It's because the there is no accountability and because most publications don't have any clue as to how to review games. They review games like they are software like Windows 7 and not like they are art. There is just far to much agreement between reviewers, which is unprecedented and wholy unique for gaming. There isn't a movie, book or album, even the year's best that won't have a wide range of reviews starting in the 90+ and with a low end under the 50s. So there are two ways to look at this. The first is that games are not art, and reviewers are correct to review them the way they do, or that games are art and reviewers need to extract the artistic merit of each release and not rate them like they would software.
Secondly, unlike other areas of critical review, game reviewers seem to be scared of one another and scared to buck the trend. It doesn't matter where you go, even on VGChartz. We've formulated a certain way to judge games and that has caused us to be in general agreement. Reviewers pick up on this and adjust the way they review. This in turn has narrowed the field in which to review games. Very bad games that no one should play take up 50% of the potential scoring. Effectively, they've condensed the scoring. I see it like this:
95-100=Classic
90-94=Amazing
85-89=Great
80-84=Good
70-79=Average
60-69=Below Average/Mediocre
50-59=Bad
40-49=Shovelware Level 1
30-39=Shovelware Level 2
20-29=Shovelware Level 3
10-19=Shovelware Level 4
0-9=Shovelware Level 5
Notice how much of the general scoring is used to categorize games no one wants to play anyways? Really, what's the difference between the games in that bottom half anyways? Effectively, there's very little difference between a game that is a 45 and a game that is a 25. If both are practically unplayable messes (which is another sign that games get reviewed on general performance and functionality), then why have such a long range to seperate them? Why not use a 10-20 point scale for games of that quality and open up the rest of the field?
Lastly, you have pressure to one up the next guy to entice people to read your website/magazine, and you do that by having sensationalistic reviews. There's one publication that recently gave Uncharted 2 an 11...out of 10. It's that type of one-upsmanship that will cripple any chance of game reviewing to be legitimately worth reading. Not to mention how much emphasis is put on game reviews to bring in readership. Do you think Rolling Stone or Entertainment Weekly has to advertise on their cover almost every month that a certain big name movie, book or album is getting reviewed? Absolutely not. Now look at gaming magazines and tell me what you see on the front cover. "FIRST EXCLUSIVE REVIEW OF HALO 3: ODST!"
Tag: Became a freaking mod and a complete douche, coincidentally, at the same time.
