Edge needs to stop scoring their reviews, the numbers are completly pointless. When you actually read their reviews you see that they make a lot more sence than a simple scoring system out of ten. The reviews are too complex to be scored like that, i'd rather they wern't at all. All they do is give EDGE a bad name.

This review is a few weeks old.

I don't like Edge...

If Edge has such a "bad" reviewing reputation, why ppl trust their scoring system? I mean Edge is very respected... right?

I think IGN appears to be most biased by the charts in favour of PS3 and Wii... That's the problem with charts...  You can read what you want to read into them...

I pointed out Fallout 3 because it is a WRPG.  And you said they favour them.  But the evidence appears contrary based on Mass Effect and Fallout 3 scores.

I think Edge favours good multi-player games that have solid campaigns.  They hammer games that don't have both.  To me, a game should be rated based on what is in the box.  If there is no multi-player it should not be slagged for not having it.  But, Edge consistently hammers games that lack multi-player (for the most part).

^this

Well, 9/10 is pretty good. This still doesn't change anything about the Edge bias. If I'm not mistaken, liking a game= good score reagrdless. They gave SSBM a 6/10, MGS4 an 8, and, this really hurt me, 7/10 for Valkyria Chronicles...

My 10 year-old son has about the same review ranking system (for movies) as most game review sites: It has to be total crap to get less than 8/10.

This makes review sites that really do use a 1-10 scale look like they are reveiwing games poorly.

Personally I blame gamers who these days tend to refuse to consider playing games that rate below 8.5, and in some cases will only go for the AAA's.

A game that rates a 7.5/10 should still be well worth playing to the vast majority of gamers. But a 7.5 is an epic fail for a major title and spells certain doom in the sales department. Heck there's probably a few games that have rated at 6 or below that I've spent as much time playing (and enjoying) as some of those AAA titles everyone raves about.

I've personally only rated 2 or 3 movies above 9 out of the hundreds of movies I've seen. I'm inclined to take the same approach to games. I don't think I've played a game this gen that I'd give a 9+ to, and that included Valkyria Chronicles, which I reallly really love (8.9 from me) and is GOTG so far for me.

A 9 should be bloody hard to get, and a 10 should be a once in a generation thing (for each console).

That said I still like seeing my fave games getting 9+'s. So I guess I'm still part of the problem.

Back when games were much smaller and many were made by a few guys in a garage, I think it was more legit for many games to get lower scores (or just to be held in lower regard...look at many Atari and older games, even some NES games).  Some were great, and deserving of high marks, obviously. 

Today with massive budgets and huge teams of developers, games get much more attention in terms of man-hours than they did previously.  When a crap game comes out, it still gets hammered by reviews.  But games generally take a LOT more effort nowadays than they did back in the day (even a generation or two ago).  They're a much more robust and polished experience, and I think that this, to some degree, justifies a higher average score.  They're just a bigger achievement.  Have a few dudes code up a simple downloadable game in a garage today, and maybe it'll work brilliantly and get a great score, or maybe (more likely) it'll be savaged with a very low score.  Because it's crap.

Now, we can't go in the direction of upward ratings forever, obviously.  I think the whole rating system completely jumped the shark with the release of GTA IV (if that's a 10, I'm a fucking oompa-loompa).  Still, I think the difference in games over time justifies some of the difference in scores.