is aiming for, but I love being able to play a game with my wife that we both enjoy. But the fact that we can’t “beat” the game together, that we can’t unlock things together, that I have to score the gold medals alone, is something that I find very frustrating. ESPECIALLY given Nintendo’s family friendly stance. I still enjoy playing the game, be it solo, with Courtney, or racing online, but I know I would enjoy it a lot more if this mode was included. I totally get why this omission won’t bother a lot of players out there (especially bachelors like yourself), but there are two very important words before the 7.7: “Alan’s Score.” It’s my personal interpretation of the game experience, and nothing more.

And it seems to me like the game could have taken a lot more inspiration in terms of course design from Super Mario Galaxy, or even Super Paper Mario, Wii Sports, etc. The new Bowser’s Castle course is cool, but why not have a course on the flying airships? Or instead of racing around Peach’s castle with Goombas and a Chain-Chomp, why not have it while the castle is being lifted up from the ground like in the beginning of Galaxy? Or a course through Flipside where obstacles go from 2-D to 3-D and back? Or a level where you race through all of the Wii Sports arenas while Miis play around you?

And while I agree about the ending of BTTF, I would argue that since that line/premise takes what, 90 seconds out of a 100 minute-plus movie, and that it doesn’t detract from the fun of all the greatness that came before, the movie would still be deserving of an A+ level grade. And despite the fact that the premise was quickly discarded in BTTF2, it still set-up Marty and Doc going to the future, which led for an amazing movie. And BTTF2 directly set-up BTTF3, which was the least entertaining of the 3. (IMHO.)

And let’s meet at Nintendo World on Monday, and you can give me the Mario Kart t-shirt and I’ll give you your Wii Fit one.

Admittedly, had you known about that, and had you worn said t-shirt while playing, it would have probably gotten a 9.7/10 rating…

An out-of-10 rating scale is basically a “6-10 out of 10″ scale. Anything getting a 5.X/10 sucks. There is a lot of leeway in the 6-10 range, but there’s very little between the 1 and a half points between a 2.6/10 and a 4.1/10, whereas there’s a huge difference between a 9.1 and a 7.6. You know this is true. If you disagree, that’s fine. But you’re still wrong. You can try and convince me that a C+ is somehow good, how you’re both “hopelessly addicted” to a “pretty good” game (sorry… pretty darn good), and I can only imagine how a 79.5 (B-) game stacks to you. A 9.X game is a game that’s awesome and has some room for improvement. A 7.7 game is average. it just is.

That’s why 4-star scales work a lot better. You know exactly what a 1-star, 2-star, 3 and 4-star movie is. And the half star works well too. I know exactly why a movie gets a 2.5 star rating (def better than “2 stars” but not a solid 3-stars).

And since you’re forcing it, there are plenty of technical problems with these movies, from continuity errors to plot holes to time-travel errors (discussed ad nauseum on jb.com). And no, not just technical errors. There’s also BAD parts. BTTF is my favorite movie of all time, but the “something’s gotta be done about your kids!” ending of BTTF was lame. EVERYONE knows it is. Spielberg and Zemeckis have admitted many times that it’s lame, and they basically wrote BTTF 2 and 3’s scripts in a way to ignore that silly setup about 10 minutes into those 4 hours. I fully understand their whole “we never considered a sequel at the time” reasoning. Perfectly understandable. But it still sets up a lame excuse for BTTF2’s beginning plot (the burglary? Laaaaaaaaaaaame. Let’s, um… get rid of that, then never mention it or the kids again for the next 3 and a half hours…). But that point taken, it still doesn’t get a lower score. I don’t subtract half a star from each error to give it’s 4-star rating 3 stars. BTTF could have been improved, as I clearly demonstrate. Yet it’s still 4-stars to me.

And james, you know me well enough to know that I wouldn’t go out of my way to be on-par with popular opinion! I feel that my complaints about the game are big enough to be mentioned, and detract enough to merit a lower score. A 7.7 is pretty darn good, and like a C+, is a good score that also shows some room for improvement.

Yeah, I know you list the problems you have with it. But you still seem to enjoy the hell out of the game a lot, despite the seemingly paradoxical score.

I can list 10 things wrong with Empire Strikes Back, Back to the Future and Galaxy Quest. But they’re all still 10/10 movies in my rolodex.

I guess that’s just me…