EDGE mag 10/10s

[Ish]

GTA definately not worth a 10 either, the care given to the sloppy, **** smeared view distance should have dragged it down to a 9 at least.

This drives me mad too. I've always felt with the 3d GTA games that either they're pushing the hardware that bit too hard or need a better engine. Looking at what other games are doing these days personally I think the latter.

Anyhoo GTA IV I felt was the worst murko jerko vision episode to date. I don't get motion sickness playing games but this made me feel queasy.

I still thought it was a good game though, just not a great one.

[egparadigm]

GTA definitely not worth a 10, either, the care given to the sloppy, ****-smeared view-distance should have dragged it down to a 9, at least.

I think you should put that comment in the GotY thread, if you haven't already. Provided you grammatify [sic] it as above, naturally.

NO - Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - E183

What was your reason for this? Not taking issue with it, just wondering about your view.

[Lebowski]

Don't agree with those. Half Life 2 was incredibly over-rated. It was a good little shooter but it was too short, had uninspiring weapons and too many cheesy physics puzzles.

uninspiring weapons wtf are you on about are you off your head, what other game can you chuck a toilet at people the weapon set was a massive breath of fresh air, especial when you got to ravenhome and start flinging saw blades about.

[smouty]

I didn't intend to start a discussion on the merits of each title but it is interesting nontheless.
On a side note I am a big Mario fan and I thought SMG was a bit meh. It was alright but just didn't have the magic for me so much so that I haven't even finished it.
The only titles I don't own are GTA which I don't play and LBP.

[prinnysquad]

The problem with attaching a numerical score to a piece of subjective entertainment is that people seem to translate 10/10 into the word 'perfect'. It isn't, it's a crock.

No game, film, music, whatever, will ever be 'perfect.' A 'perfect' score is when you get 10/10 in a maths test. It's applied to things that are more mechanical. If games have to be given scores, then the best mark MUST be achievable to lend the system any credibility, yet it doesn't signify that the game is 'perfect'. Otherwise we might as well scrub the 10 and mark games with the top possible score being 9, which sort of renders marking it out of 10 utterly pointless.

Looking at that list of games, I'd say most of them would be in 'best of' lists, which is indicative of their quality, without ever claiming that they were 'perfect'.

[Dogg Thang]

Naaaaah... a game doesn't have to be perfect. But 10/10 is the top possible mark. It is the mark where you should think, this game just couldn't get any better! And many games on that list felt like that at the time. Sure, they weren't perfect. But, man, they felt as close to it as games can get. And that's why they got their 10.

But if you can pull together a hefty list of criticisms, or a game just isn't as fun as it should be, it should not get what is the top possible mark. And, unfortunately, there are games on that list that fall into that category. Giving those games a 10 does in no way lend a system credibility.

Perfection or not, if a game should have been better than it was on the day that it came out, it should not get a 10.

Oh and the idea that Half-Life 2 was too short is just beyond insanity. That game should have been compressed down to about a third of the play time by cutting out the repetition. And that's why it shouldn't get a 10. But then, it was the Orange Box that got the 10 (Oh... and HL2) and that's a far trickier discussion.

[prinnysquad]

Naaaaah... a game doesn't have to be perfect. But 10/10 is the top possible mark. It is the mark where you should think, this game just couldn't get any better! And many games on that list felt like that at the time. Sure, they weren't perfect. But, man, they felt as close to it as games can get. And that's why they got their 10.

No arguments there.

Perfection or not, if a game should have been better than it was on the day that it came out, it should not get a 10.

Or here.

But if you can pull together a hefty list of criticisms, or a game just isn't as fun as it should be, it should not get what is the top possible mark. And, unfortunately, there are games on that list that fall into that category. Giving those games a 10 does in no way lend a system credibility.

No, but having an achievable 10 does give the system a point. Something to aim for, unhindered by the word 'perfect'.

[Tobal]

Same as other people that don't think SMG is a 10/10 game, it just hasn't clicked with me. Much like Halo3, it felt like i was going through the motions after couple of hours with it, just doesn't have the impact of its precedessor did years ago, to me it was like small short sunshine void levels with Mario64 art abit a of waggle it didn't even need.

[C']

Even taking the "at the time" issue into consideration, out of the game's listed I think only Super Mario 64, Halo: Combat Evolved and Super Mario Galaxy are games that I'd feel fully comfortable giving a full 10 to. The Mario games were pretty much as close to gaming perfection as we are ever going to get and the first Halo just seemed to nail something in terms of level design that Bungie have not been able to capture since.

Out of the others, it's the 10s for GTA4 and Halo 3 that grate with me the most. I thought both games were notable step downs from their previous series entries.

I've not played enough of LittleBigPlanet to make a decision. If, 12 months down the line the community is still making the high quality content, hindsight may show that Edge got it right but it's a risky 10 in my opinion.

[Sixty]

Ocarina of Time is easily a 10. That game was epic. It introduced so much new stuff and got it all perfect first time. There hadn't been anything like it before. I can't imagine how anyone who played it at the time could disagree with that, personally.

Naaaaah... a game doesn't have to be perfect. But 10/10 is the top possible mark. It is the mark where you should think, this game just couldn't get any better! And many games on that list felt like that at the time. Sure, they weren't perfect. But, man, they felt as close to it as games can get. And that's why they got their 10.

But if you can pull together a hefty list of criticisms, or a game just isn't as fun as it should be, it should not get what is the top possible mark. And, unfortunately, there are games on that list that fall into that category. Giving those games a 10 does in no way lend a system credibility.

Perfection or not, if a game should have been better than it was on the day that it came out, it should not get a 10.

