Ahh, except most of the time, a food critic who loves steak is not going to be sent to a fancy vegetarian sushi restaurant. They're going to be sent to a steakhouse.

The same is with reviewers (most of the time). Someone who loves Mario reviews Mario. Same for Metal Gear Solid, or Halo, or any other series. Not everyone is fond of Halo, so they're going to pick a reviewer who likes the series quite a bit. Might he make the score too high? Maybe. But it's better than a supposedly "neutral" reviewer, because it's impossible not to have bias. And it's better than a reviewer who hates the series, for obvious reason.

In my opinion, an important question which demonstrates the flaw of the current review system (in particular aggregate reviews) is "How does a game that has an average score of 97.5% compare to a game that has an average score of 95%?" ... I realize that it is 2.5% more for one game but how is that a meaningful difference; the fact of the matter is they're both critically acclaimed games and if you enjoy the genre and have the opportunity to play these games you should play them.

Another important question is "Which is better a game that receives a score of 75% in a genre you like or a game that receives a score of 95% in a genre you dislike?"

The illusion of objectivity and precision in something that is as subjective and imprecise as a videogame review is what is causing the problem. A way to correct this (as I mentioned in another thread) is to change the scale to a much more imprecise scale which has much more qualitative terms greatly increases the ability to come to terms with these problems; consider the following scale:

Awful
Poor
Average
Good
Great

Many fanboys will be outraged that games like Metroid Prime 3, Super Mario Galaxy, Halo 3, Bioshock, Grand Theft Auto 4, Uncharted and Ratchet and Clank are all considered "Great Games" and they don't have a 2.5% to 5% lead to cause a pissing contest; but the benefit is that people will be much more likely to agree with the overall review because you're not arbitrarily trying to associate a number with how much you enjoyed a game ...

Now, how does this relate to the topic?

Grand Theft Auto 4 is a Great game, few people will argue that at all ... At the same time it is an evolutionary upgrade on an game that has been copied so many times it is becomming formulaic and tired; its no where nearly as bad as Madden yet, but it is still on the same road (and in many ways this is not Rockstar's fault). People do have problems proclaiming that Grand Theft Auto 4 is the "Greatest Game Ever" when there are so many other Great games that are not only well executed but are unique and fresh experiences, and it could be argued that GTA4's amazingly high reviews are related to review score inflation (if you've given 5 games 95% or more in the past 12 months, and now GTA4 is the best game you have seen in 24 months what score do you give it?).

 Not with all critics.  No they don't.  Plenty of food critics actually go to many different places.

Besides look at Ebert.  He sees EVERY movie.  As do pretty much every proffesional movie critic.  Are you saying that every movie critic loves every genre of movie? 

I didn't like the article either. Not because I am violently apposed to what RocketPig said, but as to why he said it.

His article, along with dozens of others, spawned from GTA getting a bunch of 10's from review sites. Virtually everyone across the board thinks the game is 9.5 material, but a 10 "shakes the foundation of gaming reviews". The difference between 9.5 and 10, is, well, .5. All of this because of .5?

So this game ranked higher then any other game in history. Who gives a rats ass? The fact that no matter what kind of gamer you are, you think a 9.5 is about right, proves it might be the best game of all time right there. Other games in the arena of perfect scores has demographic audiences that think they are meh. GTA4 doesn't. While a lot don't think it's a 10 game, across all demographics, every group thinks it's a great game. That I think is an accomplishment never before achieved, and should warrant some praise in its own right.

Anyway, I didn't post to defend GTA4, I posed because I disagree with RocketPig saying the review systems are broken because he didn't like the review. RocketPig will probably come back and talk about all the other reasons why he thinks the system is broken, and not equate it to this game, but in the end, that's what it really comes down to.

I whole hardly think that if you sat 100,000 random gamers down, and had them play any Tim Shafer game, and play GTA4, and then asked them what one of those games is more fun, you would get an overwhelmingly slanted number in favor of GTA4.

The state of gamers might be in question, but if the above statement is true (and I think it is), then the reviews are accurate, as all they are designed to do is help you determine what games are more fun, so you can better decide what to purchase.. They do that very well in the current system, and need no overhaul in my opinion.

Well, if they had a noticable bias, then they certainly wouldn't be good reviewers, would they?

I doubt that every critic sees every movie, although I suppose that the ones who can are the most successful and can get their name out more. Movies are a very diversified genre of art, and I think most movie reviewers are such avid fans of them that they can learn to love all genres.

This attitude is the problem. 

The solution to the problem of skewed reviews shouldn't be to stop caring about them, it should be to want them fixed.

How is that any different from videogames? Most movie critics may not see "EVERY" movie... but they reveiw every genre of movie. As do MOST food critics in my expierence.

While Videogame reviewers seem to be picked because they are fanboys.  Hell look at IGN who has to divide their cirtics by system.  A good reviwer should be sane enough to not be restricted to one system for fear of being biased against the other two. 

I just want to say that I find it hilarious now that it's happening to someone other than me

You have my sympathy, Rocketpig, all the sympathy I have to give.

yeah, reviewers are broken. But...what if some reviewer uses the 5-star scoring system? Is he not allowed to give 5 stars ever? I personally like the 5 star system with 0.5 intervals between stars, like Amazon's. It's simple. On the other hand IGN's system is just too wide, it's like 1-100 but with decimals, leaves too much room for ambiguity. Anyway, 10 seems too big a number to me. I like 5. To me the distance between 4.5 and 5 it's not as significant as the distance between 9.5 and 10. The latter since bigger. I don't know if I make any sense, it's a perception thing. 10 is so absolute. It's a cultural thing I guess. I like IMDB's 1-10 system though, without intervals. Another good way to score a review is using words, just like IGN does, but without the numbers. Mediocre, Bad, Decent, Average, Good, Great, and so on. This is also a good way to entice the readers to read your comment and not simply scroll down to look at a number, letter or star. But I guess the "reviewing community" has decided to use systems that are quantifiable or can be translated to numbers.