There's no need to pretend, it's done in other mediums just as much as in videogames.
Actually, with movies, if the studio knows it sucks, they don't even show the movie to reviewers. They withhold pre-release screenings entirely, because they don't have the power to control the review scores! Within the last few years, some studio got busted for making up a fake reviewer to give good scores. This is a different type of corruption entirely from what we see with videogames.
I hadn't heard that around Metroid Prime 3, though it doesn't surprise me; I believe that game initially meta-scored higher than it's current 91. They were pretty prominent with Madden, though. No reviews below 90 were allowed until release. Look at Madden first week sales: by the time of release, the damage is done.
To Kain: 1up said the campaign "wasn't mindblowing," said the same of the versus, and said the co-op was "fairly to incredibly laggy." That's not one small flaw in my book. If two parts of the game aren't "mindblowing," the much-hyped new feature better at least not be "incredibly laggy" to get a *PERFECT* score.
Well... I've made my point...
"[Our former customers] are unable to find software which they WANT to play."
"The way to solve this problem lies in how to communicate what kind of games [they CAN play]."
Satoru Iwata, Nintendo President. Only slightly paraphrased.
