I also am worried a bit about the average gamer, but then I just think about GTA games.

The worst and most casual gamers I have ever met and know love an dplay that game to death. The freedom of this game could be in a way similar to how they play those games. You know just fucking around doing whatever.

How is GTA IV a 98 on meta critic......

It really was an awesome game, and it was the first version from a new generation since they'd made the switch from the top-down view with GTA III, as III, Vice City, and San Andreas were all made for 6th gen consoles with a similar look and feel. GTA IV was improved in many ways that hardware hadn't previously allowed for, essentially.

I don't think it warranted a 98, but it's not a surprise.

Sorry but GTA IV was a regression for the series..... sure it had nice graphics at times but it was nowhere near the game that GTA V is

That is beyond me. GTA V would have deserved that score, a much better game based on my experience.

Yea it was insanely overhyped and was reviewed poorly imo.

Also this was during the time period where reviews were ethically sketchy. I still have a hard time trusting gaming reviews becuase of that era. When big games came out like GTA, or Halo the sites woudl basically be like a giant advertisement. It was almost like thye were no longer say IGN.Com but instead Halo.com or something. It was rediculous.

It sort of reminds me of teh whole auditing trouble that happened in the 90's. You know ENRON and such. You had giant companies basically blackmailing auditors to give them a clean audit or they would "threaten" to use a different accounting firm. Obviously not wnating ot lose a multimillion dollar company they would turn a blind eye to things or not review as thourough. Not to mention the perks that came with doing the audits. You know like lavish gifts and so on.

Same with the gaming journalism at the GTA4 timeline. It really felt like sites had so much going on with said gaming companies that their superiros woudl not dare let a reviewer give say Halo 3 a poor score since they were receiving a million dollars in ad revenue or something.

A dark time for gaming journalism. A time that is still remembered by many, and leaves many of us still skeptical about review scores. Now a days it feels like the problem is the clickbait reviews. Getting the 5/10 or some shit for Horizon to get clicks and make money that way.

I'm pretty sure everyone loves GTA V more, but GTA IV was exceedingly impressive at the time. There were a few issues, like Roman being irritating and it being far too easy to get launched from your car, but it was otherwise a very fun game.

Yea it probably did, but guessing many reveiwers and sites purposely or subconsiously lowered its scores due to the whole outburst over GTA4's scoreing.

Even then, GTA V scored very high and I was really glad about it. It just that reviewers really bought into GTA IV's hype.

Bottom line of the story: We should never review while the hype is up. But we can't because people count on reviews to make up their minds sometimes.

Well, IV came before V, so I don't see how it could regress from that.