So which outlet will be the one to lowball this game in the reviews?

5/5 Giantbomb.com "It's like Gone Home with guns" -Patrick Klepek

Oh, so you're more of a Kotaku guy. Their binary Yes or No review system strikes your fancy, eh? I do think it's nice that they just flatly reject scores and say, "Hey, this is me as an individual reviewer saying whether I liked this game or not. Do with that opinion what you will."

(I know we were joking around, but you actually brought up a valid alternative)

@kishinfoulux said:

Personally I think it's totally fine that Jim's willing to give Dynasty Warriors really high scores (even if I feel like he ought to at least dock a few points for objectively bad technical issues.) It's stuff like giving Assassin's Creed 2 a 4.5 that just baffles me, especially when some of the complaints are as dumb as they are in that particular review. As for the polygon Sim City debacle, they just could have handled it better. Their multiple score reductions made the positive review feel like it lacked conviction, especially when all of the problems they docked it for were finally fixed and the score never returned to it's original value. Somehow I just started arguing about review scores and I hate myself for it.

Fattony12000, he's a Kotaku guy.

5/5 Giantbomb.com "F*CK BROTHERS: A TALE OF TWO SONS. GTA V is Game of the Year." -Brad Shoemaker

I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure Jeff typed to Brad and the others on Daily Dota today, and said "GTA5 is not very good" (They read off most of what he was typing). I may have misheard the "Not" bit.

I tried to skip through the recording on twitch.tv to find it again, but that is a lot of DOTA to go through.

Edit: Per @truthtellah and @clonedzero below, it appears I misinterpreted the tone, and this was the guys putting words in Jeff's mouth for laughs.

heh. Nah, they started being silly and putting words in his mouth. They asked him to play with them, and he had, "NO NO NO" on the screen. But they started saying, "Oh, Jeff is saying YES YES YES." And then they joked that he was now saying, "GTA5 is not very good!" when he didn't say anything like that. They were just trying to tease him, because they know he's playing it right now and the review is coming up.

Hey, well, you're in good company, man. I'm not always the biggest fan of everything they post, but I have certainly been on the site for years. If anyone could be considered a Kotaku guy, I'd say I fit the bill. Though, Giant Bomb has been my main for a good while now. :)

Everyone has Polygon's number! We all know what your up to over there!

Thats not what happened. Jeff was trolling the dota stream pretty hard (it was hilarious) and they were like "Oh gta5 must not be that good"

who ever will it be this time it is certainly not IGN^^

All 5 reasons are GTA V XD

As for Giantbomb it will clearly be a 5/%. With a GOTY contender and mostly winning GOTY

@kishinfoulux: It being "a mainline GTA game" doesn't mean anything. Its just as subject to ridicule as any other game.

... or does it?

dun Dun DUN!

#followthemoney

Every time I see one of these threads speculating review scores it reminds me of this Heroes of the Web Shawn Elliot did on the GFW Radio Podcast...

@demoskinos: well bloody said.

Here's a photoshop I made of Stephen Totilo several years ago.

Tom Chick. He'll complain that it's a terrible RTS and give it a 2.

Yeah, I'm sort of expecting something low from Edge. I'd probably go with a flat 8 though, not sure why.

Where is the: don't care, fuck numbers on reviews option in that poll?

Fuck me that is genius. So many horrible arseholes being made to look stupid - hilarious. :))))))

I'll roll the dice and go with Destructoid. I think Jim Sterling is reviewing it, and he's been known to go against the grain on otherwise critically well received games.

Another prediction: Jeff drops a four star review that highly praises many aspects of the game and people get pissed off anyway. I know he really liked GTA IV, but he didn't seem to connect with RDR or Max Payne 3.

Just wild speculation, but we'll see soon enough...

EDIT:

Well, well. Speak o' the devil. Jonathan Holmes of Destructoid just dropped this interesting tweet:

I have read a review of Grand Theft Auto 5, and I am no longer going to buy it.

https://twitter.com/TronKnotts/status/379315130036518912

Eh honestly I love ACII, but I could see how it would be terrible to some people. Some people really don't like that series so it doesn't shock me.

I can't tell if you're trolling me or if this shit is just going over your head. I'm stating reality. GTA main line games always get high marks and tons of praise. This will be no different. That's not because it deserves to or because I want it to or whatever. That's REALITY. That's like me saying it's a safe bet a Naughty Dog game will get high marks. It probably will, deserved or not. Not hard to understand.

It's funny that Jim is public enemy number one on Destructoid when it should really be Holmes. Aside from being an unabashedly pround Nintendo fan boy, he ALWAYS goes against the popular conventions. Just follow him and read his thoughts on any popular game. You'll see what I mean.

