It was brought to my attention recently that TSA (ie, us) has had the sheer audacity to give three games 10/10 too close to each other. If I may offer my heavily sarcastic opinion on the subject, I think this is despicable. Reviewing games at scores they actually deserve!? I don’t know where we got that idea. From now on, all reviews that are close together will be reviewed with a score quota – say, every 10 reviews must have scores that add up to 60, so our scores don’t lose credibility in the face of good games. This way, we will be reviewing games completely fairly, all in relation to what has been reviewed around them.
Oh, wait. That’s not a fair review at all. Sarcasm aside (at least for now), I honestly do not understand what the complaints are actually about. Three absolutely essential games release close to each other – what are we supposed to do, artificially mark them down to try and ‘preserve’ our reputation (in the eyes of a limited group of vocal complainers)? That would be ironic, considering that reviewing games fairly is part of our reputation, and lowering scores just so we don’t overuse a number isn’t fair in the slightest. It shouldn’t matter what else has been reviewed recently, or what scores they’ve got, because that’s changing a game’s review score based on things that have nothing to do with the game whatsoever and that would be a ridiculous, senseless and a down-right weird practice. Why should review scores from other games have an affect? We don’t do ‘meta-reviews,’ everything is assessed based on its own merit
Now, I’ve only played two of the three games in questions, UFC Undisputed 2010 and Red Dead Redemption, though I did play the demo of Split/Second and, after getting into it, really quite enjoyed it. Now, the former two games are definitely deserving of the 10/10s (granted, I might be a tiny bit biased here, considering that I wrote one of the reviews). Now, if said game deserves a score (after a lengthy, informed, experienced and respected appraisal of its merits), it should get that score. I don’t care if the industry enters a golden age and goes a whole year releasing only 10/10-worthy games, all of those 10/10-worthy games will get a damn 10/10, because that is the score each one deserves. We won’t artificially lower a score to preserve our reputation, especially when our reputation gravitates around our fair reviews and we get far more private praise than public condemnation. It’s just that simple.