Chris Remo said:
First of all, as GameSpot frequently notes, the final score is not an average of the individual scores. Furthermore, GameSpot prides itself on its consistency of scores, in that games should always have objective scores that can be accurately stacked up against the scores of other games. Games aren't reviewed in a vacuum. Greg Kasavin has stated this. It's very, very, very difficult for me to believe that every major aspect of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 is in fact better than those major aspects of practically every other game released up to that point, or even just during the same general time frame. Again, I say that as a fan of the game and the series. Gerstmann's review sounds like it describes a well-balanced and polished skateboarding game, not a game that fits GameSpot's stated opinion of what a 10.0 game is:
"This exceedingly rare score refers to a game that is as perfect as a game can ever aspire to be. Such games could not reasonably be improved upon in any meaningful way."
It's easy to say "a 10 doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be really really high quality" or something, but GameSpot's definition of the score is pretty much the ultimate superlative. I know everything is subjective, including reviews, but in this case I really don't see how he arrived at that final verdict.
I don't see how it matters if it's an average, but each point does carry individual weight, you need all 10's to get a perfect 10. Infact the reviews are scaled like this
Gameplay carry a weight of 0.3 in the overall score for every point
Graphics 0.2
Sound 0.1
Value 0.2
Tilt 0.3
You can go do a user review yourself to see how it works.
So for arguments sakes, we should compare them on the basis of the standard compared to other games at the time
Gameplay - THPS3 did basically perfect the formula for what was already easily the best skateboarding game around at the time. They state that to get a 10 " Such games could not reasonably be improved upon in any meaningful way", THPS3's gameplay has not at all been improved on in any meaningful way.
Graphics - simply stunning at the time, huge levels all at 60FPS. I don't see why it deserved any less at the time
Sound - I'd say it's a completely objective point, but the game did feature a huge soundtrack full of great and diverse music.. It implemented speech into a game like few others had before, being fully voiced, even by pedestrians and great quality to boot. It would've been hard not to be highly impressed with the sound
Value - It was a huge game, and also the first ever online PS2 game.
Tilt - it's a weighing factor and that's all. Jeff could've brought the score down if he felt it was necessary but I think he felt that it was so exceptional for its time that a 10 was deserved.
I feel every point it earned is justified... It only looks bad compared to other games that arguably deserved to score as high, but that shouldn't mean THPS3 isn't individually worth that merit.
