Support NeoGAF

[thelastword]

It has enough steps to give a decently nuanced take on the game's worth without adding a bunch of extra scale that is never used.

Basically:

5/A - Exceptional
4/B - Above average
3/C - Average
4/D - Below average
1/F - Terrible

If a reviewer is dead set on attaching a score to a review then it's the most efficient way to do so.

EDIT:

I loved that system, that's gamepro right? Bought so many of their magazines.

 

[soultron]

Review scores or no, the amount of backlash over differing opinions in reviews is becoming so embarrassing.

Right now, every major AAA release follows the same pattern on social media and here on GAF:

Review thread/discussions goes on for 100s of pages/posts because people need to bash or defend the game based on their respective stake in it.
Review backlash spawns several kneejerk "this is what's wrong with the industry" threads/posts before that person has even had a chance to play the game.

This happens all the time and it clogs up the front page of GAF every time there's a new release. Can't stand it, especially as someone who never has a horse in either race, for or against any one game.

 

[Cornbread78]

can you back that up?

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Pu...y-Influenced-By-Trips-Parties-Swag-48395.html

without digging..


also, I can't watch at work, but I'm sure it's relavent...

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/reality-check-paid-reviews-conspiracy/2300-6416381/

 

[Orayn]

Yeah, it's a tricky issue - but I think the fact that you use Consumer Reports as an example highlights the difficulty with scores: they're consumer advice, not criticism. So it depends on what you want from a review: a guide to whether or not to buy a game; or a discussion of the game as a game.

One of the big problems with review scores is that most reviewers don't really give any indication whether they're coming at the game from an angle of criticizing a work of art or reviewing the features/functionality/value of a product. By the nature of the medium, those aspects are almost always going to intermingle and complicate things.

 

[plagiarize]

I have been on the 'no scores' train for a while. I see no reason to get off it. It's not a recent feeling. It's one I had even when I wrote game reviews, because they were so arbitrary and so often taken without the context of the accompanying text.

Scores are dumb. I hope we continue moving away from them.

 

[mclem]

The problem I'm noticing with them of late is the fact that unlike all the other mediums that use review scores, there's an element that simply isn't possible for a reviewer to take into account:

The player

Unlike passive mediums, the player is an active component in the game. It's their skill, their comprehension, that absolutely will determine how they enjoy something. And the game is different depending on who's playing it. Hand Bayonetta to Kamiya and you'll see high-class awesome play. Hand it to me and you'll see someone struggle through fights with barely adequate performance, and little comprehension of quite how everything strings together. He would understand it on a different level to me, and his scoring of the game would probably be different from mine. And that's fine, but it means his score is useless to me.

So: I would argue that games are more subjective than passive mediums, because what you get out of them is very dependent on what you put into them, and that depends on your understanding of who you are. No reviewer can tell you that. What they can tell you is how they enjoyed it, and for that to be useful information to you it needs to detail what they liked, what they disliked, so you can compare that with your own personal preferences; maybe what they disliked isn't something that's a problem for you ("Puzzles too hard? Great! I hate when puzzles are too easy!"). That's not conveyed in a score.

 

[Aquamarine]

Discourse would be a lot healthier if websites collectively decided to do away with review scores and just keep the written review.

They encourage knee-jerk, low-quality shit posts / reactions.

 

[Korigama]

The actual content of a review is more important than an arbitrary point value. A scale as simple as "buy, rent, pass" is far more direct, and useful, as an overall evaluation. The veneration for Metacritic is one of the worst things to happen to both the industry and the medium itself.

 

[MrCunningham]

A five point scale is the only one that works.

I will either accept this or a return of the classic Game Pro scoring system:

which in itself is just a five point scoring system (well 9, when you include .5's)

If a reviewer is dead set on attaching a score to a review then it's the most efficient way to do so.

EDIT:

Already beaten. But yeah, pretty much this.

I also think a multi-point review system is a good way to go as well, like the old three point reviews that some gaming magazines used to have.

 

[phanphare]

In fact the hate should not against the score method or Metacritic that are just neutral tools, but against INCORRECT scores, therefore against inept/corrupted/whatever reviewers.

