Been posting quotes and review scores from various magazines here myself, plus sending stacks of stuff for Laird to put up, plus questioned what we read regarding how NES games were scored in the UK, so time to take things on a notch.

Can reviews ever be 'trusted'? (i use that word as seen the line 'The only reviews you can trust' used in several publications over the years).For those of us who in past or present have relied on review scores to decide what to purchase, sure many of us have come away feeling a game deserved far better score or was unfairly rated, but does it go deeper than just differing tastes or reviewer expecting something different to game he or she was given?.

Off top of my head there have been clear examples of reviewers reviewing very unfinished code, from Zzap 64's Operation Thunderbolt on C64 to C+VG and DCM's review of Half Life on Dreamcast, but i put the question:

Just how far through a game will a reviewer play before submitting their 500+ review? what changes will be made by those higher up the chain (Zzap 64 reviewers admit there was pressure from higher up's to rate magazine publishers studios games or current Ed might be on off day and say his score is what was going in).Jurno's are under pressure off deadlines, of advertisers etc, covers sell magazines, so at preview at least your going to see some startling claims of what a game will be delivering, but at crunch time, review wise, do we really see the full story?.

Few examples for food for thought:

1)Diablo II PC various US jurno's were invited over to Blizzard to see game and play unfinished code, which they did and then went away and wrote full reviews based on said beta code.

2)C64 Bobby Bearing-Zzap 64 gave the tape version a very good score for sound-there was'nt any in finished version, Zzap just went on assurance sound in tape version would be same as disk version.

3)Sega Europe PR had a disaster on their hands, disc 3 just would'nt work properly as it was from a different batch, would'nt pick up data from DC VMU, so they had 2 options, send 1st 2 discs now and then supply 3rd when they had a working copy, or send 3 discs, but 3rd would have Jap code on it, so they went for 2nd option, several reviewers admitted they only played through 1st 2 discs before reviewing, 2 others admitted they struggled on with disc 3.

4)ex-staff writer for Edge went public claiming in return for exclusive cover art, Rockstar wanted minimum score of 9 for likes of GTA series, Red Dead
Redempt. hence why review text often feels at odds with score at the bottom of page.

Examples 1+3 supplied by industry freelancer, example 2 Zzap admitted themselves.

Any thoughts people?.