Gamasutra examines the current 96% average score for the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on Wii (which I still don’t have ’cause it’s sold out). From the article: “One of the more controversial Twilight Princess reviews recorded at Gamerankings is Jeff Gerstmann’s at GameSpot, in which he awards the title a score of 8.8 out of 10… Gerstmann’s biggest issue is with Twilight Princess’s similarity to previous Zelda titles… He explains: ‘There’s a very noticeable lack of evolution here, which makes aspects of the game seem more dated than classic.’”

Does Gerstmann have a point? I think he does. Zelda should be judged right along all the other games that reuse proven mechanics over and over again especially when Nintendo cites the concept as a rampant problem in the industry. But I could care less about the low review score. If one reviewer didn’t enjoy the game on a 9+ level, that’s fine. What I do care about, however, is consistency in reviews. And judging from Gerstmann’s other 9+ reviews of recent big games that “lack evolution,” I’m not so sure he has that. So I can only wonder other motivations behind being a review outlier… Publicity maybe? Intended or not, Gamespot got it.