METACRITIC

'Metacritic' is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows, DVDs and books. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three color codes of Green, Yellow and Red summarize the critic's recommendation. This gives an idea of the general appeal of the product among reviewers and, to a lesser extent, the public.
Many review websites give a review grade out of five, out of ten, out of a hundred, or even an alphabetical score. Metacritic converts such a grade into a percentage. For reviews with no explicit scores (for example, Amazon's reviews), Metacritic manually assesses the tone of the review before assigning a relevant grade. Reviews from certain publications also have a marginally greater influence on the average. One common drawback of Metacritic, however, is its very few book reviews.
Metacritic was founded in 1999, and in August of 2005 was acquired by CNET.

Contents

All-time high scores

Albums

Films

TV

PC games

Video games

Metacritic's best of 2006

Movies

Music

Video games

TV

Books

Metacritic's best of 2005

Movies

Music

Books

Video games

External links

All-time high scores

Albums

#Brian Wilson – ''Smile'' (97/100)
#Loretta Lynn – ''Van Lear Rose'' (97/100)
#Led Zeppelin – ''How the West Was Won'' (97/100)
#OutKast – ''Stankonia'' (95/100)
#Ali Farka Touré – ''Savane'' (94/100)
#Madvillain (MF DOOM and Madlib) – ''Madvillainy'' (93/100)
#Talking Heads – ''The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads (2004)'' (93/100)
#Bob Dylan – ''Love and Theft'' (93/100)
#Tom Waits – '' (92/100)
#Dizzee Rascal – ''Boy in Da Corner'' (92/100)
Kevin Federline's ''Playing with Fire'' currently holds the dubious honour of having the lowest score ever (15/100).

Films

#''The Godfather'' 1972 (100/100)
#''Lawrence of Arabia (re-release)'' 2001 (100/100)
#''Au Hasard Balthazar (re-release)'' 2003 (100/100)
#''The Conformist (re-release)'' 2005 (100/100)
#''Fanny and Alexander (re-release)'' 2004 (100/100)
#''The Leopard (re-release)'' 2004 (100/100)
#''Sweet Smell of Success (re-release)'' 2002 (100/100)
#''Superman II'' 1980 (99/100)
#''Seven Samurai (re-release)'' 2002 (99/100)
#''Army of Shadows (re-release)'' 2006 (99/100)
#''Pan's Labyrinth'' 2006 (98/100)
#''Dr. Strangelove'' 1964 (96/100)
#''Ratatouille'' 2007 (95/100)
#''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (re-release)''2002 (94/100)
#''Pulp Fiction'' 1994 (94/100)
#''The Manchurian Candidate'' 1962 (94/100)
#''Sideways'' 2004 (94/100)
#''Spirited Away'' 2002 (94/100)
#''The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie'' 1972 (93/100)
#''Reversal of Fortune'' 1990 (93/100)
#''Schindler's List'' 1993 (93/100)
#''Amadeus: Director's Cut'' 2002 (93/100)
#''Taxi Driver (re-release)'' 2005 (93/100)
#''La dolce vita (re-release)'' 1960 (93/100)
''Bio-Dome'' holds the honour of lowest scoring movie (1/100).

TV

#''The Wire'' Season 4, HBO (98/100)
#''The Sopranos'' Season 6, HBO (96/100)
#''Battlestar Galactica'' Season 3, Sci-Fi (94/100)
#''Bleak House'' Season 1, BBC (93/100)
#''Curb Your Enthusiasm'' Season 5, HBO (91/100)
#''The Thick of It'' Season 1, BBC (90/100)
#''24'' Season 5, FOX (89/100)
#''When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts'' Mini-series, HBO (88/100)
#''Arrested Development'' Season 2, FOX (88/100)
#''Everybody Hates Chris'' Season 1, UPN (88/100)
#''Huff'' Season 1, Showtime (87/100)
#''Conviction'' Mini-series, BBC America (87/100)
#''City of Men'' Mini-series, Sundance (87/100)
#''Lost'' Season 2, ABC (85/100)
#''Deadwood'' Season 3, HBO (85/100)
#''Robot Chicken'' Season 1, Cartoon Network (83/100)
#''Veronica Mars'' Season 1, UPN (82/100)
#''Extras'' Season 1, BBC (81/100)
#''Elizabeth I'' Mini-series, BBC (81/100)
#''The Nine'' Season 1, ABC (81/100)
''The 1/2 Hour News Hour'', Fox News, holds the dubious honour of lowest scoring television program (12/100).

