A review is obviously just one person's opinion, so how do you deal with conflicting thoughts on a game, both for high and low scores? What if someone else on GameSpot thinks a game deserves a much higher (or lower) score?
10s are a big deal, right? But in some sense, we want every score to be a big deal. We want every score to be carefully considered. And yes, we have all sorts of arguments about games, because we're not a hive mind! The text is the primary consideration, and it must argue the score. What makes the game so special, or not special? If it's boring, or exciting, how does it do that? Some games have a greater impact on one person than another, and it's up to the critic to express his or her thoughts in a way that really sells that score.
But the entire editorial team has the opportunity to go over the review, and sometimes, being devil's advocate is an important role to have, and it's a role that I am happy to take on. A very common email exchange with a freelance author might be: "Are you sure this is an 8? Are you sure this game is truly great? Because it sounds pretty good, but I don't know if you're selling that 8." The author might then say, "Hey, you're right, this really is just a pretty good game," or she might say, "Man, this game is absolutely great; what do I need to do to really get that across?" The author is always the owner of his own work, but the rest of the crew still helps to ensure the review is all it can be.
You talk a lot with publishers, developers, and PR, so how do you make sure that reviews remain unbiased by those relationships?
Most of my interactions with PR people come down to, "Hey, we're sending you review code," and me replying, "OK, use the usual address." My own bosses are usually the people that have the most face time with PR folks and publishers. These days, most reviews are actually assigned to freelance critics who typically don't have any direct contact with PR people. When reviews are done in house, we try to assign them to people who have not previewed the game to any significant degree. This is one of the reasons why I personally don't do a lot of previews...so that I can go into reviews as fresh as possible. My bosses essentially function as shields: they absorb the business side of things so that I can focus on just the games.
In the end, where reviews are concerned, it's the game that's important. If a reviewer feels, or I feel, that there is some kind of conflict, the review is assigned to someone else. That's pretty rare, though. My managers deal with the primary business aspects, and I do my best to not know what that stuff entails. For me, I mostly just assign reviews as games come in, and coordinate the logistics of that process.
So, Gamespot are more harsh?