Lots of people hate Metacritic but they don't seem to understand that Metacritic doesn't make averages on its own, its averages are based on reviews' scores, bad averages are reviews' fault(->reviewer's fault), not Metacritic's.

what constitutes an incorrect score though? I think even humoring the notion that a review can be incorrect is horribly flawed and would open up a can of worms that I'm not sure our industry as a whole would be able to handle properly. obviously if a reviewer is found to have been paid off or something of that nature it should be dealt with accordingly but that's about the extent of that.

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Pu...y-Influenced-By-Trips-Parties-Swag-48395.html

without digging..

can't watch the second link, I'm at work also

but I think the first link is more of an example for the evolving of how the game's media functions. for this instance in particular it brings up the issue of full disclosure and honestly the hiring tendencies of these companies. I don't think these types of pre-release events will go away (and honestly I doubt they should) but the transparency about them needs some work and also it's on these companies to hire their employees accordingly. as much as these sites sometimes get trashed the people that work there are professionals. if they can't handle going to these events while also properly critiquing the game then maybe they shouldn't be handling reviews.

 

[DataGhost]

Some people are going to use them to judge a game while others won't.

I'm one of the few who use it to judge a game because then I would have missed lots of hidden gems.

 

[somuchwater]

One of the big problems with review scores is that most reviewers don't really give any indication whether they're coming at the game from an angle of criticizing a work of art or reviewing the features/functionality/value of a product. By the nature of the medium, those aspects are almost always going to intermingle and complicate things.

True - I'd just rather have them be a bit more separate: i.e. just straight up discussions of whether or not you should buy the game vs. criticism. Those two dimensions will always intermingle, but the job of the reviewer or critic should be to separate them as much as possible. That might be a bit naive though.

 

[More_Badass]

when you start seeing tweets like this from first party developers

What a ridiculous comment. It's called an opinion. You might think it's a 9/10, someone else a 6/10 or 3/10. And you know? All those opinions are valid and correct, because that's what the individual believes.

Just because you believe a game isn't a 6/10 doesn't mean you can dictate what others think of the game

 

[antitrop]

Discourse would be a lot healthier if websites collectively decided to do away with review scores and just keep the written review.

They encourage knee-jerk, low-quality shit posts / reactions.

As far as I'm aware, The Oscars didn't assign any numerical scores to any films, and I still saw tons of knee-jerk, low-quality shit reactions from people upset that their favorite film didn't win the award they wanted it to.

People like to have their opinions validated, and it's going to take a lot more than just getting rid of a digit to curb that. Getting rid of review scores is a band-aid on the human condition.

 

[Natureboy99]

In theory they are good. In practice they are too corruptible, written by immature people with idiotic ideas of what criticism is. Thus, the whole system is broken. Metacritic is just an aggregate of the broken system, that forces devs to make games that are not fun but review well.

 

[Oneself]

can you back that up?

See the Gamespot vs Kane & Lynch fiasco. It's a very small example, it's handled in different ways (gift to reviewers, privileges, review exclusivity etc), but you should know it exists (and has existed for years) in most types of entertainment & other industries.

Edit: and now they are paying youtube users just to make sure the word is good out there.

 

[2+2=5]

what constitutes an incorrect score though? I think even humoring the notion that a review can be incorrect is horribly flawed and would open up a can of worms that I'm not sure our industry as a whole would be able to handle properly. obviously if a reviewer is found to have been paid off or something of that nature it should be dealt with accordingly but that's about the extent of that.

I think that some "skewed" reviews scores are natural, after all we are not all equal, but if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong(=it's different from what the majority of gamers think) then it means that most of the reviews' scores are incorrect.

 

[antitrop]

See the Gamespot vs Kane & Lynch fiasco. It's a very small example, it's handled in different ways (gift to reviewers, privileges, review exclusivity etc), but you should know it exists (and has existed for years) in most types of entertainment & other industries.

Everyone knows about GerstmannGate, by now. It's also not a good story of corruption in the games media, more of a good story about a CEO that had no idea what he was doing.

 

[Aquamarine]

As far as I'm aware, The Oscars didn't assign any numerical scores to any films, and I still saw tons of knee-jerk, low-quality shit reactions from people upset that their favorite film didn't win the award they wanted it to.

People like to have their opinions validated, and it's going to take a lot more than just getting rid of a digit to curb that.

You can't compare the two like that because The Oscars is a competition with winners and losers.

Mass public reviews aren't a competition as-is.

If there were no major websites that bothered with scores, people would be forced to---in every instance---read the content of the review before forming an opinion.

