If you hate 10-point rating systems, then pay no mind to the Nadia Comaneci 10 that IGN has handed Grand Theft Auto IV. The last game to get a perfect score from IGN was Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, in 1999.

Yet curiously, by describing it also as "Without question, the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time," IGN sets up a strange paradox. Because it reviewed Ocarina of Time on Nov. 25, 1998. And then it reviewed Soul Calibur on Sept. 20, 1999. So ... the benchmark game for GTA's greatness goes back to 1998. But since then another game has earned a 10/10 score from IGN. So what gives?

On second thought, the hell with the 10/10 scale. Read our stuff instead. Our embargo on GTA IV will break Sunday at 10 am, and then all the nitty gritty your hot little hands can hold will be yours. We'll deliver you a flood of content, and then some.

Still, until then, you'll need some surrogate commentary, and IGN's as good a place as any to start.

"A 10 doesn't mean a game is perfect — it means a game is pushing boundaries, expanding a genre, and doing many things to a level so far above and beyond its competitors that they overshadows any flaws."

Sounds like a winner — by any score — to me.

Grand Theft Auto Review [IGN]

Contact information for this author is not available.