The problem is alot of the 100% reviews are actually 5/5. G4Tv for example gave it 5/5, If you remove those, ofcourse you wont get over 90%, thats like a given

Yes, sure the greater the mount of real reviews than hates and fanboys helps but doesn't eliminate the fact of the skewing.

I know what you are trying to say but it's way more complex process than just removing haters and fanboys.
1) What about different systems of evaluation? Some evaluators don't put intermediate scores, i.e. if we have a system "bad, ok, good" then good = 100% but it's not a fanboy, and ok is 50% but it's not a hater... and metacritic will accumulate those too.
2) What to do with the paid reviews where the score depends on the bribe received? They will put low scores if not bribed. And you won't be able to know which reviews are real.

Therefore, what you are saying is not hitting the point because the only reasonable point is that the scores are just BS in general and for the sake of advertizement only and are easily manipulated by certain people.

0% "pro" score is impossible because then that critic will loose his/her job. Therefore they are forced to put 60% to be taken seriously.

The only thing I was saying, adressed to the OP because that he/she was blaming the 60% reviews for pushing the score down, was that the 100% reviews were also pushing the score upwards.
And I don't see why that comment would not be hitting the point.

And yes alot of reviews are BS.

I slightly prefer the first one, mostly because while it was equally (or worse) bugged on a technical level, it's UI, combat design and overall gameplay design felt more consistent and thought-out. Mind you, minimal difference, small thing, but I needed a few mods to make the difficulty curve in TW2 feel more like it should, and since I went Alchemy, I was fighting the game-system left, right and center sadly.

Though, epic game, definitely.
Bit miffed I couldn't sex either the Lesbomanceress or the Dragonslayer, but meh, I'll live. ^_^

Ha, the bulshit world of statistics.

If my neighbour beats his wife everyday and i don't beat my wife at all, according to statistics we beat our wives every other day.

... or each wife gets half a beating every day :)

Metacritics is broken for the simple fact that different reviewers have different standards. Two reviewers might think the game is equally awesome, yet that degree of awesome would earn a 8.5/10 for one, and a 9.5/10 for the other, simply because one is more strict with their scores or whatnot.

It's better to rely on a handful of review sources that you're familiar with, read their reviews in detail, then compare their scores to other games done by the same reviewer to get a feel of how the game ranks.

The idea that no game is perfect and therefore no game can get 100 or 10 or 5/5 is really retarded.

Erm, you kind of just missed the point of Metacritic. The reason why people get excited over a 90+ score is because plenty of reviewers lauded the same game.

No, actually there's a specific issue with it, just as giving a game 0/10 - you never know when you'll be surprised. I've seen magazines give games 10,5/10 because they had to admit that compared to previous game X which they gave 10/10, this one is clearly superior, so they can't "just" give it a 10/10.

Avoid the issue, and give it a 9/10. Nearly-perfect. Absolutely-perfect is very unlikely to happen.

Everybody likes to win an argument, so there will always be debates over a score or a place in some 'top 10 whatever...' That means - at any given second somebody will name me a fan boy for a reason or another. Since I can't win all the arguments and at the same time I don't really-really like the implications of that particular denomination - OK then, I proudly am a fan boy, and you’ll just suck it up! :))

However, when I choose to spend money and time on a game, movie, book etc., I much prefer to feel it as an accomplishment afterwards, so I don't really care what the world says about a specific item, but what the people I trust say about it. 'People I trust' means a person sharing my preferences. It's not that I consider them better than the others (well, actually it is :P), but I know that if they liked or disliked something, there's a good chance that the same will happen to me. It's just a coincidence, but I don't care about metacritic.com overall ratings. I, instead, prefer to read some specific reviews coming from websites I trust. For games, I always check the gamespot's reviews, for instance. I found out, for the past several years, that most of the time I agree with their opinions. There are people who hate them; some say they are paid by one or another publisher - so what? As long as I end up having a great time, who cares? The same thing with the destructoid review for TW2... There are people who agree with that review and that rating, which brings huge tears in my eyes, but I wouldn't necessarily dismiss their comments before actually playing the game. It's good to read their arguments too, because there are some details that many wouldn't mind, but they are important for those people and they may prove important for me when actually playing the game.

