if i remember right from back in the day: gamepro magazine didn't give an overall score, they gave just the scores for graphics, sound, gameplay, and "fun factor"
their competition on the other hand, EGM, just gave a single score, but they had a score from not just ONE reviewer, but 3-4 PER game. of course, that was back when games were much shorter usually (snes, genesis etc) and came out far less often