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GTA IV - A 10 For All the Wrong Reasons

We could continue to look deeper into the subject, and ask what a 6 means, or a 9.2. If one game is a 9.2, and another game is a 9.1, what is conveyed to the reader? The entire system in the end, is completely broken, as the numbers convey absolutely no meaning. It would be substantially more productive to say "This is one of the most impressive games I've ever played, a tour de force in FPS design" as opposed to "This game is a 9.4". It is going to be extremely difficult to break the habit of focusing on the numeric score of a game, since the industry has essentially ground it into peoples psyche for so long, but I strongly believe it's something that we need to get away from in order to survive and even more importantly, to be taken seriously.
Siraris - contributor
Published: 65 days 11 hours ago | Article | PlayStation 3 | Xbox 360
 
 

Showing: 1 - 10 of 10 Comments
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DARKKNIGHT - 65 days 7 hours ago
1 -
This game owns!!!

beat it yesterday(no cheats), im starting all over

please rockstar make gt5 a sony exclusive.......dont let your masterpiece be bottlenecked by limited hardware
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Mario - 65 days 7 hours ago
2 -
Mamamia, ita brings sadness to my heart when i remember the time thata me and a Luigi jacked a car and ran amock in Mushroom Kingdom. There wasa goombas and bloopas hitting the windscreen and blood everywhere, eiy. People, taka it from a Mario, don't listen to people when they tella you magic mushrooms maka you bigger! It makes you switch and do stupida things like sleeping witha your best friend Luigi!
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The Dark Side - 65 days 5 hours ago
3 - 10 does not mean perfect
I wish people stop saying that, if game gets a ten that means it is a masterpiece. But, no game ever be perfect. Even Ocarnia of time was not perfect, I mean if you get down to it all the dungeons was the same just with different puzzles and bosses. Find the compass, find the keys, find the main boss key, fight the boss, get a heart, and go through the land find another dungeon and repeat. But, yet no one complain about it because it was such a well put together game. So, people need to get off the reviewers back, it's there opinoin and they are intitled to it.
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factory - 65 days 5 hours ago
3.1 -
if 10 doesnt mean perfect , than it has no meaning.most mags and sights tell you that a game at 10 is perfect when they tell what their scoring system means.we are all slaves to a number instead of reading the review itself to determine the quality of the game. you dont need to go to journalism school or be an english major to count until 10.
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factory - 65 days 5 hours ago
4 - outstanding article
i am playing and loving this game but it is not a 10 by any means .if for one simple reason...they havent advanced the core gameplay at all.. the missions are the same as they have been since gta 3.i am still having fun with them, but it's probably due to the much improved storytellling, which as a part of the game,does deserve a 10 for a videogame story.the whole exclusive anything in videogame reviews is very fishy..in any business something has to be compromised to get an exclusive anything for your company
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spacecog - 65 days 4 hours ago
5 - Getting really technical
10 should be a figure relative to what's expected or impressive for a current gen game. It's absolutely a sliding scale; I mean, I'm sure it equally comes down to-- what did this reviewer have for lunch the day they wrote this review? Did their food go down easy, or did the indigestion cloud their judgement?

I hate all the technicalities, all the nit picking, but if you want to get absolutely ridiculous, you could argue that no human should be capable of discerning what perfect is; that would imply that person is a god.

BS aside, I think the game absolutely deserves a 10. If I could rate the fun I've had playing a videogame on a scale of 1-10, take in mind the consistency of that fun; then it's a 10. Isn't that why we play games? Isn't that the main concern, beyond frame rates, beyond controls, after politics-- what any game review should boil down to, is-- is this game worth playing? How much so?

In this case, the flaws are severely outwieghed by the loving detail put into this game.

It's very petty, a slap in the face to the developers, to give such a great game a hard time.

***That's not to say paying customers don't deserve a better patch-- but let's try to be optimistic. When has anyone played a more engrossing game?

Let me know, I want to know what I'm missing.
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Maldread - 65 days 4 hours ago
6 - Of course a 10 should be possible
I can`t comment on GTA4 specifically, since i havn`t played it myself, but of course a 10 should be possible. And it dosn`t mean the game has to be perfect, because face it : nothing ever can be. Not Zelda, not MGS1, and not FF7, is without faults, but does that mean they shouldn`t be able to get a 10 ?

In my mind a game could get a 10 if :
- it is vastly better than other games in it`s genre or other games at all for it`s time and system (doubt Zelda would get it today, if not on a DS)
- it revolutionizes it`s genre with new mechanics that works great as well, or creates a new genre of followers because it is defining
- and most importantly, is so fun and exciting that you forgive it`s faults, you overlook them because the overall game is so good, they just don`t matter (this should be the main reason if it get`s a 10 or not)

I realize the revolutionize part will be up for debate, as games may have borrowed stuff from other games, but perhaps be the first game to pull it off in a good way (Gears took the hide behind cover from Killswich, but made it a lot better etc). And i`m not saying a game has to have something "entirely" new either (which in itself is pretty hard to come by), just do the stuff it actually does really well.

This dosn`t apply for just games either. If a 10 isn`t possible, then why is an A at school possible ? An A dosn`t equal perfect either, but it`s still possible to get one. If one is to have a rating scale of any sort, then it has to be possible to get the top mark, if not , there isn`t any point in having it in the first place.

If gaming sites should give out as many 10s as they have is another debate...
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sandip787 - 65 days 1 hour ago
7 -
you guys take the number waaaayyyyy too seriously. why can a film get 5/5, 10/10, but a game cant?

10 clearly means that the game has covered all the aspects that it should, to a very good standard. obviously ts not perfect. theres no such thing as perfect
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Snoozer282 - 65 days ago
7.1 -
Took the words right out of my mouth.
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ceedubya9 - 65 days ago
8 - I put it like this
I've NEVER been a fan of the GTA series. Every game I tried before bored me after a small amount of play time. GTA4 has its issues, and the graphics are just OK when compared to other games we have on PS3 and 360 right now. But I'll be damned if there isn't something about the game that I can't put my finger on that keeps me coming back to play it every day.

Because of that, this game is deserving of any high marks it recieves as far as I'm concerned, regardless of whether I feel its a "10" or not. Its a really good game and it sucks you in from the jump. And that's all that matters.
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