I agree. But if you use the full scale, you have to use it on a consistend basis, which gamespot and all the other review sites do not. This is also a huge part of the metacritic problem. One site that actually uses the 1 to 10 scale gets lumped together with 30 sites that only use 7 to 10 scales.

Edit: I completely agree with JazzB1987's assessment. It's the same thing with the New Super Mario series. NSMB2 gets slammed hard for not being innovative enough but the reviewers fail to realize that the average consumer will not play all 4 iterations of the series on all four platforms because people actually have jobs that don't involve playing video games all day long. NSMB2 is just overall a better game than NSMB DS and therefor should get a better score, but it gets the same ol' same ol' score despite the fact the vast majority of potential customers might not feel this way. Meanwhile, other same ol' same ol' series get praised to heaven and back for every miniscule difference to their predecessors.

Yeah sure.

Gameplay changes since RBY:

Special stat split in Special Attack and Special Defense.

Two new types to balance the game.

New moves.

Equipped items.

Natures.

Abilities.

EV Spreads.

Breeding.

Special and Physical attacks for every type.

Lots of moves have been tweaked for balance.

The mentioned new pokemon.

And I'm sure i'm missing some of the newer ones.

Scores are arbitrary and meaningless. There is no standard across which all games are judged by fixed criteria--this isn't figure skating or gymanstics-- and thus score inflation is every bit as arbitrary and meaningless. (After all, a 9 to IGN may not fit the same, theoretical, criteria as a 9 from GS.)

Now, that said, if the gaming media has constructed a world where a 6.5 to 99% of the readership is mediocre (it is, and GS is part of that problem) then they need to assign their arbitrary scores with this in mind instead of using it as a way to drum up traffic.

(Personally, I prefer no scores at all since they are almost always 100% arbitrary and rarely even adhere to the stated standard of the particular outlet doing the rating, nor are they even consistent across the *same critics* milieu...granted, this wouldn't be solved by nixing scores since, if nothing else, game critics are mercurial, fickle, and eager to please the right audience, whether it's their boss or a slice of their readership, but it would at least *force* people to focus on what the critic is saying rather than some meangless letter or number.)

(And I speak from personal experience on all of the above, having been the EIC of a game mag/website (yes, print) in the late 90s/early 00s.)

You can't blame the gaming mdedia for constructing a world where 6.5 is mediocre and then force them to stay within it.  If the media wants to change how the readership views the scores then they have to go against the preconceived norms.  If it's in the media's power to set that expectation in the first place then it's also in their power to go against it and reverse it over time.  Any review that reads like a decent game and gets a 6ish score is only helping the matter.  

Personally I like giving a game a score at the end of a writeup, so I'd prefer it to no scores.  

The problem is, they only leave the norm for the occasional Nintendo title. I will take this statement back after they scored Black Ops 2, Assassins Creed 3 or Halo 4 appropriatly, but I have a feeling I won't have to. And I don't mean that they have to score those game in the 6-7 range, but if they go 9 to 10 range they are clearly back on track for normal scoring. Using different scales for different companies is just the very definition of bias.

Edit: Kotaku scored Pokemon B2/W2 a YES and thats good enough for me personally. I am not into Pokemon myself but I got Pokemon white for my brothers birthday and he already dumped over 100 hours into it in 2 weeks and now my cousin is getting a 3DS XL for his birthday with black 2, so the oppinion of Gamespot doesn't change whats happening in the real world anyway. Might as well generate some traffic.

6.5 is a positive score, he liked the game and obviously had fun with it, but it has some glaring issues or obvious drawbacks. He's not being contradictory at all, what's the problem Spurge?

Good games are not only 8s, 9s and 10s.

Actually, score inflation came about because media outlets that gave more favorable reviews to a publishers games would receive preferable treatment from said publishers.

This started to push all scores upward in a battle to obtain publisher favors and, for those sites without much publisher contact anyway, to not appear harsh on games to fans of those games/franchises.

11 sequels?

Only if you consider Pokemon Yellow or Platinum as sequels. Edit - Gameplay wasn't changed in those games.

This is the 5th gen of Pokemon.

A score of 5 should me considered "OK", with a 6.5 should be considered decent. but in gaming reviews unless the game is absolutely horrendous it rarely falls below 5 or 6 with even average games scoring 7's and 8's, so by them giving this game a 6.5 it's a pretty poor score.