The very nature of having a good 3 minute delay between when you open a review and when you write a post on NeoGAF would stop a lot of the nonsense.


"5.5/10? ORDER 1886 BOMBA LOL"

vs.

"So it looked like from their review GameSpot didn't really enjoy The Order 1886 because it had little substance behind the pretty graphics and they're tired of cinematic-focused games. I disagree with their review because XYZ"

 

[More_Badass]

I think that some "skewed" reviews scores are natural, after all we are not all equal, but if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong(=it's different from what the majority of gamers think) then it means that most of the reviews' scores are incorrect.

Nah, it just means that the reviewers had different opinions and expectations. The scores aren't incorrect

 

[Orayn]

I think that some "skewed" reviews scores are natural, after all we are not all equal, but if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong(=it's different from what the majority of gamers think) then it means that most of the reviews' scores are incorrect.

The problem is, how do you quantify this? How far away does a review have to be from the "gamer consensus" to be considered wrong? It gets to the point where I really don't see what you can even gain from defining review scores as "wrong" or "incorrect." Just say that there was a different of opinion between the press and consumers.

 

[Seik]

A five point scale is the only one that works.

I agree, GamePro was the shit.

 

[thefil]

Scores serve a purpose. When reviews are going to factor into my decision to play a game or not, it's valuable to be able to identify at a glance what direction each review is going to go. Then I can select reviews on the extremes and see what a person who likes the game thinks, and what a person who dislikes the game thinks. If the positive writer comes at it from a perspective that seems most like my own, I'll probably like the game.

*edit* I am a fan of Eurogamers non-interval four point scale. It is still a score, there is just no expectation of uniform distribution. I don't like overly-specific 10-100 point scales. Buy/rent/pass scales are problematic because they assume loads about the reader's financial status.

 

[antitrop]

If there were no major websites that bothered with scores, people would be forced to---in every instance---read the content of the review before forming an opinion.

The very nature of having a good 3 minute delay between when you open a review and when you write a post on NeoGAF would stop a lot of the nonsense.

I think you're overoptimistic about people changing ingrained behavior so easily. If people want to write shitty, knee-jerk reactions just to be cynical, they will just pull a sentence out of context from the first paragraph and go off that, if there is no score to easily call out. That's actually less work than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the score.

Shitheads will find ways to be shitheads. The solution is to get rid of them entirely, not just temporarily disarm them.

 

[ghst]

what a petulant clown. remember this next time you argue till you're blue in the face that we should take a first party dev's word at face value.

 

[phanphare]

I think that some "skewed" reviews scores are natural, after all we are not all equal, but if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong(=it's different from what the majority of gamers think) then it means that most of the reviews' scores are incorrect.

saying something like "if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong" is not a road I'm keen to go down. I think the Metacritic average being off from what gamers think is exactly what it signifies, that gamers liked a game more than critics. I do not think that justifies review scores being labeled as "wrong".

 

[Aquamarine]

I think you're overoptimistic about people changing ingrained behavior so easily. If people want to write shitty, knee-jerk reactions just to be cynical, they will just pull a sentence out of context from the first paragraph and go off that, if there is no score to easily call out. That's actually less work than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the score.

Shitheads will find ways to be shitheads.

The point is...it would get some people to stop and think for a moment.

Pulling one sentence out of the review doesn't have nearly the same impact as a catch-all "5.5 / 10."

If you weave your opinion in the actual content people have a greater propensity to read through as opposed to scrolling past everything and reading the score.

That's the difference. I have no doubt that there will continue to be shitposts...but if it can get some people to actually stop and read and think before posting, it's better than the status quo.

 

[flatearthpandas]

The backlash is indicative of the immaturity of the gaming community, not anything inherently wrong with scoring products.

Metacritic, like any other tool, can be used and misused. There's no inherent flaw in it, just as there is nothing inherent to any specific review that should require anyone to read it in order to get an impression of the reviewers opinion. Ain't nobody got time for that shit on a large scale and Metacritic exists to give us the largest picture of impressions available.

 

[antitrop]

I do not think that justifies review scores being labeled as "wrong".

No, not "wrong", but perhaps sometimes misguided and unrelatable to the general public.

I don't care about scores, though, I do read the review texts. When I criticize a review, I rarely just attack the score.

