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Narrative
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LTR - One review source that never seemed to hold back to me was the magazine PC Gamer that had a 0% - 100% ratings scale for games, some bad games have scored as low as 4% on that table....
Tulling: Why the past tense? As far as I know, PC Gamer is still being published, at least the original UK edition. Also, regarding scoring I would like to quote from wikipedia:
"Reviews are written either by the magazine's editors or by freelancer writers. Games are graded on a percent scale. In the US edition, no game has yet received any higher than a 98% rating (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and Half-Life 2), while the UK edition has never awarded more than 96% (Civilization II, Half-Life, Half-Life 2 and Quake II). In the UK edition, the lowest score ever given was "N/A%" (Big Brother 2), with the lowest numerical score being 2% (Big Brother 1). In the US edition, the lowest score was awarded to Mad Dog McCree (4%; the sequel, Mad Dog II: The Lost Gold, improved very slightly to get a 9% score), unseating the previously lowest-rated game, Skydive! (5%)."
LTR - Past tense only because I haven't read it for years, I used to mooch my roomates copies of it when he was done with them, but he stopped subscribing.
Tanto: Jiggled some things around...I'd like some input as to whether the line explaining the name works better at the top or the bottom. Alex319: PC Gamer does still do this. Although it says in their rating scale that 60-69% is an "above average" game, the average review score they give games is closer to around 70%. (I actually calculated this by randomly sampling 50 games from their reviews database.) HeartBurn Kid: I used to hold Maximum PC's reviews in high regard for avoiding the score inflation that goes with this, but then they gave Half-Life 2 an 11. An 11. On a 10-point scale. And, of course, this followed pages and pages of "exclusive" content on the game. And then, in the next issue, they declared it Game of the Year before it was even released (thanks to shipping delays on the game). Ronfar: After developing my own personal rating system, I can honestly say that most published games actually do fall in the 6 to 10 range. The worst "typical game" is far from the potential bottom of the barrel, and when something truly awful comes out, you want to be able to bash it properly. Even a mediocre game is, to a fan of games, often more engaging than a mediocre movie. I really think the "four point scale" actually does reflect the reality of the games market. Tanto: If that's the case, then the scale needs to be reworked. An accurate ten-point scale for anything will give a 5.0 grade to an average game, by definition. If it doesn't, you're basing your numbers on an outdated defintion of quality. Zeke: Since when are all scales relative? When I see a ten-point scale for a review, I assume 0 means "very bad" and 10 means "very good" -- not "very bad/good relative to the competition". The philosophy you describe is like grading on a curve: it makes sure you use the full range of values, but it's hardly fair. HeartBurn Kid: Zeke, "very bad" and "very good" are themselves relative, subjective terms. There are no objective criteria whatsoever regarding game scoring; most reviewers try to give as unbiased a view of a game as possible, but in the end, they are comparing it to other games they have played. And as for Ronfar's point, you might be right about most games, but when a game like Wrestlemania 21, which was so badly glitched that the online mode was literally unplayable and it was insanely difficult to actually complete a match without the game crashing, got a 6.0 in Game Informer despite the fact that they acknowledged most of these faults in the review, and gave no compelling reason why it should have received anything over a 0 except "the graphics look good", it stands to reason that there's some score sweetening going on. Sci Vo: Tanto, that only holds true for the theoretical total population. By definition, we're only seeing the subset of games that make it into the market, and even there we're trying to avoid the ones that look the suckiest. Analogy: Current educational theory holds that if you have less than 80% understanding (not just knowledge of facts) of any given topic or sub-topic, then you don't really understand it at all, because everything's related. The more little misunderstandings you have, the more likely that the truth of your conclusions will be random at best. Computer games have the same kind of complex interconnectedness. If your game -- any product, really -- is only 60% the quality that it could be, then it failed. Anything less than that should never even make it into a distribution channel, and it's wise to leave the full scale open so that when a 5% failure does make it onto store shelves, you can properly contrast it with the more common 60% failures. So, I think that it makes sense for typical reviews to cluster in the 60-100% range; but when there's no distinction