Professional reviews should be taken with a grain of salt, and the 'rating' system in any form needs to be abolished.
I've always trusted the text over the numbers- there's a reason these guys write hundreds to thousands of words to go with those little numbers- but even then sometimes the critic gets lost- and doubly so for bigger publications like IGN and 1-Up/EGM. Writers get to review what they're assigned, and while sometimes it works out, sometimes the sports guy gets stuck with an RPG during the off-season, and suddenly you've got a guy telling people who are there to see if this game's the next big thing in their genre 'this is the kind of game that should have died years ago' to their shock and horror.
IGN in particular is rife with examples of some real professional-grade stupidity, and as a site should only be perused to see how NOT to be professional and informative about what they're writing about. From their 7 to 10 review scale (seriously, it takes a real stinker or extremely niche title to get anything less) to their ridiculous arrogance towards readers and their own critics alike, but the most famous would be Okami- a game where both the written and video review spend so much time beating on the game because it's not Zelda that you'd never realize that it not only didn't suck, it got a glowing recommendation in the last paragraph/15 seconds of the video, and would go on to BEAT ZELDA for IGN's Game of the Year award. Er, whoops? IGN isn't even aware of it's own foolish self-importance, as they've apparently even called out Gabe from Penny Arcade on a podcast for talking smack about a review (that turned out not even to be theirs, much to their chagrin) because he's 'just an comic artist.'
Generally, the bigger the game, and the bigger the reviewer, the more wary you should be about it.
(On the main topic itself, the problem with the 'perfect game' is that it eventually ends. And you can only replay even the perfect game so many times before wanting something new- ennui sets in and suddenly you're less excited your eighth time through compared to your first. Plus, different strokes for different folks. Up until Super Mario Galaxy (which I'm guessing is getting points added to it's score for making the Wii worth having for the first time in nine months) the best-reviewed game of all time is Zelda:OoT, which to this date remains my personal least favorite installment of the series. (Barring Zelda II) I think my first comment when I learned exactly how universally loved that game is was something along the lines of "What? Really? You mean some people DID like it more then Link to the Past? MOST did? ... wierd." It was a Twilight Zone moment.
I've always trusted the text over the numbers- there's a reason these guys write hundreds to thousands of words to go with those little numbers- but even then sometimes the critic gets lost- and doubly so for bigger publications like IGN and 1-Up/EGM. Writers get to review what they're assigned, and while sometimes it works out, sometimes the sports guy gets stuck with an RPG during the off-season, and suddenly you've got a guy telling people who are there to see if this game's the next big thing in their genre 'this is the kind of game that should have died years ago' to their shock and horror.
IGN in particular is rife with examples of some real professional-grade stupidity, and as a site should only be perused to see how NOT to be professional and informative about what they're writing about. From their 7 to 10 review scale (seriously, it takes a real stinker or extremely niche title to get anything less) to their ridiculous arrogance towards readers and their own critics alike, but the most famous would be Okami- a game where both the written and video review spend so much time beating on the game because it's not Zelda that you'd never realize that it not only didn't suck, it got a glowing recommendation in the last paragraph/15 seconds of the video, and would go on to BEAT ZELDA for IGN's Game of the Year award. Er, whoops? IGN isn't even aware of it's own foolish self-importance, as they've apparently even called out Gabe from Penny Arcade on a podcast for talking smack about a review (that turned out not even to be theirs, much to their chagrin) because he's 'just an comic artist.'
Generally, the bigger the game, and the bigger the reviewer, the more wary you should be about it.
(On the main topic itself, the problem with the 'perfect game' is that it eventually ends. And you can only replay even the perfect game so many times before wanting something new- ennui sets in and suddenly you're less excited your eighth time through compared to your first. Plus, different strokes for different folks. Up until Super Mario Galaxy (which I'm guessing is getting points added to it's score for making the Wii worth having for the first time in nine months) the best-reviewed game of all time is Zelda:OoT, which to this date remains my personal least favorite installment of the series. (Barring Zelda II) I think my first comment when I learned exactly how universally loved that game is was something along the lines of "What? Really? You mean some people DID like it more then Link to the Past? MOST did? ... wierd." It was a Twilight Zone moment.