He was NEVER going to buy GTA because it's not on a fucking Nintendo platform. He's just poking the hornets nest, like he always does, except he does it in this super passive aggressive way.

Yeah, I don't know that there's much you can really read into his comment. He probably made up his mind about GTA V a long time ago.

@kishinfoulux: Holmes also has this bizarre tendency to psycho-analyze anyone he doesn't like.

I'll guess Destructoid gives it a 6 or a 7, Jeff gives it 4 stars, and Polygon goes for a 7.

1 star.

Embargo SHATTERED.

I could possibly see Jeff giving it four stars, since GTA V is looking to hark back, in some respect, to the way of things before GTA IV, and Jeff's been pretty open in stating that's not what he's looking for anymore out of GTA. It's the exact reason why he only stuck with Sleeping Dogs for a couple of hours.

The story looks like it's pretty much on the same par as the quality from GTA IV, though, so maybe that'll still manage to make him fall in love with GTA all over again. After all, he always seems to feel the exact same way leading up to every GTA release, wondering if this'll be the one where he finally finds he's over it, but then keeps getting wowed time and time again with each new release.

@kishinfoulux: It "having a good chance" is one thing but automatically assuming that hey, this game is 9.0 and if anyone says any less then they are just trolling is fucking silly. Reviews are not objective nor should they be and some people simply might not like it as much as others.

haha indeed. As always I'm curious to read Tom Chick's review. He's one of my favorite writers.

The only person I can envisage giving GTAV a less than perfect score is Jeff. Clearly he wouldn't be doing it on purpose, but he loves Saints Row 3 and 4 sooo much, I'm not clear if he still appreciates what GTA sets out to do. I assume it's Jeff reviewing it.

I'm not claming GTA V will be perfect, I'm sure there will be quite a lot wrong with it, it is written by Dan Houser after all. But the technical visual achievement is so immense no one will be able to tell what they really think about it until mid October. GTAIV got top scores across the board and yet it was clear to everyone 4 weeks later the game was a bit shit, but the size and detail of the city (which is still mind boggling) is too overwhelming to process in a weekend. Which is why Rockstar gave review copies out for V on Friday.

I'm not sure that opinion is quite as unanimous or harsh as you make it out to be. There are plenty of people out there that still think GTA IV is a great game (myself included).

Bioshock Infinite is another situation where I just don't understand the backlash.

Jim Sterling loves controversy in the name of page hits.

Jim Sterling can be a contrarian, but he's also a weird contrarian. He consistently gives the Call of Duty games very high scores, for example, when you would expect that would be an easy target.

@marokai: So....he's honest and gives his actual opinion on games?

@demoskinos: Hey, I don't mean to suggest I dislike Sterling. I follow him on twitter, watch a lot of his YouTube videos, and enjoy many of his reviews. He is, though, something of a wild card.

Polygon for sure. I think their justifications for their reviews are fine enough. But in their reviews they seems to feel that one part of the overall whole of a game can change its score pretty dramatically. It also seems like each reviewer has a wildly different take on the review scoring system. And in the end they seem to be a group of editors that prize novelty, simplicity, and the emotional experience of a game which, besides the emotional resonance, I don't see GTA 5 being very great in those areas.

6/10 from Polygon.

Reason: "Just didn't click with me (but thanks for clicking on our site to find that out)"

@marokai: That is what I like about Sterling. He gave Saints Row IV a 9.5. Does it deserve it, not really, but he tells what he thinks of the game. Regardless of what others think.

You know what I can't wait for? People considering 8/10 to be lowball.

I actually feel like Jeff might give it a 4 also. I think Saint's Row might have spoiled him in a certain way. Then again he seemed to really like GTA IV. I dunno Jeff is such a random guy at times. 4 or 5 for sure though.

For the record I'm not some GTA fanboy saying it deserves that sort of thing. Just to be clear. I'm just saying it's the reality of the industry. Some games you just KNOW are getting high praise/marks, without even touching them. Last of Us was a recent example. GTA is the next one. Titanfall seems destined for this as well.

Polygon.

They'll be trying to regain some authenticity after a number of game scoring debacles, and they'll naturally choose the wrong one to do it on. Or maybe they'll just do it for page views. I can honestly see either one happening.

Bah. I was expecting it to be the episode where someone bashes Shawn Elliot for giving Crysis an 8.5 "Games for Windows gets sloppy seconds review. Gives Crysis an 8.5. Why so low?" Or something like that. I remember he was pissed.

Though, I will gladly listen to a random hero of the web!

Giant Bomb 3/5