Except Halo ODST does add stuff...

Like seriously though.... have you read movie criticisms or music criticisms or really any other form of crticism other then videogames?

You judge things critically based on what they set out to do.

Halo ODST was trying to be a summer blockbuster.  A Spinoff that promises to be... a spinoff a fun game that provides you with some new features and delivers the same great cotnent.

Bioshock promised to be a LOT more... and it didn't deliver on as much of what it promised to be.

You judge a game on what it pomises to be.

I could go on Metacritic and quote dozens of "discrepencies" where better movies were rated lower then crappy action blockbusters from the most well thought of movie reviewers in the industry.

I've never read it, But I can't respect a mahazine that gives halo 3 and GTA 4 a 10.

I agree with the OP. I buy EDGE regularly (imported) and it's the unique magazine I really trust and I feel worth reading (I don't know Eurogamer though). They talk with a mature perspective of the videogames and all the things involved with them. In any case, I don't think EDGE editors want us to buy games solely based on their reviews. We are supposed to be adults, and with our own thoughts (or at least the majority of us).

I think most of the EDGE hate comes from fanboys that can't stand how harsh EDGE reviewers can be. It's not a common magazine, a 7 given by EDGE means the game is a pretty decent one. They just don't let the hype or the graphics of a game to deviate their opinion of the real game. And yes, they analize the games based on what the game SHOULD be. I find this to be the better solution for analizing games, since when I buy a game, I buy it based on what I expect from it. For example:

I bought Bioshock. It's a very good game, yes. Great atmosphere and graphics. But at a certain point, the game started to be too repetitive and feel too streamlined. What's more, it has a very bad replayability (my personal point of view). It's a very good game, and I don't regret buying it, but certainly it's not that good. It's just another good shoter with new good ideas.

MGS4. I don't have a PS3, but some of my friends have it. I found the game to be very good, but hell, sometimes it's like watching a film. Too much videos. That's not fun (not for me).

Gears of War 2 and Killzone. 2.. Sure, they look truly great, but... do they last for long? Nope. Do they really innovate? Nope. So... they are very good games, with good graphics, but nothing new. You don't have to be innovative all the time, but hell, it's the same game you played before with better graphics... why should they deserve a 10?

Anyway, I don't want to start a flame war, but in the time I have been buying the magazine, It has been accused of being biased to the 3 companies, and thats a real good indicator that they are more or less objective. And another thing... If you like a game... does it really matter that it got a 6 in EDGE?

Great read. I'm a EDGE reader myself, and i find their reviews fair.

Then Fable should've gotten -45 %, same for Black & White...

If that's how it's done, i'll just tell friendly devs to make the promise "you'll be able to walk... while shooting!" ... definite 45/10 then when it delivers more... Basing it on what it promises is NOT the premisse on which you build a review.

Because they use a scale that makes sense when nobody else's does. So, an Edge 7 is seen as "This game sucks, don't buy it", while it's actually more of a "this is very good, give it a try if it interests you".

They also have some very controversial opinions. Halo 3 is a 10, but BioShock is a 7?

Their text reviews are very good. But they just pick the number out of nowhere. This being the internet, people only care about the number. So, people hate them.

So out of curiosity, why exactly are those "inconsistent"

- different reviewer

- different genre?

- different reasons?

-different opinion

This is what kills me about when people attack certain review sites. It's basically using the grounds of their opinion being superior to the reviewer. Yeah, they gave Bioshock a 7. They gave Halo 3 a 10 and Oblivion 8. Do you know what's interesting about those scores? They correspond to how well those respective games sold. So yes, maybe it seems off to the average gamer that feels Bioshock is a masterpiece of the last  ten years and that Halo is a bunch of overrated garbage, however at the end of  the day, maybe there's something to their madness.

So you don't respect 90 percent of magazines published. Got it.

I don't really agree with the statement that they just pcik the number out of nowhere, but the rest is spot on, people only care about the number at the end. There has been discussions for years whether the magazine should only do reviews with no scores, and that is not a bad idea.

But the main thing is that their scores are where they should be but where most aren't, as you say a 7 is considered crap everywhere else but in EDGE that means it is a good game. As it should be, it is a 7 out of ten! I'm not sure about the english term, but the score curve should have a big bump on it between 3 and 7 (or 4 and 6), not on the 7-9 range.

I'm an Edge subscriber, and I really like the magazine. There's great content in there, and the reviews are usually very well written and reasonable, even if I don't always agree with exactly what they say.

Also, I don't attach much importance to the number at the end of a review. It's the actual review that's important. The text explaining their analysis of the game is much more informative than whatever number is at the bottom of the review and put up on Metacritic. But Kantor has it right with regards to people only caring about the number attached to the review, which as far as I'm concerned, is very stupid. Shouldn't we be able to talk more intelligently about how good or bad a game is, rather than arguing about what numerical value it deserves? Surely we should be able to talk about pros and cons for any given game we play, analyse games clearly and constructively, rather than kick up a fuss because our favourite game didn't get the number we want to see.