Yeah the whole review system is fucked up.

Why do people think an 8 is bad? If I got 8 out of 10 on a math test I'd be the happiest kid in the class because I just got an 80%. Review scores are ridiculously inflated.

But yeah I agree with the OP, reviews are JUST ONE MAN'S OPINION! Not the final say on if a game is good. Gears of War gets all 90+ reviews but I still think it's shit, and there have been games in the 70% range that I think are good...doesn't mean I'm right or wrong, just my opinion.

For a journalist to review something like games. They have to be fair, unbiased and most of all consistent.

Your right he can’t help it if he can’t read the manual. Its one thing to not be able to play a game and another to blame it on something that the game doesn’t even use! Even an icon pops up and tells you what to do. Read the text that comes up that’s why they are there and if you do those things you will have no problem unless something in the room is making the Wiimote go crazy or your Wiimote is broken!

People can’t be biased as that does not exist at all. Everybody is honest and loves everybody and they are all fair!

BTW the score is not the thing that bothers me when someone reviews a game. Its things in the text that is barely in the game!

I agree with this.  The problem is that the scores are far too high.  On a scale of one to ten, a 5.5 would be exactly average.  This is not the case for a video game reviewer.  If I see a game with a score of 5.5, then that means that he / she thought that it was a piece garbage.  I'm all for lower scores and when people are crying that a game that they think is great gets a 8.5, I find it to be ridiculous.

I was soo hyped after seeing footage of the first level in Duke Nukem Forever and I will gladly admit that it is one of the worst FPS I have played in my life.

But to be honest I was tricked into thinking that the whole game was good, because the first level was pretty well done and if all levels had that standard, I think it could have reached a ~80 Metascore. The current Metascore of 49 is still generous.

Game reviewers are expected to play a lot of games, a lot of genres, and a lot of control schemes.  It's generally accepted that reviewers know a thing or two about how to pick up a game's controls, it's an adaptation they need. If a game's controls are wonky or hard to understand even for someone who does this regularly...then the controls are the issue.  Just becuase some people can master it with ease dosn't mean everyone can.  

For instance, I had absolutely no problems with the controls in dungeon Defenders, but I certainly see how someone else could, becuase they are complicated controls that take some getting used to.  

Or, maybe he just doesn't like motion controls.  I, for one, greatly dislike motion controls, and if I found them to be detrimental to the experience, then I'm going to say so.  It's my job as a revewer to point things out that need to be pointed out and it's up to the gamer to use his brain to determine what is relevant to his interests.  If it's clear that the gamer in question LIKES motion controls, it's fair to disregard the negative comments a reviewer who disliked the controls and focus on the other aspects.  No reviwer can review for EVERYONE's tastes, it wouldn't kill readers to use their brain to filter out the parts of a review that don't apply to them.   The dividing line of motion controls is something to consider.  

They hate low review scores if it's a game they like, but if it's a game they don't like low review scores are great.

5/10 means "mediocre" rather than "average". Since games cost so much to make, those which do end up being made are usually at least decent, which is why we end up with the 7/10 score. Playing a mediocre game, a 5/10, will be a dull experience, but the game won't be completely broken. This would be considered a below-average game.

We could rejig the entire scale so that 5/10 reflected the new average, as in the scale that Edge uses, but that would cause enormous inconsistencies. A 7/10 from last week would be as good as a 5/10 from this week. If all gamers everywhere understood what was happening, and that 5/10 no longer meant "stay away", it might work, but I'm not inclined to trust a group of more than 100 million people (or even the majority of that group) to behave sensibly.

So, we remain with the system that we have, and pray that perhaps one person in ten actually reads the review rather than coming to a rash decision based on the score.

Maybe that's what a 5/10 means according to the way that the system is set up, but it makes no sense.  I was a fairly good math student and know that 5 is exactly one half of ten and that should be average. Now I understand that problem that you, as a reviewer, have since a certain type of groundwork has been established.  You make a strong argument about why 5's shouldn't be handed out to an average game. 

The biggest problem though isn't that too many 7's are being handed out for average games though.  The biggest problem is that 9's are constantly being handed out for good ones.  A 9 should be saved for something special and not for every game worth buying.  

Please understand that I am talking about gaming reviews in general and I'm not talkng about the VGChartz reviewers.    

It makes people insecure in some way....you should have mentioned Cliff B's massive ego, it might have helped you figure this out yourself.