@ Grey Acumen

YOU IDIOT I DON'T EVEN HAVE A CAT !!!!!



On a serious note I didn't bother reading the OP but my response was mainly motivated by my annoyance with all the Wii supporters flamming GTA's success.

It's one Game ffs you have 20+ Million sellers .

Well Ocean's Eleven was about Billy Ocean's top selling 11 songs, not about Billy Ocean himself.

GTA IV IS HORRIBLE!

Ok, now send me some hateful PM's and go away from this thread. Then it can get on topic again.

Wow, I'm an idiot, did I really think that was going to work?

"It's one Game ffs you have 20+ Million sellers ."

That's why I stated in another thread that Nintendo is weeping about these reviews, by using paper money as kleenex.

As a warning, I only read the original topic and have decided to skip what I can bet is 3 pages of bickering.

Grey Acumen, I commend you for the great read. Very well thought out. As someone that has played both Smash Bros. and GTA IV exstensively, I can say they should both have recieved 10's.

I will say, GTA IV earned it's 10s. For those saying technical issues should lower a score, I disagree. I feel technical issues that hamper gameplay should lower a score, but GTA IV does not have those kinds of issues. I don't think we sat back and knocked every game in the 32-bit era for their endless amount of glitches, because that is all that could be handled. In GTA IV, it's the same deal. When you're talking about a none loading landscape the size of New York City, you have to expect things like pop-in, no questions asked. It was either that or loaded areas, and Rockstar wisely chose the former to give us a real city experience. The problem with people that see GTA IV from a distance, is that they don't realize it wasn't about making one or two major revolutionary things in this game, it was about making one hundred very small ones. GTA IV is truly better than the sum of it's parts. 

As far as Smash Bros. it also deserved a 10 from reviewers. It was a similar situation where Brawl gave many new, small innovations that added up to a new and revolutionary experience. What I feel both games have in common is that's I feel it's practically impossible to go back to Melee and GTA III and feel they are still worthy, even though both are still great games. They have both been trumped in every conceivable way. Both experiences of addictively fun and just pushed the amount of awesome you could fit into a disc. I think it's more of a question as to why Brawl didn't get it's 10s as opposed to why GTA IV got them.

As far as the disconnect of reviewers from "casual" games, I feel you. The problem I feel is allowing every game to be judged the exact same way. Let me take IGN as an example. While the final score isn't the weighted average of it's individual parts, a game like Wii Sports for example shouldn't be heavily judged on graphics or sound, but exemplified for it's gameplay and replay value. While it's not my favorite game, Wii Sports is the most important game of this generation, is the most enjoyed game by the new crowd, and deserved better than what it got in reviews. It is a simple, yet polished experience, and NOTHING to this day is a better showpiece for the Wii then Wii Sports. Nothing.

That is not to say that reviewers always get it wrong. Carnival Games is not a good game just because it sold well. It was still poorly developed, poorly executed, and basically benefitted from word of mouth, and the drive of people wanting a Wii Sports alternative experience. I chalk the same up to the success of Mario & Sonic at the Olympics. It was familiar and smelled of Wii Sports. Neither of these games are absolutely horrid, but there still needs to be some degree of professionalism in reviewing these games. It can't simply be said that the new crowd like minigames, and thus every minigame compilation deserves a high score so it can cater to them. Sometimes bad games sell well. I'm going to say that more times reviewers are actually pretty spot on but they do botch it big time in the case of games like Big Brain Academy, Wii Sports and the upcoming Wii Fit, among a few others I may have missed in my paragraph.

Sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to read this incohesive response. Hopefully somebody gets something from it. 

 WRONG AGAIN,  I DON'T HAVE ANY PETS !!!.

*1 - Pretty much

*2 - I don't recall having said anywhere in the OP that I consider Wii controls to be superior, I do consider them superior, but in the OP I merely noted that it was a new skill set that is completely different than pressing buttons. Buttons have 2 states, pressed and not pressed. These are easily verified for whether they were pressed accurately as the conditions are black and white. Motion recognition has a much greater shade of gray to it that I have heard numerous reviewers complaining about the controls for, when I have personally experienced ZERO issues.

*3 - I do consider PROPERLY IMPLEMENTED Wii controls to be better than any straight joypad setup, the issue is finding those games that properly implement the controls. They've only been around for 18 months, and as I pointed out before, wether they work is not a black and white standard, so it is not only more difficult to use them, but also more difficult to design them. It will take time for motion controls to be refined and perfected, but there are already cases in which they are at least equivalent. Also, Wii pointer does have just as much precision as mouse, its just that it's harder to keep your arm still when it's not resting on a table which has friction to keep the mouse stuck on the location that you move it to.

*4 - you apparently got hung up on something here. The second half of my OP wasn't revolving around the PS3 or 360 reaction to the Wii at all, but to each other. This was focusing on the numerous arguments revolving around whether the 360 or the PS3 was the better version as well as all the minor issues brought up to attempt to prove the stances.

