I find particularly the bolded ideas really interesting. The last 3 are really on to the point and useful for any gamers, whether fan or not that are interested. Technical merits needs a little clarification though I assume it mkeans graphics (down to the polygons), sound, music, VA's.

Art Direction is a tough one because 90% of the games out there give me no sense of artistry playing off the same images the 90 other carbon copies of the genre do. There are several exceptions, but it is typcally the niche and low budget titles that rely more on differentiating themselves and they often do so through great artistry. Most of the big budget games slap on the same high polygon realism and leave it at that.

let see if i can make sense.

I view this issue the same way we judge comedy vs drama. Drama gets all the awards, they usually get higher scores that any comedy. However, comedy usually are made with less money and takes in more money and i usually have more fun watching them. I still believe it's actually harder to make some one laugh than to get all dramatic, but critics always side on the dramatic side.
Although i love a movie like Crash which won all the big awards, i still had more fun with There's Something about Mary, which i watch everytime its on tv.

Meh... the gaming world needs less arbitrary scores in reviews.  Controls is a particularly stupid one.  Gee, let's compare a split-second control game like Super Smash Bros. Brawl to a move from choice to choice game like Fire Emblem for controls.  How do we do that?  Oh wait, we can't because it would make no sense.

Reviews need fewer bullshit numbers and more information about the game that is useful for people looking to buy/rent/avoid it.

The biggest problem with reviews is the morons who things its a great way to compare games across time. A review is only meant to indicate whether something is good or not, the review system for games does this so there's no fundamental problem.

Unfortunately there are some very stupid people out there who wish to compare reviews between games, which any review system is largely unable to do. Unfortunately those same stupid people are largely unable to understand how changing expectations dramatically effect one's ability to compare games.

"I'm really interested in your input guys, on what changes you think can help raise the review industry out of the cockroach infested scum-hole it is today?"

Fixing the mentality of gamers perhaps? We don't see this problem with movies because movie fans are generally more educated about the medium and what reviews mean. They don't care about the immediate reaction to a movie, they care about the legacy. Gamers care almost nothing for the legacy and almost everything about the immediate reaction, hence why they care for meaningless reviews that only seek to indicate whether something is good or not and never attempt to rationally order games from best to worst.

It's not stupid people, it's the view the review industry has setup for itself.  It doesn't matter how alike or unalike things may be, if you measure them on the same scales they will be compared.

Try again.

Personally, I thought Crash was trite, stereotypical, and about as nuanced as a sledgehammer going through a brick wall. The characters were cookie-cutter bullshit.

...

Unless you're talking about David Cronenberg's movie Crash, where people would get into car accidents to heighten their sexual experiences. That movie was completely, totally, 100% pure awesomeness.

The following does not really pertain to how to technically write a credible review. But it helps sustain journalistic integrity in the long run especially when your website becomes popular.

- Secure revenue sources other than game advertisement.

In Japan there used to be a good critical magazine that just did this - it had no game advertisement and relied solely on the sales of magazines for its revenue.

It seemed that the magazine was founded by editors and anonymous developers who were disgusted with existing popular magazines that heavily relied on PR money and therefore inflated scores to appease major publishers.

Due to its business model, the magazine was reasonably independent from publishers' influence peddling, if not entirely. It was not hesitant to piss off big names when they thought games were poorly made. Their harsh reviews sometimes angered gamers as well but that was OK because at least they seemed honest. In the Japanese game community where game reviews were almost synonymous with disguised advertisement, this kind of journalistic integrity was precious.

Unfortunately, the magazine was discontinued due to financial difficulties. On the Internet, I presume it is very difficult to succeed with a subscription-based model unless you have other things to offer (e.g. exclusive videos and interviews). After all, only few people are willing to pay just to read a review.

But this is certainly one thing to think about.

Happens very little in the movie industry and they use the same scales. The debates that gamers have over reviews is stupid, the fact that they continue ad nauseam is stupid. I can only conclude those involved are stupid.

Comparing games across time is stupid. The greater in the difference in release dates the more impossible the comparison. It quite simply does not make logical sense, to compare them indicates that one fails to understand this and therefore they must be stupid, or at least not particularly bright? End of story.

 Let me try to be more clear on this issue. The more promiscuous game reviewers rarelly hand out a 10. You don`t need more than 2 hands to count all the 10`s from big name sites or magazine - like EGM, 1up, Gamespot, IGN. I am not familiar with movie reviews, but I would bet all my VGchartz money that among movies with a 70 metascores there isn`t even a single 10 review. My point is that if you want to use a 10 point scale review system, then you must give 10`s every now and then. If 10`s were not taboo the highest rating would not be in the low 9`s. It is like a tourney where you can only go as high as 2nd place because there is always someone better than you or no one is "perfect". That "there is no perfect game vision" is part of the problem. Remember the GTA 4 scores? They make a lot of sense in a objective approach. All the other GTA`s (as shitty as they were) scored among 90 and 95. GTA 4 improved in almost every aspect (debatable I know, but driving/shooting is much tighter and the plot is better). So why can`t it score a 10? Simple, because these retarded reviewers have been telling us that there is no perfect game for decades. GTA 4 scoring so many 10`s is more of a insult to more revolutionary games deserving higher scores than a GTA 4 not deserving the score. When a 10 is so hard to achieve we end up with that insulting top 20 games of all time on gamerankings. How can the Orange box score higher than Half Life 2? I know it is the best bargain for a game you will ever have, but that would be as stupid as scoring the Star Wars first trilogy box higher than the original Star Wars. Another issue is that there are no games in the top 20 that came before 32 bit generation. Comparing to the movies reviews, it would be like LOR trilogy and X-men the Movie scoring higher than Citizen Kane, Godfather and Schindler list. That show us how far games are from being art ... at least from the gaming press perspective.

Somebody said GTA4 has 'oscar worthy dialogue'.....

Thats fricking insane. Of all the games to pick, the reviewer picks a game about drugs, pimps and rock and roll