myp wrote:
7/10 is meant to be above average. I'm sure that Eurogamer treat it as so.
Jonny, you've become used to 7/10 being average in most publications.
Na, I haven't! Eurogamer VERY rarely drop below a 7, and pretty much treat it as an average score, despite what their guide says. Also, they're inconsistent as absolute fuck.
Edit: The very fact that you and I have different interpretations of a Eurogamer 7 pretty much proves it. Their scores are worthless, and half of their review text is usually padded with unnecessary crap, with the first page of a two/three page review usually littered with a big monologue of bollocks, without even mentioning what the game is like to play for more than a paragraph in the middle. I'm all for entertaining reviews with jokes and interesting anecdotes, but not at the expense of actually reviewing the game. They write
generally about the game, throw in some ego-boosting personal rubbish and tack a score on the end. Usually.
These are the important games that could be hit or miss, and detail is required to let gamers decide whether or not to buy it. If a game is obviously complete dogshit or an absolutely awesome must, detail isn't required so much and a reviewer can loosen it up and let his/her personality shine through (see Amiga Power concept reviews, Rev Stu's more amusing game-slating reviews), but not with a game that could potentially be good or bad dependent on the type of gamer looking at buying it.
I'd like to add that the inFamous review doesn't generally follow this pattern, and in fact Bramwell very rarely does. He doesn't seem to be as self-indulgent as their freelancers, but that's probably because he's the site editor and already has enough ego massaging tokens.