[Xantar]

The problem is I get the feeling from the review that Matt Cassamassina expects Metroid Prime 2 to blow us all away and revolutionize gaming in the same ways that the first game did. Sure, he doesn't come right out and say it, but why else would he keep comparing the two games and talking about how new everything felt in Metroid Prime?

The review for San Andreas, on the other hand, says nothing about the game feeling new or like an entirely different beast. Fine by me, really. If the game is fun to play, then it's fun to play. Yeah, maybe the "sense" of freshness is a subjective thing, but I really think Matt holds Nintendo and Retro to a different standard than Rock Star or Bungie. There is a serious disconnect here when he spends half of the review talking about some drawback or another (the Dark World isn't so exciting, the Dark Gun looks ugly, there's a lack of a save point near one boss, it doesn't feel fresh etc.) and rates the game 9.5. In any case, if it really doesn't feel so fresh, then Matt could have simply stated so and left the score there as it is. When he starts calling that "disappointing," I really wonder what he was expecting Retro to do in order to top a game that was rated nearly perfect in the first place.