RANT: IGN's Perfect 10
I am 28 years old (spoiler alert). That means as I grew up gaming, I read game magazines to satiate my unholy appetite for Video Game knowledge. Nintendo Power, GamePro, PSM, these publications were how I kept my finger on the gaming pulse. I would be soaking in low-res pictures of MK screen-shots in the magazine section of Albertsons while my parents got groceries. It was a different time. Yet from the very beginning, each and every gaming magazine liked to use a unique scoring system when they rated their games. The only problem was, since every magazine had different systems and criteria, sometimes you couldn't compare them, especially since some magazines only covered one console. Enter the internet and the age of IGN. I don't know exactly when it became a phenomena, but I got heavily into the site around the time of the PS1 (PSX). IGN was a big deal for me as THE outlet that got game info first, uploaded sweet trailers that required broadband to download, and of course had a rating system that applied to all games across all platforms. It was the great equalizer. IGN scores for MGS could go head to head with WinBack for N64. There were no discrepancies, no punches being pulled, no holds barred, flat out numeric warfare. As a kid, IGN was law.
For those of you too young to know, this is from Predator.
Sadly these days IGN is a cluttered mess of a web-nightmare that I still visit only due to some strange past loyalty. Stranger still, I somehow take IGN review scores to be more meaningful than a lot of other websites. I guess they've earned their street cred in my eyes. And even though I am not in favor of a numeric rating system for games (as should be obvious by our site), I can't stop myself from checking out the hard numbers IGN decides to give game developers' labors of love. What's worse, I don't truly believe anyone can look at a flat out score for a game and be totally unaffected by it. Humans LONG to be judged and rated, and take even more pleasure in seeing others get rated. Don't believe me? Go watch TV for 10 minutes. I'll wait. If you have returned and not killed yourself from TV exposure, you'll have noticed every show is a contest with judges telling the people who cooked best, sang best, danced best, or got the most pregnant. It's appalling, but a constant. Back on track.
At least Mortal Kombat doesn't force themselves to throw up, or kill themselves if they get a low score...wait on second thought...
Despite all the negatives of a numeric rating system, I have always liked the fact that IGN has this elusive, yet completely attainable, perfect 10 rating. It's a score they bestow on games they feel to be the pinnacle of the art form at the time of review. Since IGN has been around for a while, it's a fun way to see what games over the generations have really been stand out, and which ones have been Olympic Hockey Nagano '98.
So this should be no news to anyone, but Uncharted 3 recently received a 10 from IGN. Like I said, these are not scores that get dished out willy-nilly, and so it got me to take note. Sure it's a great ploy to rustle up page hits, and controversy, and to a degree a perfect 10 from IGN does just that.
There is talk of IGN losing all credibility by giving any game a 10, and so forth. Apparently no game can be perfect. Personally I think if a game deserves a 10 it deserves a 10. There is no point in having a 10 rating if you're not going to use it. And use it IGN has. In recent memory GTA4, Mario Galaxy 2, MGS4, and now Uncharted 3 all got perfect 10s. Armed with this info I realized that the PS3 had 3 perfect 10 games on it: A feat I thought was amazing for any console, as the only other perfect 10 I remembered was Ocarina of Time. I decided to check the IGN review vault to see if any other console had enjoyed such a lauded library from the IGN review overlords. What I found shocked the shit out of me.
It seems as if Ocarina was the first 10 in IGN history back in 1998. That caused quite a stir in the community, but was universally accepted as an accurate and fair score for what many consider one of the greatest games of all time. What I DIDN'T realize was that after the 10 hymen was popped it was OPEN season for perfect games!
Checkered Flag for Lynx?
Shanghai also for Lynx?
Joust for Lynx?
Did anyone even play these? Did anyone have a Lynx? Was this the Handheld Jesus II that came and went, leaving us behind to rot away in 3DS hell?
What the heck?
The lunacy continued.
Pokemon?
Pokemon?
POKEMON!?!
Sure it's an addictive kids game, but really? Just solid 10s at every iteration? The world is seeming a little topsy-turvey right now....
A FUCKING SONIC GAME got a perfect 10!!!?! Ok someone get me Will Smith on the phone, this shit just got real.
It went on and on. From 1998 to 2001, IGN gave out 17 perfect 10s. That's over 5 a year, a perfect 10 almost every 2 months! Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The perfect 10 disappeared. For the entire PS2, GameCube, and Xbox life-cycle there were no 10s to be found. This was a golden age of gaming, with scores of stand out titles, and yet nothing. Not a single game got a perfect 10 until 2006 brought Tornado Mania for iPhone. As if the curse had been lifted the perfect 10s started reappearing. PS3 games. Xbox 360 games. Wii games. All would receive at least 1 perfect 10. The drought had ended, the 10s were allowed back out into the world. But something seemed odd.
Behold! The beginning of a new era of perfection!
So what does all this mean? I'm not entirely sure to be honest, but one thing keeps gnawing at me in the back of my head. An alarming fact is that of the many perfect 10's dished out on the GameBoy and GameBoy Color, a single reviewer was responsible for a majority of them. Mr. Craig Harris has single-handedly dished out more perfect 10s, in a 2 year span, on 2 hand-helds, than the rest of the IGN staff has in their entire collective lifespan. These aren't scores that IGN will remove or take down. They are etched into the history of the site. I find it somewhat suspicious that so many games would deserve a perfect 10 within such a short timeframe, all on the same system, and from the same reviewer...
"Hey Craig, you get that Magical Tetris Challenge review done yet?"
"Oh SHIT that was due TODAY?!"
"Uh yeah man..."
"10!!!"
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