http://kotaku.com/5416788/reviewing-a-game-on-their-terms-the-increasingly-prominent-review-event this says it all.
not really just how getting a game earlier, free hotel rooms and free food doesnt impact gamerscore anyways gta4, mgs4 and mw2 are all great games that dont even need a score boost
They aren't trying to skew the score, they're giving the reviewers top of the line equipment to review their product. It's like how PC games get reviewed, they review PC games with top of the line equipment to judge the game based from that. Not on crap specs. I think the free swag they get is for comfort along with stupid ads. It probably isn't fun to play the same game for hours at a time. If you take the average of every review of a game, that should be the basis on how games are rated. That way scores aren't skewed to the Publisher's liking. Metacritic is probably the best way to get scores on games. Kotaku also has great reviews and after their review they have a chart of the popular game rating's sites and you're able to compare scores from there. The only case of a score being skewed by the publisher (that I can think of) is Tony Hawk Ride.
