What about Uncharted? they aren't AAA games?

Going by metacritic ratings is terrible. If you do that, Super Mario Galaxy is supposedly the second best game ever and New Super Mario Bros. Wii doesn't even rank in the top ten for its own system. However, the vast majority of people are going to get a hell of a lot more enjoyment out of NSMBW. In five years people will remember SMG as a solid title to have sitting on the shelf but they'll still want to PLAY NSMBW. This caries over to others, too, like GTA4 which is supposedly the best game ever, yet most GTA fans I know don't think it's even the best in its series.

Really, review numbers are purely subjective, and are often influenced by cash flows rather than genuine quality. There have been reviewers that have even quit and made a big deal about it publicly when their editors force them to change reviews for games with large advertising budgets behind them like Kane and Lynch. These numbers speak almost nothing to actual quality, and there are many games from this gen not even on that list that blow all of those games away.

I for one think critics do a pretty good job taking in consideration most games these days.

There are just SO many games with SO many expectations and each is seen a dissapointment if it doesn't get 80+, 90+ etc.

Critics have so much to consider when writing reviews...things like platform its made for, other games of that type, is it moving the genre forward or just copying ideas by previous games...as well as each aspect fo the game like visuals, sound, gamplay, replay.

Just like everyone out there, I obviously disagree with some reviews. But I think about 75% of the time, most reviewers tend to "get it" when writing a review.

Unless the Reviewer is Hillary Goldstien over at IGN...he doesn't get it at all.

Assassins Creed 1 wasn't AAA?

hmm I always thought it was for some strange reason

I want colors!!!

People also need to stop hyping a game to the point where if it doesn't meet your every satisfaction that it will be an instantaneous failure.

I will use an example: Final Fantasy XIII. I have been a lurker for awhile and I noticed Darth seems to be the leader of the FF hype machine.

People need to read every interview, watch every trailer, and hype the thing to hell on forums but then when they actually get it, there is just no way that it can achieve the status that you wanted it to be.

I am positive FF13 will be my game of the generation, but people need to be more open minded about games and be open to change instead of clinging onto the past. Gaming will never advance if we do this. (The reason I know this is Final Fantasy always lures me into a trap of love.)

lol, see you are basing things on your personal opinion in games. A reviewer tends to be opinion neutral and needs to look at the game and what it offers from a critical perspective. Not all reviewers do this...but they really should. Its their job.

I for one did not like Fallout 3, but that is a AAA game if I've ever seen one. Production, innovation, visuals, sound...everything was pretty much top of the line for that genre in 2008. I am not the fan of the genre, but I see the games quailities.

Game like Halo 3 and Orange Box...these games offer more quality fun gameplay than 95% of other titles on the market. While it may not be your type of gameplay...for the gamers that like that type of game, there really was no better value for their dollar.

So you don't believe being riddled with bugs is a detractor?  Fallout 3 has a huge list of glicthes, and not just random freezes or odd graphic output but also physics-breaking issues that can cause stuff to fly that shouldn't or that can get your character stuck for no reason.  Fallout 3 is a very poor example of game programming, and if that's not call to knock it down a peg then you're basically saying whether or not it actually works as it's supposed to is irrelevant to the quality of the game.

Now I'm not saying a game should get bonus points for not having glitches, but a game shouldn't be treated as one of the best ever if it's relatively likely that a player will have their game interrupted multiple times by multiple different programming errors.

I experienced 1 glitch in Fallout 3 and I played the game for 100 hours.

The glitch was not gamebreaking, in fact it was VERY funny:

Boy stuck in the road.

I also experienced 1 glitch in Uncharted 2. Does that mean the game is glitchy ? Because I think it's not.

Of course there are quite a few glitches in Fallout 3, because it's a huge game, but chances are you won't even notice them and especially not more than 3 of them in one playthrough.

except the concept of AAA = metacritic > 90 is a relatively new concept localized to the press and for some reason this website and possibly a few others. I have plenty of reason to disagree with that concept.

here is a gamedev thread on the topic that is interesting. - http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=489423&forum_id=3&gforum_id=0

and another topic - http://www.troelsfolmann.com/blog/?p=30

and a definition - http://www.gamedev.net/dict/term.asp?TermID=1323

None of them point to critic ratings as the definition of AAA games. In fact, I think I'd be hard pressed to find a definition of AAA = Metacritic > 90 from any respectable dev/publisher.

Oh, and here is a quote from gamespot forums of all places