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Ranking of Harshest, Kindest Game Reviewers
GameDailyBiz has an interesting feature up right now discussing which sites and magazines are harshest and kindest with their game reviews. Surprisingly the study shows that, overall, the multi-platform online sites aren't terribly biased, with some being somewhat nicer than the average and some somewhat harsher. Single console gaming magazines end up having the most forgiving coverage, with mainstream news sources being the harshest critics.
Look at GameSpy. Their overall scores are out of five stars, with the possibility of half stars in the score. The overall score that a game can get is severely restricted, and as long as it's decent, it's almost guaranteed to get seven stars or higher - a score that most of us would consider to be "good."
On the other hand, look at the mainstream media. Papers like the USA Today and the Detroit Free Press grade games on a scale of one to four. This is even more restrictive...but not in a good way. A game can only get one of two positive scores - a three or a four - and it's usually got to be bloody amazing to reach the four star level. Most of the games that I see get revieved in papers tend to get scores of two or three stars. That's not terrible, but I know that most of the people I know tend to think of a 3/4 as being much worse than a 7/10. Maybe it just seems harsher. I'm not sure why that is, but observations that I've made over the years seem to back that up.
The scoring systems vary from site to site and from one kind of media to another, and that could be enough to make up the difference.
Goo goo g'joob.
If you RTFA closely, you'll see that they're comparing it against GameRankings.com. So, yes, it IS the secret, hiden, fansite category that's throwing off the numbers.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.