between lackluster, buggy me-toos and games that are essentially unusable for their advertised purpose, then there's a problem. Tanto: But even then, the four-point scale is still wrong. We're not judging games against the theoretical Worst. Game. Ever. that would never make it onto store shelves. We're comparing them to games that do get released, the ones that we have to choose between when the time comes to spend our gaming dollar. If Game A gets a 70 and Game B gets a 75, knowing that they're both better than some college freshman's first attempt at programming does me a hell of a lot of good. Sci Vo: Actually, coaster material does make it into distribution. It shouldn't, but that's a different conversation. Besides, the four-point scale is usually a forty-point scale in disguise, because of decimals. Back when I read magazines like that, Computer Gaming World used a four-star system with half-star increments -- an eight-point scale in practice -- and it worked great. Forty different rating increments are five times what they need to make the necessary distinctions. Morgan Wick: Tanto, by your definition, the school system in America should make 50%, not 75%, "average". Ronfar: I might as well elaborate on my own "Four Point Scale." Game FA Qs user reviews require a score between 1 and 10, so here is how I rate games. I mostly play RP Gs, so the examples come from there. 1 - As fun as doing homework. Actively unpleasant. There is something really wrong with this game. Example: Wizardry Gold (PC) 2 - As fun as watching paint dry. Inspires complete indifference. Might as well be playing with the game turned off. Example: Faxanadu (NES) 3 - Has some redeeming features, but its problems overwhelm them. Example: Phantasy Star II (Genesis) 4 - Something between 3 and 5. In practice, I don't use this score. 5 - Mediocre. Either very forgettable, or has some aspects that are really good and others that are really bad. Example: Shadow Madness (PSX) 6 - Has some entertainment value, but probably not worth your time. Examples: Final Fantasy X-2 (PS 2) 7 - A pretty typical "good game". There are plenty of better games out there, but it's worth playing if you get the chance. Example: Star Ocean 3: Till the End of Time (PS 2). 8 - The Good Stuff. If gaming is your thing, you'll be glad you played it. Example: Final Fantasy IX (PS 1) 9 - A great game, and probably an all-time favorite of mine. Serious contender for Game of the Year. If you play this ten years from now, you'll still enjoy every minute of it. Example: Final Fantasy X (PS 2) 10 - A serious candidate for Best. Game. Ever. People will still be playing this game for as long as people still play video games. The game's biggest problem is that there isn't enough of it. Example: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES) Most games do fall into the 6-10 range, but there's value in having the 1-5 range anyway, because there's meaningful variations among the games that do fall into that range. On the other hand, plenty of magazines probably do fail to properly bash that which deserves to be bashed. :) Duckluck: "by your definition, the school system in America should make 50%, not 75%, "average"." No because the percentage typically refers to the percentage of work completed, not an individual's success in relation to another. I know in practice grades wind up being totally relative, but they're [i]supposed to[/i] be objective. But this is a debate that's been raging back and forth for ages, so perhaps we should just change the subject. Sci Vo: Totally tangential trivia: my understanding of current educational theory is that since knowledge is so interconnected -- note all of the linkages within this wiki, for example -- you can't really understand something at all unless you understand at least 80% of it. If one assumes that the purpose of schooling is to educate the students (rather than merely warehousing and categorizing them), anytime a student gets less than 80% on a subsection of an exam, that should be taken as a sign that he or she needs additional review of that material, followed by re-testing on that subsection. So, theoretically, no student should pass any class until they demonstrate at least 80% understanding of every part of it. Of course, that only applies to the high school level and beyond, since social promotion for psychosocial development trumps academic standards before that. zinfandel: Does it bother anyone else that all the "examples" for this entry are exceptions or "subversions"? No? Okay then... Big T: @zinfandel - That's what happens with ubiquitous tropes. It's everywhere, so we have to note the exceptions. @Ronfar - Looks like we have a Justified Trope. Still I know reviewers who flat-out acknowledge the Four Point Scale. They reserve 1 for everything you have between 1 and 4 and combine 8 and 9 into 4. (I was stoked when they had the balls to say a certain over hyped game for the PSP sucked. Tanto: Page was getting a little quote-heavy, so I moved the Penny Arcade thing down into the examples.
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