a 10 game is a perfect game
a game filled with bugs and glitches ?
i wont even bother arguing..
my fighting against over hyped games for me ended with the launch of brawl.. 40/40..? come on..

To continue what Louie said, if the gameplay elements themselves aren't revolutionary, nor the game itself, nor the gameplay experience (and GTA3 had everything GTA4 does AFAIK only not as good), the only way to get a 10 is to do it all so insanely well that there is nothing one can rationally complain about -- and most of these reviews giving out 10s do point out legitimate flaws in the game.

this is absurd, gta's praise, along with any other game, whether r&c, uncharted, halo 3, cod4, bioshock, oblivion, RSV, or any other future great game like mgs4, re5, gt5, GOW3, GoW2, Halo 17, etc that will NEVER grace any N console has not received and will not receive any of their rating's just to spite the wii. how narrow minded could you possibly be?ALL of these games stand on their own merit... as far as i'm concerned, VERY FEW N games make the grade any more. if i grab up my brother's wii i'd much rather be playing RE4 than SMG, sorry. wii is NOT the be all, end all of gaming, sorry, go stroke yourself to some other illusion.

@final-fan, what the hell does mkwii have that mk64 didn't???

I'm just sick of games being so overrated.

GTAIV is not a 10/10 game. It has many flaws and many things that could have made it much better.

SSBB is not as good as was said, it's basically SSBM with some expected improvements

And those are just two recent examples.

A 10/10 game should be something that pushes the console, is very innovative, is expertly designed, has few things that could improve it and is wonderful for it's time.  GTAIV fits one of those (Expertly designed)...

P.S. I'm glad something finally got over OoT on GameRankings (which although is VERY worthy for those scores for it's time, I really think it should be taken off...it's a list of the best games, not the best games for their time...OoT simply isn't that good anymore) but I'm not so happy that it was GTAIV. I'd rather it was Galaxy, or The Orange Box or BioShock. Maybe MGS4 can get the spot.

In reading all of the responses, in reading/watching reviews, and in trying out the game (I don't own either system, so I honestly can't play it), here are my conclusions.

First and foremost, the topic was brought about as much to examine the whole review scoring issue as anything else. The timing of it (after blast-the-Wii-week) and the Gamespot score switch (see previous post for link) certainly give rise to the possibility of a conspiracy. But unlike those who cannot see the proof of how a single shooter felled JFK, I am not going to beat a dead horse and continue to claim that a conspiracy exists where there does not appear to be one.

However, that being said, it is interesting for whatever reasons that critics seem to be more forgiving in their overall assessment of this game than in some other games. For example, reviews and real life have shown me there are graphical issues -- allbeit minor ones. In many cases, such a flaw would have prevented the game from getting a top score, particularly on sites which use a 10 or 100 point system. (My complaint here is not with places that give out four or five stars because they tend to rate more games highly and be more forgiving on average). These sites though are breaking out top scores -- and some of these sites do that so rarely that the games that have received such praise can be counted on one hand.

Perhaps it is the intriguing plot. As I have stated before, this game is not my cup of tea. However, if I were to get an Xbox 360 or PS3, I probably will pick it up because it really looks to be that good.

Where did I want to go with this. Where do I want to go. I'm not sure and I don't know. I know people out there feel the same way that I do -- that this is a great game but perhaps the praise is a bit overblown. And that's really what I was striving at when I started this. But now perhaps it is time to end it and let us all play the games we choose. And for many people, both in this forum and elsewhere, that will be GTA IV.

Mike from Morgantown

 They already did that for San Andreas. I miss it frankly. =/

EDIT: If you'd consider a haitian hex magic, then they've done that for Vice City as well. 

30M developement, 20M marketing, 50M to pay the reviewers... Seriously, GTA 4 was suppored to score high, if you consider the score of the previous GTA games, and i think nobody was expecting low score. There's also a few things that definately have had effect on the rating, such as EA planning to take over Take Two (which nobody wants to see to happen), Wii Fit blowing everything out of the water and the same thing that propably had effect on OoT score too, being one of the last "hardcore" games when the winning competition was going fast forward with its "casual" titles, same thing that can be seen in a number of other reviews too. The last stand of "hardcore". So i wouldn't talk about conspiracy, but a normal psychological defensive mechanism.

That's pretty hardcore, since it takes a lot more than 3 hours just to drive all the cups, not to mention that you managed 3 stars from every cup, beat all the staff ghosts in time trial etc... Congrats, that's pretty awesome. I think it's good that you didn't try the online, since i bet that playing the fourth hour would have resulted you to drive unbeatable world record times in every track. I agree about the online, that it isn't decent, it's great, something that Sony and M$ should learn from. I think we all are familiar with your trolling about games you haven't even played. :D

no there is no conspiracy. its an awesome game.