I realize that if I was asking what you guys would probably score Skyrim, most of you would say 10/10, I love TES fans. However I'm asking what you think Skyrim will get scored on its reviews (out of 10). To give some context, Oblivion was groundbrakingly (yes, I just made that word up) incredible for the time, and got 9-9.5/10 on average.

Also, when I look at reviews, I'm talking about the larger company reviews such as OXM, IGN, Gamespot, etc.

And finally, as for the poll options, I didn't start at 1, because there is no way Skyrim is getting less than 6/10. I doubt it'll even get less than 9/10. I also gave a 9.5 option, because some people may think it's better than a 9, but not perfect, so I thought it was needed.

9.5

I wont be surprised to see 10s, however. Few companies put the same amount of effort into their franchises like BGS does

If game journos are anything like their music counterparts, then average 9, sandwiches and water gets you an 8, buy them a three course meal, and all the beer they can drink, that nets you a ten.

I would like Skyrim to be a perfect ten but it's probably going to be around a 9 or 9.5 like all the other gamesas games have been. WHEN WILL E3 BE HERE?!

Considering Dragon Age II got rated rather High and it was a terrible game, if Skyrim manages to be above average I expect a lot of reviewers giving it a 10.

It will probably get an average of about 9.5. They hand out tens easier than one might imagine.

Wouldn't surprise me if EA pulled a 'give us good reviews or you don't get early info on future games'. They do seem to want to rush them out, make the money, and who cares if it's not a long term sell after the dust settles, here's the next one.

Metacritic (collective average of critic reviews):

Morrowind - 89 (highest rated platform version)
Oblivion - 94 (highest rated platform version)
Fallout 3 - 93 (highest rated platform version)



Those are Bethesda's average review scores.

9 stars gives them enough room to pick on the flaws of the game

Its funny because Fallout usually rates higher than Oblivion and gets more awards nowadays.

LOL, so true!

Seeing as the modern review scale is 7-10, I'm thinking all of the major publications will be giving it 11/10 just to svck up to gamesas to sell some of that sweet, sweet adspace.

Is it really 7-10? I thought it was 6-10... any confirmation? I'll change the poll options.

a combination of Rybicki maneuvering and the game just generally being considerably more polished.

i'm expecting Skyrim to take home no less than a 92 on Metacritic.

Most game churnalists either play the game for far too short a time (10-20 hours) before writing their review or are outright told be publishers "Don't give the game a score below X or we will pull all our advertising".

This results in ridiculousness like Oblivion's reviews which praised every part of the game and either ignored entirely or glossed over whatever 'minor' as they call them shortcomings (which they assure you don't detract from the overall experience). This is what results in what No Mutants Allowed has termed "The Rybicki Manuveour", named after a 1UP churnalist who committed a particularly notable instance of it when he previewed Fallout 3 and noted all the problems in Oblivion that Fallout 3 promised to fix, howver when you go back and read through 1UPs Oblivion preview most of the things that he said Fallout 3 would fix were labelled as great positive things in the Oblivion review.

The complete failure of nearly every professional churnalist review to note the problems of level scaling and how it ruins exploration and character development (in other words what could have been the two saving graces of the game since it's RPG qualities were poor), exemplifies this. Go back and read them. Most of the reviews talk about how great it is that you are able to go anywhere you want to and always have a challenge no matter how high a level you are - basically suggesting they only played it long enough to get up to level 7-8 which is before the problem becomes obvious.

Expect much the same from Skyrim. We'll be reading all about the problems from the professional churnalists as the lead up to TES 6 begins.

My kids get 360 Gamer (UK), and fair play to them, they are not afraid to hand out 3s and 4s, and even the rare 2 for a truly execrable game.

your consistent use of "churnalists" as some form of derogative is silly.

also, how is a reviewer supposed to capture all the problems with a game like Oblivion within a week of its release? it's a BIG [censored] GAME, and if you're going into it completely blind (as they all did) the level scaling only rears its ugly head far later into the game than would be acceptable for most media outlets to spend on it before reviewing.

Good poll options.

Also if its based on guessing an OXM review then you need and 11 on the board named unicorn score because they say it's the perfect score and it's never gonna happen (but OXM hasn't gone hands on with skyrim yet)

I believe OXM will break there own rules and give skyrim the 11 and just for good measure add the .5 on the end lol jk i voted 9.5/10 (but i believe it could get 10/10 if its everything the articles say it is.

European publications tend to maintain a much healthier degree of skepticism (and, entertainingly, cynicism and sarcasm) than American ones. They have a history of giving lower scores to games than the crap we have over here. I'll trust Rock Paper Shotgun over IGN or any of the other crappy ad-posting sites anytime.

This, one thousand times this. If Dragon Age 2 can get scores like eights and 8.5's. Then Skyrim should be a 11, and it isn't even out yet.

11/11/11: Skyrim gets 11 out of 11. 11 cheers for Bethesda! Hip hip!

I'm guessing like 8-9/10, because reviewers always consider graphics, and Skyrim's graphics definitely aren't 10/10...
Graphics will bring down the number a bit.

except they'll be comparing the graphics to other console games running on consoles. i'd say they're as good as any other, and better than some. certainly better than most first-person games on consoles.

It'll get about a 12.5, not being photo-realistic will knock that down to about 10.7, lack of full DX11 support will drag it down to 10.1, then a couple of massive bugs not covered by the first-day patch will drop its scores to about 9.6 or so.

I know, at at that time they'll be having BF3, Rage. Perhaps W2. Already got Crysis 2. Those slaughter the Skyrim graphics. Brink graphics got like 6-7/10 from most reviews, and even I thought those looked pretty good.