Back in the days of the NES, heck, back in the days of the Xbox, Gamecube and PS2, games were shipped as a whole package. Once a game had gone gold, it was done. If you bought the game, you got what you paid for. Reviews reflected that. Fable got a 9.3 from IGN. Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater got an 8.7 from Gamespot.
But now, in an age where downloadable content is sometimes as big as the games they support, developers can drastically improve a game after its release. A game's controls can be improved, made tighter. Pop-in can be reduced, and framerates steadied. Entire plot lines can be added at the drop of a hat.
All of this raises the question. When a game is shipped, is it ready for a "final" score? Or should reviewers be allowed to change their scores, based on drastic improvements? If a game such as Spiderman 3 had been given an update to improve it's many graphical glitches and framerate drops. Should a reviewer be allowed to change their past score to reflect that? If Alone in the Dark were given a much needed control overhaul, could its score be raised from a 3.5 to a 6 (ign)?
This may not be a really big deal as of yet, but I predict in the future, more games will be fixed and tweaked after release. There's those of you out there that may feel that if the game was released as a glitchy mess, the developers should just have to deal with the scores, sometimes though, they're forced to send out a crap product due to a publisher's demands. I just think that in the near future, review scores shouldn't be set in stone. Heck, even now game scores should be allowed to fluctuate. And it is my belief that the developers deserve at least a little credit if they're really trying to improve what they've created.
P.S. I also think PC game scores should have been allowed to change for years. I'm just focusing on consoles in this post.
