Where to buy Edge in Dublin

CiDeRmAn

Hmm, Halo didn't deserve 10, well, yes it did, given the changes the title heralded in how we play games and how much we expect for FPS titles.
I'm sure Sony wish that they had got Killzone out before Halo so as avoid all the unfavourable comparisons.
Perhaps some interior environments were reused a little much but there is no escaping the delight of crossing a bridge teeming with covenant, with following the twittering guilty spark through the library, with getting the shotgun and kicking Flood ass, nice1 And that run along the spine of the Pillar of Autumn at the end, yup, for all those moments it deserved a 10.
But by that reasoning so did Half Life, Half Life 2, and so on.
To say 10/10 is to say that a game is perfect, a hard thing to say about so many great games, that torch in Doom3, the sailing around in Zelda WW and so on, very difficult to rate something so highly, surely Mario64 is perhaps the only true 10 to have stood the test of time?
Edge themselves have wanted rid of the convention of scoring, rather to encourage the reader to hear the reviewers impression and then the prospective buyer can make an informed decision on a title, but there will always be those who will haggle over one game getting 8, another 9 and so on, the nonsense of marks out of 100 where one title is worth 96 and another 93 should be frowned upon.
No the scoreless magazine should have become the norm, assuming its readers have a modicum of intelligence.
I have bought 7/10 games and had more fun than with a 8 or 9/10 game, so scores are misleading and one should keep ones own counsel when choosing a game, keep in mind that even if a reviewer likes a title and that genre has always left you cold, this title isn't likely to change that for you.

johnny_ultimate

I think its unfortunate that many people live by the score. In essence, the numbers at the end of a review are merely a soundbite - something for fans to boast about, or often complain about.
Its important that people do not consider the final score the ultimate reflection on a games quality. I never read the Gunstar review mentioned above, but as someone said the review praised the quality of the title, even if the score didnt reflect this. So ignore the score and read the review instead - thats where the real view exists.
Unfortunately there are moaners around who simply take the score as Bible. As a reader of Gamecentral on C4 text, they often bemoan people writing in giving out about their 7/10 scores, when in fact the review was quite positive. Just because a game doesnt get an 8,9 or rarely, a ten, that doesnt mean its not worth buying - it is just that alot of people these days think that if a game gets 7 or lower it is subpar, when in fact it could just be a couple of technical / gameplay problems that make it slightly less successful than the higher scorers.
As Ciderman said above, scoreless magazines are usually the most effective. They let the review speak for itself, and don't have to try and sum up everything in a final one number summary.

CiDeRmAn

Hi, my name here is ciderman and I'd like to make a confession, I don't like Gunstar Heroes, now, yes I feel a lot better now everyone knows my guilty secret, while I'm at it I also don't like Final Fantasy games or Contra on the Snes, yes, all that weight off of my shoulders! Feels good!
I guess there's a couple of highly rated titles that If I was asked to review I would say suck, and in a big way too, yet the consensus is that they are bonafide classics, hmmm.
And as said, the problem with no scores is it requires the buyer of a magazine to actually read and, shock horror, understand the review, not just skim the points of interest until they reach the score, those mini reviews some muck mags have where you just know the reviewer probably gave a game a hour or so then passed judgement, probably based on what the editorial line of the mag on a certain publisher happens to be.
to see what I mean, check out who has the major advertising on the first few pages, usually a doulbe page spread and glossy, thats the most expensive spot in the mag, then check out the score given in that games review in that mag, you usually find that game has been given a glowing review, showing, but sadly not proving, the link between advertising revenue and review scores, a nefarious business indeed!!!

Zombrex

I think people sometimes miss the point of the way EDGE reviews games

If EDGE give a game a 6 or 7 they consider the game to be quite good. If they give it an 8 that is very good. A 9 is a brilliant game. A perfect 10 means the game is just out of this world.

I'm not saying I agree with EDGEs reviews all the time (Halo is not a perfect 10, far from it). But EDGE giving a game a 6 out of 10 is not really the same as a mag such as PC Gamer giving a game 60% (ie its crap don't bother with it). In a mag like PC Gamer half the games reviewed score in the high 80%s and 90%, so the curve is different.

After reading EDGE for years now the way I work out how they review their games is roughly as follows -

EDGE Other Mag (eg PC Gamer)
5/10 60%-74%
6/10 75%-79%
7/10 80%-89%
8/10 90%-94%
9/10 95%+
10/10 97%+

Dont be at yourself

Halo didnt deserve a 10. GTA III didn't deserve a 6. (or a 7). EDGE is up its own arse. All true. And yet: it's still the most informative magazine on the bookshelves.