Honestly, the review had to focus on the nitpicks, as it was an attempt to justify giving it a 9.5 and not a perfect 10. It was trying to explain why it wasn't perfect, rather than focusing on what we already knew was great.

lol

No, I'm not. You don't have to like the games I like. Most of them are niche anyways. 

Uhm, SSBB isn't a online shooting game. I see you're trying to defend your assertion about FPS's. So what is your beef with SSBB getting a 9.5... have you even played it yet? 

Jake -- this is a Nintendo first-party title, so that would be next to never.

The Big N is very slow to drop the price on most first-party titles and almost never drops it on its biggest titles.

For example, SSMM (Melee) still sells for $30 new -- if you can find it -- for a console that is two years out of production.

And Brawl will be hyper large.

Mike from Morgantown

As for the review, it appears to be balanced and well-thought-out.

There are expectations that people have reviewers have for games -- even if people don't really care (i.e., voice chat). But those are triffling points -- and often things people love to slap companies about (complaining about Nintendo's on-line philosophy and friend's code is like shooting fish in a barrel).

What is interesting is that the "tacked on" single-player mode appears to be at least as long as Heavenly Sword for the PS3.

Mike from Morgantown

Of course I have not played it; the game isn't even out yet.

As for my "beef" with the games score: 9.5 is a score you give to a monster game—a game that's so great it defines an entire generation. I'm talking about games like Super Mario 64, Zelda: OOT, or Resident Evil 4. Based on my prior experience with the Smash Brothers franchise, I simply can not put the game in that category. A 9.5 is, for me, probably what you would consider a 9.8-10 to be. I have my dooubts that this game is that good. That's all. I need to play it and see for my self.

I have not played a game for niether the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, or Nintendo Wii that I would give a 9.5 to. Zelda Wii would be the closest thing, but it's a bit dated.  

Not a bad review overall.  I still have a couple issues.  Mainly the graphics score.

An 8.5 on graphics because they look like Melee graphics?  It runs at 480p and 60 FPS and looks much better than Melee.

Yep, looks like a Gamecube game to me....

However, overall it's a well written review.  Thankfully it was written by Matt instead of Bozon (the guy who made all the ridiculous comments about the game in the podcast a few weeks back).   The score didn't matter to me as much as the content.  I just didn't want the review to be written in a way that it completely forgot the fans of the game and what they were looking for in it. 

Thankfully this wasn't a problem in the end and Matt did a good job understanding that Melee fans didn't want massive changes to the gameplay.  The score really doesn't matter to me.  I've already gotten 6 hours or so with this game and it's my favorite game of all time.  I know review scores will never reflect my opinion on this game, but I don't really care.   

Well, what you originally said was:

You categorically said that the score was not deserved. That's a stealth troll. You haven't played the game. It's not even out yet except in Japan. Hey, I gave you an example of a better way to do it.

If a 9.5 is the score a game so great it defines a generation should get then Wii Sports should have got a 9.5, but I've never seen you have a beef with the much lower score that it got.

I thought it would get a 9.5, it deserves it.