i agree with what khuutra said, the review is really well written. i can't describe it as well as khuutra does, but the reviewer does a good job explaining why this game deserves a ten.

wasn't hyped for the game, thought it would be more of the same, but boy that review has me curious. would like to read a couple different reviews to decide if i buy first day.

don't know much about edge, this is the first review i read from them. but i know they are well known in this community, obviously ppl have different opinions about their standards though.

What reviewers need to realize is that they are the gaming media, and they're reviews affect whether a game sells or not in most cases. The score is just as important as the written review. The score affects how the readers look at the game, and their scores are bogus most of the time. I am not ranking video games according to score, rather saying that the score is a part of the review and should be just as good. I would bet that you would thing EDGE is bogus to if they gave SMG a 5, like they did FFXIII and WKC, that is just ridiculous.

So much ado about a score by a magazine that sells less than 30.000 copies/month...

I wonder if the Edge publisher would prefer a higher circulation over the internet hype surrounding their magazine.

Scores are nont anywhere close to as important as the content of a review, that notion does not make sense.

And their scores are not bogus: they are internally consistent, consistent in method, and consistent in their criteria. They're among the best in the industry, regardless of whether or not I agree with them on a given score.

Score is not as important as content. Score is not as important as content. Score is not as important as content.

Whether you like it or not, the score is still a part of the review. So, they are not consistent at all. They gave WKC and Final Fantasy 13 a review score of 5. That makes absolutely no sense. WKC had choppy graphics, and terrible dialog. Final Fantasy 13 should of been ahead of WKC with graphics alone. I could bring way more examples, i see nothing but inconsistency. 

Score is a part of the content. Score is a part of the content. Score is a part of the content. 

Reviews are subjective, they are allowed any opinion they want. The score however must be properly justified in the review. The overall score is nearly meaningless without reading the review, you only get information on how much they liked the overall game without the reasons why they liked or didn't like it.

Also as for your last part, no I'd just expect a very good justification for it. FFXIII was undeniably a flawed game in some respects, obviously those flaws really pissed the Edge reviewer off and he attacked them. If somebody found similar flaws in SMG (say the voice acting and the plot) and attacked them then good for them - I wouldn't agree but I would be able to tell that those things wouldn't worry me by reading the review.

I won't debate the stats too much except to say there are significant flaws there, especially in regard to multiplats, in your attempt to demonstrate that Edge is not biased. I'm not saying you're wrong in your assertion that they are not biased, I'm just saying the evidence you've used here is too flawed to be a meaningful demonstration of their lack of bias.

I will point out the error in your understanding of Edge's review scores for multiplats (which has a significant effect on the quality of your statistical evidence): They only review one version of a multiplat, and they don't claim that the review score is directly transferrable to the same game on other platforms. In the case of games like the Orange Box and Bayonetta where there are clear and objective differences between the reviewed platform and the non-reviewd platform you simply cannot extrapolate the Edge review. 

If you look at Metacritic you'll see that Edge reviews only appear for the platform that the game was reviewed on. So, Edge's Bayonetta review is only counted towards the 360's Metascore, their Orange Box review is only counted towards the 360 score, their Dante's Inferno review score is only counted towards the PS3 Metascore, their FFXIII review is only counted towards the PS3 Metascore and their Darksiders review is only counted towards the PS3 score.

Interestingly (and it's probably only coincidence, because I haven't done a proper analysis to establish whether there's a pattern) in all the games I list above the Edge reviews counting towards the 360 score have scored higher than the Meta score (i.e. the Edge effect has been to bring the Meta score up) and the Edge reviews counting towards the PS3 score have scored lower than the Meta score (i.e. the Edge effect has been to bring the Meta score down).

*Just ran off the check Borderlands (the first multiplat that came into my head) and Edge reviewed it on 360 and gave it a low score compared to overall meta. If there is an Edge pattern emerging perhaps it's that Edge reviews multiplat games on the platform that it thinks will have the best version???*

Anyway this thread is about SMG2. Amazing score, congrats to Nintendo. Definitely a strong GOTY contender. I guess one day I'm gonna have to give Mario a try. I've never played a Mario game, I just don't trust Italians with greasy moustaches

10/10 or??

The score is not meaningless without the review. It DOES tell you if the reviewer liked the game, with less detail. I am not saying the score is all that matters, but it is important either way. Even if FFXIII had flaws and pissed of the reviewer, it is ridiculous to give a game a 5 over it. They need to realize that it affects the games sales, and what the dev team put into it. a five just because the game pisses you off is ridiculous. I do not even like FF games and i have to say it is just fish paste. I agree with the SMG2 review, but either way, they're scale of reviewing is just bogus imo. Let's just leave it at that, because it is just my opinion.

I tried. But I got nowhere as well. :/