Given the flood of perfect review scores for Grand Theft Auto IV, observant gamers were justifiably surprised when a score of 9.5/10 briefly appeared on Gamespot.com Monday. That surprise turned to confusion in some quarters when the score (which had no accompanying review) was quickly taken down and later replaced with the fifth 10/10 in Gamespot’s history (complete with corresponding review text). Message boards and some blogs jumped at the change, throwing around charges of "review fixing" and alluding to Gamespot’s recent Gerstmann-related credibility problems.
Don’t go running for your pitchforks and torches just yet, though. According to a forum post by Gamespot’s Aaron Thomas, the briefly displayed 9.5 was just a pre-production glitch and never an official review score. "We never posted a review with the score of 9.5," Thomas writes.
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