PC games

#''Half-Life'' 1998 (96/100)
#''Half-Life 2'' 2004 (96/100)
#''BioShock'' 2007 (96/100)
#'' 2000 (95/100)
#''Command & Conquer'' 1995 (94/100)
#'' 2003 (94/100)
#''Civilization II'' 1996 (94/100)
#''Company of Heroes'' 2006 (94/100)
#''Quake'' 1996 (94/100)
#'' 2006 (94/100)
#''Grim Fandango'' 1998 (94/100)
#''Diablo'' 1996 (94/100)
#''Civilization IV'' 2005 (94/100)
#''Unreal Tournament 2004'' 2004 (93/100)
#''Homeworld'' 1999 (93/100)
#''Grand Theft Auto III'' 2002 (93/100)
#'' 2003 (93/100)
#''World of Warcraft'' 2004 (93/100)
#''Day of the Tentacle'' 1993 (93/100)
#'' 2005 (92/100)
#''Pro Evolution Soccer 4'' 2004 (92/100)
'' (2003), developed by Stellar Stone, holds the honor of the lowest scoring PC game (8/100).
Only two games released before 1995, ''Doom II'' (1994) and ''Day of the Tentacle'' (1993), are tracked on the site.

Video games

#'' (Nintendo 64, 1998) (99/100)
#''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'' (PlayStation, 2000) (98/100)
#''Soul Calibur'' (Dreamcast, 1999) (98/100)
#''BioShock'' (Xbox 360, 2007) (97/100)
#''Perfect Dark'' (Nintendo 64, 2000) (97/100)
#''NFL 2K1'' (Dreamcast, 2000) (97/100)
#''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3'' (PlayStation 2, 2001) (97/100)
#''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'' (Dreamcast, 2000) (97/100)
#'' (Xbox, 2001) (97/100)
#''Metroid Prime'' (GameCube, 2002) (97/100)
#''Grand Theft Auto 3'' (PlayStation 2, 2001) (97/100)
#'' (PlayStation 2, 2001) (96/100)
#'' (GameCube, 2003) (96/100)
#'' (Wii, 2006) (96/100)
#''Goldeneye 007'' (Nintendo 64, 1997) (96/100)
#''Resident Evil 4'' (GameCube, 2005) (96/100)
#''Grand Theft Auto Double Pack'' (Xbox, 2003) (96/100)
#''Gran Turismo'' (PlayStation, 1998) (96/100)
#''Resident Evil 4'' (PlayStation 2, 2005) (96/100)
#''Tekken 3'' (PlayStation, 1998) (96/100)
''Elf Bowling 1 & 2'' (Nintendo DS, 2005) holds the honor of the lowest scoring video game (12/100).
No console games released before 1995 are tracked on the site.
As Metacritic does not have a cumulative listing for all video games, these are the results of sorting all games in the site's database by metascore.

Metacritic's best of 2006

Movies

# ''Pan's Labyrinth'' (98/100)
# ''The Queen'' (91/100)
# ''Letters from Iwo Jima'' (91/100)
# ''United 93'' (90/100)
# '' (89/100)

Music

# Ali Farka Toure - ''Savane'' (94/100)
# Tom Waits - '' (91/100)
# Clipse - ''Hell Hath No Fury'' (91/100)
# Bob Dylan - ''Modern Times'' (89/100)
# Joanna Newsom - ''Ys'' (89/100)

Video games

# '' (GameCube) (96/100) & (Wii) (95/100)
# '' (PC) (94/100) & (XBox 360) (94/100)
# ''Gears of War'' (XBox 360) (94/100)
# '' (Playstation 2) (94/100)
# ''Final Fantasy XII'' (Playstation 2) (93/100)
As Metacritic does not have a cumulative listing for all video games, these are the results of sorting all 2006-released games in the site's database by metascore.

TV

As of December 27, the site quotes many publications' top 10 lists but does not display its own conclusion.

Books

# Irene Nemirovsky - ''Suite Francaise'' (95/100)
# Cormac McCarthy - ''The Road'' (90/100)
# George Pelecanos - ''The Night Gardener'' (90/100)
# Kathryn Davis - ''The Thin Place'' (88/100)
# James Meek - ''The People's Act Of Love'' (88/100)

Metacritic's best of 2005

Movies

# ''The Best of Youth'' (89/100)
# ''Capote'' (88/100)
# ''Nobody Knows'' (88/100)
# '' (87/100)

Music

# Sufjan Stevens - ''Illinois'' (90/100)
# My Morning Jacket - ''Z'' (90/100)
# Isolee - ''Wearemonster'' (88/100)

Books

# David B. - ''Epileptic'' (92/100)
# Uzodinma Iweala - ''Beasts of No Nation'' (90/100)
# Hilary Spurling - ''Matisse The Master'' (90/100)

Video games

MetaCritic does not have a single list for 2005 because games usually don't come out on all systems. ''Resident Evil 4'' won for the PlayStation 2 and GameCube, ''Ninja Gaiden Black'' was #1 for Xbox while ''Half Life 2'' had the honor of being the best game for PC.

External links

★ 'Metacritic website'

★ "Metacritic: The Granddaddy of Mash-ups"

★ Gale Resoures evaluation of Metacritic

★ Blogcritics review

★ Businessweek article on Metacritic movies - 6/21/02