Game reviews and there influence

As I said in my game history I owned a N64, this was before many people had the internet so it was hard to hear about games and new releases without buying any magazines. My influence on games I would buy definitely had a big affect on reviews and headlines that I would read in a magazines. When I had my Megadrive I didn't know one game from another so I would buy it because of how cool the pictures looked. As I bought more and more magazines, my knowledge of the titles would get better and ones that would be talked about most would have more appeal to me, especially if they hadn't even been released yet. The main thing that would sway me to buy a game (especially in the N64 magazine) was the list of every game released would have a small list of bad and good points in bullet form and be given a grade out of a 100%. I remember buying Zelda because I think it was given about 98% and I didn't even know much about the game. By no means is this a bad thing in my opinion. Zelda is arguably the best title on the N64, and rightly so. But I may have never played it had it not been for reviews in magazines. I can't agree there right all the time though. I take reviews as only a guideline. With the internet so popular these day threes a lot of biassed opinions on not only games but also the film and music industries. Recently I saw IGN post there top 25 games and mass effect came in at no1. I would put money on almost every person I know tell me any other game as there most favourite. You could argue there being other reasons for the choices in the list, but who am I to point the finger.