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The gaming essentials.
It isn’t often that we give 10/10 review scores on GameSpot. Since the site was founded in 1996, only 27 games have earned that rank. But to achieve a 10/10, a game needs to be essential, and it needs to have something so meaningful to offer us that it simply cannot be ignored. Regardless, a 10/10 review score is always determined by the personal opinion of its respective writer and always reflects as such. So without further ado, here is a list of all the games that we’ve scored with a 10/10! For more details on the review process and what a 10/10 means at GameSpot, check out our in-depth Q&A below.
What makes a game a 10, and has that definition changed over the years? Does a 10 mean it’s “perfect”?
A 10 does not mean a game is perfect, but it does mean that it’s a game we believe everyone should play. In our opinion, no game can be considered perfect. That means you may see a game getting a 10 despite having issues. It also means that games without obvious flaws may be scored below 10.
On the rare occasion when we publish a 10 review, that is our way of saying that no matter your preference for genre, developer, setting, or console, you owe it to yourself to find a way to play the game in question.
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?
It’s true that every review is an individual’s take on a game, and sure enough, the many individuals within GameSpot often have differing opinions on the same game. This is something we accept, and we welcome diversity of opinion at the end of the day.
GameSpot’s editorial team peer-reviews each other’s work during the review process. This is not to determine whether we all agree on a score, but it allows us to ensure that the text we publish backs up the score that’s issued. That means that there are reviews published where we may not all agree with the editor’s opinion, but are otherwise confident enough in their argumentation to put our stamp on the review.
When the time comes that a score fails to align with the text as submitted, we will work together with the author to determine if they were able to effectively convey their thoughts relative to the score, and vice versa. We always encourage our writers to put their words down first and determine the score after the fact.
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