*5 - People are looking at it and posting, even if some people aren't actually reading the entire post, however their arguments help keep the thread alive for those who are actually going to read the whole way through and see the point. The title is accurate, but merely draws on a little hyperbole and doesn't worry about diplomacy. But as I've already pointed out, if I said I was so hungry I could eat a horse, and then discussed how I wanted a hamburger and not a horse to eat, it does not make the opening statement inaccurate.

*6 - I have considered getting a 360, a PS3 and a Wii at various points in my decision making process. I still consider getting a PS3. The reason why I picked the Wii was because it offered me numerous things right off the bat that PS3 and 360 could not offer, including the quality assurance of games made by nintendo, the focus on motion controls that push for more than just half assed implementation (even if some developers still do half assed anyway) and a lower price range

Trainable younger sibling? :P

Lets see *ticks off points* was able to read through the first post, apparently doesn't insert critisism where none was made, defends GTA IV simply by saying "problem issues are minor and inherent to that type of game, so should detract" supported this stance by, and avoided being hypocritical, by pointing out that another game with similarly noted issues should have been judged similarly...

 I don't see anything incohesive about this at all.

I really like the old fashioned way of doing a review.

On game faqs I still do my reviews that way, actually so do a lot of other reviewers.

It's just that the fundamental rule is if their is a "but" in that section of your review,
that is terms for reevaluation and skepticisim.

By old fashion I mean breaking the review down in terms of what your reviewing.

Essentially I like to label the genre first and augment the review based on that genre.

First I'd have my basics: Graphics, Story, Gameplay, Music and Replayability.

Then I'd add my own personal opinion and how it affected myself in a conclusion.
For certain games though I can't use graphics as in how I use it for other games.
Like reviewing a text based games graphics is not going to be the same as Brawl.

Actually today I was just revisiting Brawl and the GTA 10/10 score came to mind, I
didn't stop playing but the term 'wtf' came to mind, unlike the OP I have played a bit
of the GTA series, and I did have the pleasure of playing this one, it was breifly but
what I took away from it wasn't perfection at all, their were blatant things like bad meshes and
horrible character models, lots of rouge edges and certian objects had horrible textures like N64
bad.

However that is just me taking a look at a part of the game (I can't help it, it's just what I do.)

The real issue is that it was a total advancement on GTA as anyone who isn't biased
will admitt, which is similar to Brawl (Only using it because I was playing it this morning).
So what were the things that made Brawl not a 10/10 that's the question. I don't care
enough to take apart a group of GTAIV reviews and contrast them to Brawl reviews as that would
take a Week at the least - because I'd have to compare Andreas to Melee to give a
historically correct result.

Very good read and for the record, I didn't see any favoritism in the OP but tuns of defensive
fanboys later on.

Lastly:

A friend of mine asked me why I score my Wii games higher than my PS3 games, I'd tell him that there is a missing
appeal, you can't normally switch you mind to and fro it's just too hard, I don't have the time to sit and play PS3 games
until I get adjusted to it again then switch back to he Wii later. In truth you'd have to play multiple Wii games to begin
to grasp what is good.

A la why I constantly ask what 'shovel ware' is.

Of course my friend thinks I might be biased but then understood it as I'm grading based on the specifications of the medium.

Which is partly true but on a whole untrue. (Again for the record I grade harshly) To me Mario Galaxy was a 7/10 Brawl about a 7.5/10.
Mario Kart 6.7/10, Okami (Wii) 6.6/10. I do this based on just keeping track of my 'but', my view is if it's blatant big knock off, GTA to me from what little I've played is a 8.5/10 but I barely got into the game.

 that plus the fact that grading a video game is totally subjective... that's why i'm totally against a useless grading system for a game....

now a good reviews is one giving me a kind of pros and cons at the end and a little summary on different aspects of the game (graphics, handling, soundtrack, etc....) no grade just what he thought about it good or bad...

and then a general conclusion telling me if he liked it or not if it's worth the price... if a specific kindofplayer would like but not him etc....

with that and a full review on top is way better than any grade....

no if you grade you can have a 10 without a perfect game.... it's just that it is the best at the moment... once again it's a question of interpretation... is 10 the perfect game with no flaws or the best of its category at the momnet... or what is the best possible right now...

then again technically the perfect 10/10 game is the one that every player love with no technical flaws.. that will never exist....

my advice stop looking at grades... read the reviews and make your own judgment, then buy the game if you think you'll like it.... I know I won't like some games what ever their grades are.... and i know i'll buy some games what ever grades they get... I just use the review then to see if the game changed and might like it now, or in the second case the game is not that good but I want it anyway then i'll wait for a price drop or a used copy later.... on top of that you have more and more demos HD trailers and game play video... grades are really starting to make no sense in a purchase decision for a video game