This conversation is getting really old. There are 3 main points I would like to make.
(1) Gamespot reviewers are not biased toward 360 or PS3. They are biased toward different aspects of games. The visual content in a game weighs heavier in their minds than it does in the reviews of most other websites. This is a fact. They nit-pik at tiny details, expecting a game to be a perfect experience. This is a fact. Knowing this about them, their bias toward visuals and online compatibility amounts to nothing more than personal preference. IGN has a tendency to give you an idea of what the overall gaming experience feels like regardless of some negatives that aren't obvious to the average gamer. Their reviewing style is more beneficial to wii owners, because gameplay and overall fun is more important to us than visuals or online options. Plainly stated: Different preferences in what they like. What you could argure is their attention to detail. i.e., how important is voice acting in Zelda when the gaming experience is outstanding? To most people, not important at all. To gamespot, the lack of it was significant enough to deduct from the score. Understanding that what they look for in games is not primarily what we as wii owners look for in games should be enough for us to stop having this conversation. Can you argue with you friend for not liking a great bowl of pasta when what he really likes is hamburgers and fries?
(2) Let's not sit here and pretend that wii games get the greatest amount of attention or hard work on the visual end. Mario Galaxy proved that impressive visuals are possible on wii. It also proved that everyone else has been slacking to various extents. Regardless of how happy we've been with our wii experience, we've all witnessed ported over games with choppy visuals or ridiculously inconsistent controls. And with mini-games being so popular on this console, there's starting to be a build up of repetitive content on the wii similar to the repetitive crapload of FPS on 360. So originality and creativite have to become more of a factor in their reviews or else everything would be considered good. And if you've checked the ratings on some of those games on the 360 boards, their whining about scores for their games too. All this to say that basically, developers have been getting away with half-assing it for a whole year. Instead of defending that, let's ask them to step it up a bit. They might not want to spend the money or time to make their games look like Mario Galaxy, but that doesn't mean they can't or that it wouldn't be worth it. But if we consumers continue to suck up their half-assed efforts and BS ports, then we're saying that top-notch potential isn't important to us either. We just want something to play.
(3) What we're really saying here is that we want the wii to have an awesome library so that we have some venom to spit in the face of the nay-sayers. And honestly, a little vindication would do us good since apparently we're all between the ages of 5 and 15 and don't know what good gaming is since we don't all own a 360 or PS3. But these reviews aren't going to shut up the wii haters. You've probably noticed the nay-sayers not being intensely impressed with Mario Galaxy's score. They'll just blow it off as "ok, that's one good game the system's got." There will honestly be nothing we can do to make someone else appreciate what the wii brings to gaming if they are closed minded idiots. And we honestly shouldn't try.
So yes, The 9.5 on Mario Galaxy felt great because it deserved a 9.5. It stepped up on all levels and delivered in ways other games hadn't. That's one way to look at it. You could also say that the wii has had 2 9.5 games (Zelda, Metroid) and that Mario is a 10+. Either way, there's some terrible inconsistency in the quality of games we're getting, and it's mostly due to a lack of good content from the third party publishers. Nintendo is always going to take care of home. But the rest of these guys are plugging the pipelines with 2nd and 3rd rate garbage and we're bagging on gamespot for calling a spade a spade.
Plus, the bias does give me a general idea of what to buy. I know that if a game scores 7.0-7.5 and up from GS, it's worth buying. A similar range for IGN would be 7.5-8.0 and up. And as plenty have noted, it's not like these scores stop the games from selling. Mario Party 8 and Wii Play have been Nintendo's biggest movers this year. The only reason these scores matter is for us the tell the others to shove it, and that's the same attitude that makes those guys fanboys. And we're not fanboys...are we?
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