 

[Kacho]

I think Metacritic is corrupt

How exactly is Metacritic corrupt though? It's simply a website that gathers reviews from around the web and then provides an average score based on that.

 

[Chû Totoro]

I'm ok with it but I prefer to read reviews and watch some gameplay to make my own opinion. If you're doing this and if you know a little the site/person you're reading the review from then it can almost be any scale (or not score at all).

Now I don't really like big sites because they tend to make a lot of hype while trying to get views or clicks and I don't want EA, Ubi or anyone telling me that their game is awesome because "insert site quote or score here".

It's the same for movies when I see quotes from papers or sites on a movie ad it just doesn't make me want to see it. I just think that it was made in the first place to please a certain type of public (biggest possible) and even if I understand that it's a business I still think that it shouldn't be the motivation that initiate the stories or concepts behind these.

List ideas and all, pick the ones you think are the best for both their qualities and the success they may encounter. Don't start with "let's make something that sells".

It's the best way to do sh*t.

So at the end OP, ok to keep scores but I'm glad end of 2014 made gaming press evolve a little to focus on what they're here for (clue : they're not here to make hype).

 

[More_Badass]

yeah you really missed the point of why I found that tweet troubling.

I was commenting on the tweet itself, not your comment about the tweet

 

[CambriaRising]

How exactly is Metacritic corrupt though? It's simply a website that gathers reviews from around the web and then provides an average score based on that.

That's not exactly how it does it. They use a weighted scale.

 

[phanphare]

I was commenting on the tweet itself, not your comment about the tweet

hahaha damn, I'm out of it today. will edit. (and go get some lunch so my brain can function properly)

 

[Orayn]

No, but perhaps sometimes misguided and unrelatable to the general public.

Yeah, there are definitely cases where there's a disconnect in how the games were received by different groups, but that doesn't make any of them "wrong," as that would imply that there's a "right" take on the game.

Spoiler

There's really not. Subjectivity will always win out and even the most awful, vile game will inevitably have someone who can formulate an eloquent, persuasive explanation for why they like it.

 

[Neoweee]

It has enough steps to give a decently nuanced take on the game's worth without adding a bunch of extra scale that is never used.

Basically:

5/A - Exceptional
4/B - Above average
3/C - Average
4/D - Below average
1/F - Terrible

If a reviewer is dead set on attaching a score to a review then it's the most efficient way to do so.

EDIT:

What does "Average" even mean? Who actually plays enough appropriately-sampled games (i.e. without the giant bias of playing games from major publishers, or games that have positive word of mouth) to have a good impression of what average is?

 

[2+2=5]

Nah, it just means that the reviewers had different opinions and expectations. The scores aren't incorrect

The problem is, how do you quantify this? How far away does a review have to be from the "gamer consensus" to be considered wrong? It gets to the point where I really don't see what you can even gain from defining review scores as "wrong" or "incorrect." Just say that there was a different of opinion between the press and consumers.

saying something like "if the Metacritic average is clearly wrong" is not a road I'm keen to go down. I think the Metacritic average being off from what gamers think is exactly what it signifies, that gamers liked a game more than critics. I do not think that justifies review scores being labeled as "wrong".

That kills the purpose of the reviews though, gamers reads reviews to understand if they may like a game or not, if reviewers don't write for people who they write for? For Themselves? For publishers? For who?

 

[plagiarize]

I think you're overoptimistic about people changing ingrained behavior so easily. If people want to write shitty, knee-jerk reactions just to be cynical, they will just pull a sentence out of context from the first paragraph and go off that, if there is no score to easily call out. That's actually less work than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the score.

Shitheads will find ways to be shitheads. The solution is to get rid of them entirely, not just temporarily disarm them.

And how exactly do we achieve that? Dropping scores can *help*. It won't solve everything, of course not, but people are getting really upset about something totally arbitrary and unnecessary.

How often have you seen someone say '8? How the fuck have they given this an 8? This review reads like at least a 9.'

At the very least that specific and very stupid complaint would be gone.

 

[Heigic]

A 5 star system with no half star bullshit is the only system I like.

 

[flatearthpandas]

That kills the purpose of the reviews though, gamers reads reviews to understand if they may like a game or not, if reviewers don't write for people who they write for? For Themselves? For publishers? For who?

They can't give you your opinion on a game. They can only give you their opinions.

