No they don't. Which ones do they favor? The best reviewed films in the last decade, by year, are as follows (not including re-releases):

2007: A Children's Cartoon
2006: A fantasy/horror film
2005: A Drama
2004: A Drama
2003: An Action/Fantasy movie
2002: An Animated Fantasy
2001: An Action/Fantasy
2000: An Action Film

 It also implies that something like Final Fantasy or Gears of War is intellectually sophisticated, which isn't fair. 

The funny thing is that it's the above games that are the mega-budget, highly marketed, action packed fair aimed largely at younger males -- just like Transformers. 

I still think reviewers are having a hard time figuring out how to properly review a Wii game it's no wonder people buy games that rank so low when the person reviewing it doesn't share the same taste as most of the Wii casual market.

Let's face it what constitutes a game to a Wii casual. Most of them are perfectly content playing BeJewled and Scrabble on their computer. It's no wonder they like mini-games because that is what a game is supposed to be for them. If they want action and story they watch a movie. They don't have time for 60 hour epics.

When reviewers realize that they have a whole new audience to cater to, one that doesn't like the next FPS or RPG frag bonanza they will begin to review Wii games in a different light and the scores will be much higher than they are now.

All I'm saying is that the market needs to adjust of face missing out on the financial potential that the Wii's new userbase is breinging to bear. The Wii isn't critic proof it's critic deficient.

 I agree with you that many of the most popular games are often less intellectually.  As a general rule, and mind you this is a GENERAL rule, Japanese games are more sophisticated intellectually, which is why I am drawn to Sony consoles rather than MS consoles.  I am an English major and a film nut, so I crave something that isn't just mindless dribble.  MS has gotten better about making their games smarter, I will say, and I would like to see them improve upon that.

 Nintendo first party games, while phenomenal in many cases on a technical level (I am a big fan of the Zelda and Mario proper series), make me feel like I am in the third grade sometimes.  The facial expressions and emotional reactions of characters are trite, and sometimes downright annoying.  The stories are about as complicated as See Spot Run.  I just can't bring myself to fully embrace a console whose "best" or "good" games don't mesh with me on an intellectual level. 

People can say what they want about Lair, but I never found the controls to be much of a hindrance and appreciated what the game was trying to say, intellectually and politically.  The same applies to the JRPG's I crave as well as the MGS series.  I cringe when I see how "kiddy" (not that being kiddy is necessarily bad, cause it isn't) some of the RPG's coming to the Wii are.

In every entertainment format (movies, music, television, book and videogames) you can look at the quality of a product based on its 'artistic' merit or based on the pure entertainment value from it. The unfortunate problem is that videogame reviewers arbitrarily choose the metrics and scale that they judge videogame based upon, and these metrics and scales tend to be (very) unfair to certain games and genres.

well video games are a little different cause it's the only medium where the user is physically involved and controlling the action.

I understand the wii is a bit different and casual games were meant for causal gamers, but a poorly designed game is a poorly designed game.

When I say poorly designed, I'm not talking about the basic how tos of the game. I'm talking about graphics that are 1st gen ps2 quality, games with soundtracks that consist of 3 songs that endlessly loop, IR controls that don't work, a broken camera system, under 2 hours of real content, and a retail price of $40-50 to boot. Causal or not, simple or not, you can't just inflate scores for games that are obviously handled by a b-team of a dozen or fewer people for the lowest possible price. 

Akuma:

I happen to believe -- again, this is personal -- that the most intellectually sophisticated games I've played are not story driven. In fact, quite the opposite. I'd pick games like Go, Chess, and Starcraft as the most obvious choices, but even games such as Sim City and Civilization would qualify.

I know we're very much at odds on this one Akuma, but I have yet to play a story-driven game that I felt wasn't childish. They tend to give me that "third grade" experience you were talking about.

But I do know what you mean about being in tune with your personal tastes. I recognize, for instance, that Gears of War and GTA are very well made games, but they're just not palatable to me.

But how many of those things are true of games like Mario Party 8 or Carnival Games?

Regardless of whether anyone wants to admit it or not there is a lot of hypocrisy in how games are reviewed. Halo 3 is a game which has a weak single player game but gets nearly perfect scores because of how enjoyable its multiplayer gameplay is, in contrast Mario party 8 is an amazingly enjoyable multiplayer game gets lower scores because it has a weak single player game. I'm not saying these games should have received the same score, but you can't arbitrarily decide to apply your criteria for judging games.

Another problem I see with reviewers is their inability to separate a game from it's hype. Halo 3 got the scores it did because everybody knew the game was going to sell millions at that a large majority who bought it also read their reviews. If any site or mag gave that game any less than a 9.0 they got ridiculed for it. I'm not saying that the game deserved less, no wait actually I am, just my qualification there proves that even tmonths later people are still afraid of receiving backlash for saying that game is less than AAA.

In this industry hype is so integral to the way a game is marketed, and sold that It doesn't surprise me when people think that hype=great game or when reviewers feel the same way..

i don't know

lair, the bouncer (ps2)= hype= poor reviews

assassins creed, NMH= hype= solid but not great reviews.