Reading articles like this makes me wonder even more about the future of video game reviewing, and think it possible that everything I said in my previous entry about video game reviews becoming more discerning really isn't going to happen. Just how much of the review industry is motivated by hype and advertising dollars? Sure, in Gamepro's case going from a 94 to an 85 isn't that big of a fall (at least to most people), but it does fall out of the 90+ Editor's Choice range that reviewers seem so heavily pressured to put the big time releases in. I hate to open old wounds left in the wake of the Kane & Lynch fiasco, but just look at Gamespot for example. The last time they gave a game an 8.9 rating was Guitar Hero II for the 360 on April 3, 2007. In comparison, the score of 9.0 seems to be thrown about with reckless abandon, most recently to Bayonetta.

Notable 2009 releases which received a score of 9.0 include Left for Dead 2, Assassin's Creed II, MW2, Fifa 10, Demon's Souls, Halo 3: ODST, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Street Fighter IV...wow does this list end? The list of games which Gamespot gave a 9.0 in 2009 looks awfully similar to a list of the most popular and widely discussed titles not released on a Nintendo platform.

So what's the issue? Is scoring a 90+ really that important of a benchmark, or were all of these games just equally that amazing? How come none of these games were worthy of a 91 and equally so why were they all too amazing to dare score an 89, which by all accounts still registers as "great" on the review scale but lacks the coveted "EDITOR'S CHOICE" below the score? Conspiracy theories about the legitimacy of the review industry have been tossed around for years, and examples like this don't seem to help the situation one bit. Gamepro can say whatever they want now that everyone's attention has moved on to new releases, but would they really have had the gall to give MW2 an 85 when it first came out, or given Dragon Age a *gasp* 65? If that's really how they feel about those games maybe they should have spent an extra day or two playing these games so we all knew how they really felt rather than slipping them into an end-of-year special that doesn't get plastered all over the internet like their initial review score did.

Oh, and for those curious I left out a few more 9.0's from 2009:

Killzone 2, inFAMOUS, The Sims 3, Tiger Woods 10, DiRT 2, Bowser's Inside Story, Beatles: Rock Band.