Interesting. When there is a thread discussing reviews in general, or a thread discussing a high profile game that people like to trash, the general consensus here is: "It's a shame that review sites hand out 8s/9s/10s like candy to high profile games. It would be so much better if they stood up to the money/influence of publishers, used the whole numeric scale, and reserved high scores only for truly exceptional games ." Yet, here we are getting a lot of posts saying that Zelda should automatically get a high score simply because it's a high profile game. (Note, since no one has played the game yet, that is all the Zelda support comes down to at this time: people who believe that reviewers owe Zelda a better score simply because it is Zelda.)
Hmmm… maybe that explains why the GS score is an outlier -- GS is standing up against the big bad publishers who try to coerce high scores for their high profile games. What? No takers for the GS stands for the little man theory? Yeah, but you have to admit that if GS had given CODMW3 an outlier score of 7.5, that theory would definitely have had a lot more traction here.
Personally, I like when reviewers go against the crowd because it gives people a chance to show their true colors. If you say you believe that reviewers shouldn't hand out scores like candy, but it turns out that you only agree with that principle when it applies to games that you don't personally like – it definitely says something about your real stance on bias and subjectivity in review scores.
Solori
it's not a simple issue. It's not necessarily the same people complaining for one. And the issue seems to be less with GameSpot using the range of scores... and more with concerns about whether or not this is a fair read on a game... that is currently receiving much higher scores just about everywhere else, and being praised for a number of elements that GameSpot criticizes Skyward Sword for. It's a difficult thing to make sense of without the game to make sense of it. Speaking personally, I simply think there are some problems with GameSpot's idea of videogames being on a constant upward slope that leads them to be unhelpful for me in some purchasing decisions, and that inability to trust their read more fully makes this review... well, should I be more cautious about Skyward Sword or not? I don't know whether the flaws are real, or if it's part of a pattern that I have noticed with them that I very much do not like.
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