Shenmue explanation

We've recently done something at GameSpot that we feel deserves some explanation to our readers: We've changed the score of a game review. This isn't something that we do lightly, and we would be surprised if it came up as a topic internally even once a year. But when it does, it's something that we take very seriously.

Over the last month, there has been a lot of talk about our review of Shenmue. Some magazines referred to it as the best game ever. Others were more moderate in their approach. Our reviewer was clearly disappointed with it. Since the posting of the review, many of the editors on staff (including me) have played through the game to understand the different sides of the debate. While we all felt like the points raised in the review were perfectly valid and that the game's ambitious nature was undercut by several key problems, we came to the consensus recently that some of the component scores were too low. We then discussed this with the author, and came to an agreement on what changes should be made. We decided that the scores in the areas of gameplay, sound, and tilt were low by one point each, and altering them changed the overall score from a 6.8 to a 7.8. We feel this better demonstrates that the game possesses flaws that hold it back, but not so much as the previous score would imply. If you disagree in any way, I invite you to submit a reader review to the site for the game.

Happy holidays,

Joe Fielder
Site Director
http://www.gamespot.com