 

[I Wanna Be The Guy]

when you start seeing tweets like this from first party developers

yeah...I think the backlash against reviews has jumped the shark big time.

I certainly don't want to see the industry do away with review scores or see publishers only giving copies of a game to sites that will give it a good score.


honestly what needs to change in regards to reviews is mostly on the gamer side of things. some people see scores that are low and go straight for the pitchforks, regardless of the actual content of the review itself. maybe if gamers would start treating reviews like they should be treated, someone's personal critique of a game, these problems would start to go away.

There's no way those are real.

 

[antitrop]

And how exactly do we achieve that? Dropping scores can *help*. It won't solve everything, of course not, but people are getting really upset about something totally arbitrary and unnecessary.

How often have you seen someone say '8? How the fuck have they given this an 8? This review reads like at least a 9.'

At the very least that specific and very stupid complaint would be gone.

If there was no score to complain about, they could just write "this review sucks", as easily. Removing scores won't stop shitposting. I think having a strict moderation policy (not just NeoGAF, but any reviews comments section anywhere on the net) is really the only possible solution, but that's obviously a lot of work.

 

[Opinionatedfish]

Reviews have always been a bit of a sore spot with me, until I came up with this formula.. after... years of tweaking it around.

This is what I use to establish a score on my own site. The score system is essentially 3/4ths objective standards based on the system it is on and then the last 1/4th is opinion based. It's based on stars and then eventually produces a percentage number followed by a letter score. It's also intended to prevent a perfect score (S Rank) from every subjectively or objectively happening.

Gameplay: 1 to 5 stars (Fun, interesting?)
Graphics: 1 to 5 stars (Good use of power?)
Sound/Music: 1 to 5 stars (Composed well? Appropriate?)
Play Control/Game Design: 1 to 5 stars (Responsive, well-planned?)
Value: 1 to 5 stars (Worth buying at the price it originally launched?)

Star Total: Add up the stars; they should equal a number between 0 and 25.
Now multiply that number by 3. This should give you a score anywhere from 0 to 75. Add a % to it for the Star Score.

Personal Opinion Merit: Anywhere from 0 to 25. Add a % to it and that is the Merit Score.
Add the Star Score and Merit Score together for the final % score.

Final Score: % (Note on scores: 0 to 50 is F, 51 to 60 D, 61 to 70 C, 71 to 80 B, 81 to 97 A 98 to 100 S. There are no plus/minus modifiers.)
Letter Grade: F to S

The letter ratings are weighed in a way that it's easy for a game to be technically well made and achieve a B or A rating, while being something the reviewer did not subjectively enjoy. It's based off of how they rank routines in recitals to prevent a judge from discounting something due to not liking the genre of music. The number % is where readers are expected to look and the letter score is to make publishers feel more confident about the developers. This way, the score rewards talent, even if the game reviewer may not particularly enjoy the genre of game title.

Under this formula, a game that has amazing music and graphics, but utterly fails in everything else could still end up with a D, or even a C. Both of which don't penalize it too harshly. An actually fun game that is technically below average could still end up with a B rating. An S rating in this system has such a small margin to work with that it is almost impossible for a game to achieve. Under the old system, there were too many "perfect" games on my site and the new system has eliminated that from happening.

But that's my take on it. I think the issue is that review scores need to be rebalanced or even semi universal.

The issue is that there are so many different types of reviews styles and scores. Now, when money is tied into review scores... that's unfortunate. The money should be tied into sales thresholds, especially since the rise of digital distribution means that it's not supply constrained anymore. So, the more paid sales you make, the more of a bonus gets kicked in through the contract.

Also, I think the real issue is that people don't take the time to validate and explain a review score thanks to a tl;dr culture.

tl;dr: Review scores should be rebalanced to avoid unfairly punishing developers.

 

[More_Badass]

That's kills the purpose of the reviews though, gamers reads reviews to understand if they may like a game or not, if reviewers don't write for people who they write for? For Themselves? For publishers? For who?

Why should they write "for the people"? Yes, they're writing about games so people can learn about said game, but it's still the reviewer's personal opinion about the game. If the critical reception and the public reception don't match, it doesn't meant the critics are wrong. It means that people view things from different perspectives, different expectations, etc. thus how one group might react to something, others might react differently

 

[Orayn]

That kills the purpose of the reviews though, gamers reads reviews to understand if they may like a game or not, if reviewers don't write for people who they write for? For Themselves? For publishers? For who?