[i]Let me explain. There are people who find the voiceover to be top notch in GTA, but are somewhat disappointed with the actors in TW2. I was impressed too with GTAIV in this regard, so I have a good reason to believe that I might be disappointed with TW2. But although for those people that translates in a -2 points when judging TW2, for me it's not that important, so I balance their 0/10 rating and bring it to 1/10. The same reviewer might have subtracted 4 points for the inventory system, comparing it to TW1, but for me this is not such a big deal if it's not a total disaster, so now I have 3/10 already. The guy may also be in awe with the free roaming in Oblivion, but subtract 5 points in TW2 for its absence. This is important for me, but not THAT important, so I'll add another 3 points to TW2 and I have now 6/10. And so on... Eventually, a good review from a known reviewer that gives TW2 a 0/10 may prove quite useful, and its real meaning may be, for me, 9/10 and I'll totally understand the guy's frustration with TW2 and sympathise :))

Of course, this usually happens with my friends and almost never with somebody who chose to give a 0/10 on a website where that reviewer is largely unknown and that rating actually matters for those who want to know something about the game at a glance. In every game there are some quirks, but if they don't utterly ruin the experience, a 0/10, 3/10 or even 6/10 are to be swiftly dismissed when a conflict occurred with the vast majority of 8 or 9/10 and with the reviewer's own words, that the game, other than that, is great.[/i]

And as a conclusion, after my 20 (thousands) cents about how to make sense of reviews - the overall rating on metacritic.com describes the general perception of the games at a specific time, even if that is not necessarily my own perception. Luckily, I have a fairly good idea of the differences between most of the people's preferences and mine regarding each genre, so I can compensate well enough the ratings and have a good enough estimate for the presumed value of the game for me, before buying. The rating doesn't matter as long as I can read it properly. And, as I said, the general rating or opinion doesn't matter at all as long as I have access to several particular trusted websites. On the other hand, unfortunately, when these differences ‘I vs. the world’ are significant, I lose. This is industry, not charity. Videogames are means to make money, and here the global opinion matters. And that, if not always accurately described by reviews and ratings, could be influenced by them, in a kind of double feedback, or loop.

Finished the coffee, better go and play than talk :))

A 90+ metacritic score tells me that the game is accepted by a wide audience, rather than being a niche game. There are plenty of great games that are not for everyone (for whatever reason, be it difficulty, accessibility, etc...), and thus suffer from a > 90 metacritic score, because there's bound to be reviewers who simply are not into that type of games and still end up reviewing them.

Metacritic's scores are based on statistics, and a couple poor reviews can greatly harm a game's score even if the reviewers had no idea what they were talking about. Do you really prefer this aggregate score over a handful of review scores from trusted reviewers that you're familiar with?

If you never give 10 then you might as well don't have a 10.

You know, some people do not rate games according to whether they are "perfect" and flawless. Some people rate overall experience. Even if a game has some flaws (like TW2 less then perfect inventory), there is still nothing wrong with giving 10 for the amazing, unforgettable experience it provided.

There is about 5 games I played over the last 12 years I would give 10 - Fallout 1, Vampire Bloodlines, Torment, Witcher 2, Deus Ex. Each of those games had lot of flaws, and each of those games gave me experience I will never forget, experience that was above other games. They deserve 10.

If you don't agree, that's fine too. But most people simply will use full scale of review scores, whether you like it or not.

No well, that's not quite how I meant it.
It just needs to be extremely rare, so the statement "We reviewed this game to be a 10/10" has a meaningful message to convey. If 20+ games a year get 10/10, it completely dulls off - as you said, might as well not have it then.

Compare especially older years of the Famitsu, and how stringy they were with their I think 40s? That's what I mean, you should give out a 10/10 ,but only if absolutely everything perfectly fits together.
And for starters the amount of bugs present in a game (like in TW2) are a big thing to reduce score for, whether each individual player might or might not see them, it should be conveyed to the review-readers that they should think twice about buying a game when it has bugs or performance-problems - simply because that's something important to know when deciding whether to fork out the money for a game.

Now TW2 doesn't have the same amount of story-bug-problems DA2 had, in turn it has multiple areas which clearly saw no play-testing. Which falls into a similar area for me, unfinished QA. And it should get points docked for that, whether you personally play without seeing those issues or not (say you don't spec alchemy, you'll likely not run into the alchemy-related design issues - stuff which even 1 playtester would have noticed while playing it, since it's pretty problematic really).

I hate it!! I love it!! I just wish it was better than Withcher 1. Very Low 9's I think is accurate with the adjustments of the patches. It's better because af the advancement of technology its worst because of the consolizing interface!! Its like CDKPR only has one testicle!! That's better than no balls at all!!