Game Informer - Reviews

Reviews

Game Informer currently reviews games on the Wii, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita consoles. Older games, three per issue, were given brief reviews in the magazine's Classic GI section (compared with the game's original review score, if one exists). This was discontinued in 2009, months before the redesign of the magazine. The magazine's staff rate games on a scale of 1 to 10 with quarter point intervals. A score of 1 is considered worse than terrible; 10 is a rare, "outstanding", nearly perfect game; and 7 is "average", a decently playable (but flawed) game. A running gag in every issue is that in the review table (the magazine defines what each score means), the 1 score is always changed to a different joke. To this date, 22 games (23 if one counts the PlayStation 2 version of Resident Evil 4) have received a perfect "10", in order, they include:

• Super Mario World in October 2000 (Classic GI review).
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 in November 2000.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty in December 2001.
• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City in November 2002.
• Grand Theft Auto III in October 2001.
• Metroid Fusion in January 2003.
• The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker in April 2003.
• Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal in November 2004.
• Halo 2 in December 2004.
• Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas also in December 2004.
• Resident Evil 4 in March 2005 for the GameCube and November 2005 for the PlayStation 2.
• God of War in April 2005.
• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess in January 2007.
• BioShock in September 2007.
• Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare in December 2007.
• Grand Theft Auto IV in June 2008.
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in July 2008.
• Uncharted 2: Among Thieves in November 2009.
• God of War III in April 2010.
• StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty in October 2010.
• Batman: Arkham City in November 2011.
• The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in December 2011.
• Mass Effect 3 in April 2012.

Some games have even received scores below 1: Batman: Dark Tomorrow received a 0.75, Shrek: Fairy Tale Freakdown for Game Boy Color got a 0.5, and the Xbox launch title Kabuki Warriors scored a 0.5. In the latter review, editor-in-chief Andy McNamara stated, "I literally won a match just by bashing the controller against my ass. I wish I was joking, but the score is seriously Kabuki Warriors zero, my ass one." This was confirmed by his fellow editors. Another game reviewed for Classic GI – Marky Mark: Make My Video for Sega CD – was given a 0. A score of a 1 was handed out to the Kinect game Hulk Hogan's Main Event in the December 2011 issue. More recently, another score of 1 was handed to Postal III, which was cited for its glitches and bad gameplay.