Disappointing thread. I came for a discussion about why the Metacritic system is flawed but instead it's an "I don't think game X deserves high scores".

What absolutely sucks is the premise that 70 and below are bad and 80 is on the cusp of average. Because of that, we get tons of perfect scores, which tells us very little. How can a game where the reviewer points out several flaws still get a 100? Makes no sense. If the average was 50, there would be so much more room to operate on the upper scale.

I haven't played GTA5, and I already know it's not a 98. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact it's been so long since the last one released. I love GTA, but none of them are 98 caliber, and I doubt GTA5 changes the formula.

The Wii U HD remake is $49.99 same as the original was back when it was released on the Gamecube and they put in alot of extra work to rework the mistakes/flaws of the original as well as making it look really well so part of your argument is flawed but i will agree that the game should have been alittle cheaper maybe $29.99 to $39.99 woulda been the sweet spot :D 

As for GTA getting such high scores overall i cant really comment on that because i've only ever played 1 game in the series (which i didn't tend to enjoy as much as others) so i don't have enough playtime in the series to fairly grade the games. 

I think the majority of review sites base their critique around the grade system where 70% equals average resulting in the data being skewed to the left. Unfortunately I don't see that changing any time soon. One thing I wish Metacritic would do is not include sites that utilize 5-point scales because they seemingly have far more influence on the meta score than 10- or 100-point scales (unless there is some hidden weight applied to the scores associated with those scaling systems).

With that said, I'm not really one to complain about review scores because I understand that I simply may not like a game that others appreciate.

its called herd behaviour. its part of human nature so yes big hype and names will be rated higher even if other games are better cough last of us

The review system itself is flawed. No game ever deserves 10/10. 10/10 implies a game is perfect, without any aspect of it being able to be improved upon. Such a game never existed and will never exist. Due to the inflation of review scores games with a score of
What the scale used to be:

> 9/10: OUTSTANDING game, unparalleled in its genre
> 8/10: EXCELLENT game, can be recommended without any sort of restrictions
> 7/10: GOOD game with a few flaws, generally still very enjoyable
> 6/10: ABOVE AVERAGE game, has good ideas but a flawed implementation
> 5/10: AVERAGE game, not particulary bad but only enjoyable for major fans of its genre

What it is now:

10/10: OMG GOTG
9/10: OMG GOTY
8/10: OK
7/10: ABANDON

I think GTA deserves a 95+ score.
killzone merc should also be in the 90! seriously -__-

GTA 4 really doesn't deserve anywhere near a 9, but GTA5 is great, not sure if 9.8 great but its up there with the best this gen.

It all boils down to money.

How anyone can trust a video game reviewer when their money is solely coming from advertising money they get from video game companies is beyond me.

Be like if you picked up a consumer magazine to see what kind of car you should buy next and every ad in the magazine was for some Chevy vehicle.  Would you trust that magazine to be honest and unbiaced when reveiwing a Chevy vehicle?  

It's one of the main reason the huge enron and world com and other scandals with accounting happened.  Accounting firms were making like 30+ million dollars in consulting fees for those companies and only getting paid like 2 million to audit them.  If the accountants gave them a bad audit the company would just drop their firm from all consulting.  Thus would you let a company slide when you ahve like 90% of your firms revenue on the line?

Just like with accounting.  They made you have to be independent so that it no longer happened.  Gaming sites will never have my trust until they also are independent from advertising from within the industry.

Well just try and review this game lower than 9.8 on any big gaming site. There will be petitions made by angry nerds to try and get you fired.