This is why GTA IV shouldn't have got a 10. Edge's own review admitted there were problems with it, but said they should be forgiven because that's just how GTA is. It's quite unbelievable, given how prestigious the magazine is supposed to be, and all that. They should be marking it down for failing to improve upon its predecessors, if anything, because it really doesn't do anything new or jaw-droppingly well enough to justify that score.

[Eight Rooks]

Meh - Half-Life 2's non-existent AI is a far greater glaring omission than anything in GTA IV, for me. Although they're both quite similar games; I can understand why people would give them full marks (Half-Life 2's characterisation is absolutely without equal, and it makes me weep people can't see what a staggering achievement Liberty City is - O HAI, SAINTS ROW 2 HAEV GARBAJ TRUK WHOOOOOOO!!11!!11!). But still, both of them have some undeniable nasty flaws that do get me wondering if Edge went a bit too far in showering them with praise.

I do still love the magazine, though. I think (know?) I'm possibly their biggest fanboy around here - I firmly believe ten out of ten should be the exception, rather than the rule, and gaming journalism should be able to tell fans to go screw themselves. You like X? Why? Why don't these flaws bother you, and these, and these? We're not making them up. Why don't you want something better? How can you love every other game that comes out? How does that make anything special? And so on.

[kernow]

On a side note I am a big Mario fan and I thought SMG was a bit meh. It was alright but just didn't have the magic for me so much so that I haven't even finished it.

I felt exactly the same, overrated, good but overrated.

[abigsmurf]

uninspiring weapons wtf are you on about are you off your head, what other game can you chuck a toilet at people the weapon set was a massive breath of fresh air, especial when you got to ravenhome and start flinging saw blades about.

1 gun among a series of incredibly dull weapons and like the puzzles it was a case of "look, we have a physics engine!".

I was pretty disappointed at half life 2, the first was a truely innovative game that redefined the FPS genre in terms of AI and cinematic experiences, half life 2 offered nothing new except physics, even the famous AI was outdone by games like FEAR, not to mention it had no real plot and no ending.

[Concrete donkey]

Are there any other games missing from the list below.
I'm pretty sure there was one recently.

Super Mario 64 (Nintendo 64) - E35
Gran Turismo (Sony PlayStation) - E55
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo 64) - E66
Halo: Combat Evolved (Xbox) - E105
Half-Life 2 (Windows PC) - E143
Halo 3 (Xbox 360) - E181
The Orange Box (Windows PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) - E182
Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) - E183
Grand Theft Auto IV (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360) - E189
LittleBigPlanet (PlayStation 3) - E195

I find it hard to fault Edge?s list but of course my opinions of these games are heavily influenced by the emotional effect they had on me at the time and everyone?s experiences and perceptions of them are bound to be different.

Half Life 2 (PC) is still the yardstick game I measure all fps on and none have surpassed it in my view so far. (true, I got stuck near the end and now I can't play games on my PC it'll be a while before I get passed it and play the chapters) Orange Box (360) I brought for Portal alone (wanting to finish the main game on PC when I eventually get mine fixed or replaced) and for that it was worth every penny, despite its length. Mario 64 was one of my first games I owned for myself and taken aback playing it. Not being familiar with the series and no anticipation towards it Ocarina of Time also blew me away with its magical charms and engaging adventure. Galaxy I found to be a perfect meld between the gameplay of the classic platformers and the 3D games and rate it as one of my favorite games of all time and worth the price of a Wii alone. The original Gran Turismo was the only one I liked, feeling it a breath of fresh air in the racing genre, a type of game I generally don?t enjoy. Can?t comment on LBP or Halo 3 as I?ve barely touched them but Halo was a brilliant experience and reinvented first person shooters in a similar way the original Half Life did on the PC. The beach landing scene alone was enough for the game to forever etch itself in my memory.

As for GTA IV. As a fan of all the GTA's (except for the GBA one) from the original top down game to the III's and now IV, GTA IV is the first of them I've actually completed. The main story line reached a level of maturity and immersion that the others lacked and created a character everyone wanted to be. On top of that, Lazlow done an amazing job with all the entertainment media in the game with the radio stations just scratching the surface. Technically it was not a perfect game and Liberty City was not the playground many fans were hoping it would be, but for me this increased my immersion into Niko Belic?s world not decreased it. Cities aren?t playgrounds and you don?t find fun things you enjoy on every street corner even if you are in New York City. There was plenty of stuff to explore in the games online world and tv which I think is fitting for our times, the times it?s based in. In my opinion; for the game playing experience it offered me, GTA IV is worth every bit of that 10/10 score.

[MattyD]

I can't help but feel people who don't think Half-Life 2 deserves a ten are taking a far too dry, it's-only-another-FPS approach to the game. It's one of the few titles that deserves to be considered as more than 'just' a game because there's so much to admire outside of its mechanical play. It's one of the most well-realised, plausible and just plain chilling dystopias ever created. You can see they've really thought things through from the ground up, so that every last piece of rubbish informs the unspoken narrative and that in turn makes every set-piece and shift in play style seem like it has emerged from the narrative, and not the other way around.

It's the total opposite to something like say Gears of War, which has obviously been designed along the lines of "And then we'll have a minecart section, those are SO - RAD, *nods at writer* can you pencil that in for us?" To my mind it's the difference between a bad drama, where the characters are contrived to say things because it fits a story conceit, and a good one where the world and characters impress upon each-other and implode with interesting results.

In terms of mise-en-scene, dramatic pacing and clarity of vision there's not a single game that betters it. That makes it necessarily innovative because it did something that nobody else has yet been able to match.

Finally I'd like to point out the logical fallacy of calling the weapons 'uninspiring' when talking about the only game with a Combine Pulse Rifle