They write them as a comprehensive explanation of their take on a game: What they saw as its faults, its strengths, and so on. What they say may resonate strongly with some consumers and make no sense to others, but there's really no way around that.

I mean, do you think reviews should be written as a best guess of how the reviewer thinks the general gaming populace will receive a game? I just think that sounds really contrived and not particularly helpful.

 

[Caronte]

The problem here is not the scores, but the power game publishers have on gaming journalism. 'Give my game a bad score and I won't send you review copies anymore'. That's just wrong. I don't understand why is this a thing. Music is basically dominated by 3 companies and this doesn't happen. Why does it happen in gaming?

 

[Dargor]

I think the biggest issue people had and also the biggest cause for the amount of backlash reviews and reviewers are getting right now is that for a long time the metric (1 to 10) was incredibly misused.

They got people used to 7 being an average game. In fact, if a game received less than 7 it was considered a failure. A bad game. Thats the entire fault of the reviewers.

In this generation they are trying to use the whole metric, which is the right thing to do. A 5 is an average game. Thats the logic. But people are so used with 7s, 8s, 9s and 10s being thrown around that its going to take a while for them to adapt.

Reviewers should, and I think they are doing it already, is just keep using the 1 to 10 metric in its entirety and people will get used to it in time. Just hope they have the guts to do it for the big games, too. If the Halos, FFs, GTAs etc, get their normal torrent of 10s, I think they will have an even bigger problem in the future. I'm saying that based on their previous analysis of FFXIII and Halo 4, etc. Those games didn't deserve such high scores, specially FFXIII.

 

[antitrop]

I mean, do you think reviews should be written as a best guess of how the reviewer thinks the general gaming populace will receive a game? I just think that sounds really contrived and not particularly helpful.

I think many already are. It's been a problem I've had with game reviews for a loooooooong time.

Some reviewers clearly did not like Call of Duty: Ghosts, at all, but were still apprehensive to give it "low" reviews, because it's Call of Duty...

 

[gamechanger87]

when you start seeing tweets like this from first party developers

yeah...I think the backlash against reviews has jumped the shark big time.

I certainly don't want to see the industry do away with review scores or see publishers only giving copies of a game to sites that will give it a good score.


honestly what needs to change in regards to reviews is mostly on the gamer side of things. some people see scores that are low and go straight for the pitchforks, regardless of the actual content of the review itself. maybe if gamers would start treating reviews like they should be treated, someone's personal critique of a game, these problems would start to go away.

These tweets (now deleted) blow my mind. Seriously threatening to pull ads and review copies from reviewers because you don't agree with their review? They are opinions of the reviewer, you can't threaten them to get your score.

 

[Ominym]

This might be asking a bit much, but people sincerely need to grow the fuck up and realize that while any reviewer may be paid for their opinion? It's still just an opinion, and opinions are allowed to be different. You should not seek validation via review scores either. The fact we even have "backlash" at opinions of ratings of video games is pathetic and it clearly showcases that there's more wrong with the people getting upset about it in the first place rather than the reviewers in question. Ultimately, it more than likely boils down to an issue of culture on the Internet that considers everything either the best-thing-ever or the worst-thing-ever with no chance for anything in between. A problematic hyperbolic cycle that is only making us more gullible and less critical consumers.

Oddly enough, this behavior is in my experience mostly isolated to video games as a medium. It's one of the only places where you see people building up massive senses of investment in something prior to experiencing it and then struggling to accept when it doesn't match expectations; in some cases going as far as developing and claiming vast conspiracies rather than admit to some simple cognitive dissonance. Far to often on GAF, for example, you'll see people with the game in question as their avatar balking at review scores both before and after release. Seemingly unaware of how biased they appear and most likely are.

That said? Reviewers need to gain significantly more confidence and stick by their choices. If you think a game is bad? Then call it bad. Stop being so fearful of your audience that you feel the need to pander to them. Also worth mentioning is that reviewers must, and I mean absolutely must start using the whole scale rather than the standard "six is dog-shit, eight is okay, 10 is OMGGOTY". Personally, I prefer the five point scale and I think that .1 variations need to go. A five point scale with no points in between consistently forces tough decisions to be made, and it ultimately leads to (I feel) more objective analysis.