Dunston Checks In and How It Pertains to Giant Bomb Review Scores

Dunston Checks In is a 90s movie with very little going for it. It's got George from Seinfeld managing a hotel with an orangutan in it and Paul Reubens trying to catch said orangutan and that's about it. The overlying premise of the movie, though, is the concept that a 5-star hotel is getting re-reviewed by a critic to receive an exceptional 6th star.

With the talk of review scores on a recent Hotspot podcast, it reminded me that Giant Bomb reviews games. They don't do it very much anymore, but they sure did review a lot of games in the past (over 60 pages of reviews on the site going back to the 2008 Poker Smash review). Quite a few of these games got 5-star reviews, including most recently Control and Tetris Effect, dating all the way back to their first 5 star reviews with Burnout Paradise and Professor Layton and the Curious Village.

What I'm wondering is what if Giant Bomb went back and gave a select few of these 5-star games the precious 6th star of excellence that sparked so much middling hijinks in the movie Dunston Checks In? What games should get it?

For me personally, I would give a 6th star to Cuphead. No game has given me that same experience in the last 10 years.

And no, this is not a way to backdoor a Giant Bomb Game of the Generation discussion. That's just your imagination.

Hm, interesting thought experiment! This "sixth star" could indicate a 5 star game that was both excellent on release and has stood the test of time since.

GTAIV is an early 5 star Giant Bomb gave that I think could qualify. It was awarded a 5 primarily because of its story and characters, and I think those elements of the game still hold up and are effective today.

From Jeff's review, after running through the list of new features in the game:

It's natural to want to take that sort of clinical approach to a sequel, but as I moved through Liberty City and became more entrenched in its story, that stuff simply ceased to matter. At that point, and for the rest of the game, the only thing that mattered to me was Niko Bellic, the game's protagonist. Is he going to survive this time? Are his new-found friends going to make it out alive? Will he ever find what he's looking for, and will finding "that special someone" bring him the inner peace he needs? How did every single person he encounters end up so psychologically damaged?

Maybe I'm injecting my personal biases: but I think "Control" could get the 6th star, depending on how its DLC ultimately winds up. Jeff's passion for that game, especially its storytelling and characters, was contagious and his enjoyment seemingly hasn't waned much. The game's not perfect, but Giant Bomb has shown time and again that 5-star doesn't equate to perfection.

The one that comes to mind quickest for me is Breath Of The Wild. I think it's a pretty spectacular achievement and while I didn't see Dan's stream the other week where he made his list of BEST 100 GAMES OF ALL TIIIIME, I believe Breath Of The Wild topped his list.

Obviously, that maybe changes if it were a situation that actually required a consensus from the staff, rather than just the original reviewer.

It's a fun idea for a thought experiment though. I've done kind of the opposite in the past, where I've wondered about which five star reviews they maybe might not stand behind today. If Jeff were to revisit it, would he still think Mortal Kombat Vs DC Universe is a five star game? And what does the science say?

But really, there's only one six star game.

6th star goes to Dark Souls.

Largely bug-free, tons of content, clever interconnected world, amazing replayability, helped invent a new kind of storytelling in games, the story is actually great and original and isn't cringeworthy or melodramatic, combat is simultaneously simple and deep. It's really as close to a flawless execution as I've ever seen in gaming. It beats out Demon's Souls just for the overall polish and breadth of content.

Now someone please make a George Constanza model import for Dark Souls like this

On a related note, I used to watch G4's X-Play. I remember one time the host Adam Sessler said that five stars was the highest score they were allowed to give, but at some point when talking about Resident Evil 4 for the GameCube he said it was one of -- if not the only one -- game they reviewed that he wishes they could have given a 6 out of 5.

As for Giant Bomb, I went back and looked through all the review thumbnails. I pretty much agree with @damodar in that I think it goes to BotW if it must be awarded to at least one game, but @htr10 asked what games should get six stars. I don't know if any of the games Giant Bomb reviewed deserve a 6.

Anyway, I agree with @development that Dark Souls is a six-star game, but that doesn't fit the criteria, as I don't think it was reviewed by Giant Bomb. The site was a little anti-souls games at the time.

Mass Effect 2, Burnout Paradise, Dark Souls, Sonic All-Stars Racing Transformed, and Geometry Wars all get 6 stars. :)