I like it. And absolutely not to the .1 increments. It's pointless; what's the significant difference between 8.5 and 8.6? And anything below a 5 is basically not worth playing, so half the review scale is useless. The smaller the better, I say.
I think 5 is better because you need to seriously need to think about how significant a single point or star really effects the final outcome of the review.
I can see advantages and disadvantages on both sides, but Jeff's explanation works for me. He doesn't need 10 different ways to says this game rocks or this game sucks. It works for what it provides, plus the actual written review definitely helps more than the .1 system other places have.
"eww , its casey wegner , how fucking disgusting "
Come now, be nice. The mods over at GS have rubbed most of us the wrong way at one time or another, but we're all equal here. So please stay respectful. I agree, I don't like the scoring system. I don't think it should go to .1 increments, but a score out of 5 with half-star increments would be welcome.
I like it. Actually I'm less keen on half-stars. I think once you get away from very simple rating systems, the whole thing gets ludicrous. You get people arguing over 1% or .1 of a mark, which is just silly. With 5 stars I know exactly where I am, and the whole thing doesn't get bogged down in debate. For example I'm pretty sure everybody would agree that GTA4 is a 5-star game - why worry about whether it's a 4.8 or a 4.9 or a 5.0? What would it mean if it was a 4.8?
I prefer the new system. Fighting over fractions of points is silly. With this five point system, it's easy to tell where each game falls, as opposed to Gamespot's twenty point system and IGN's one hundred point system.
Guiltyspark said:
"CaseyWegner said:
"sad face "
how many people did you ban at GS
Give us an honest number
And just for giggles tell us how many you banned out of boredom "
I like it, it's simple and easy to tell which games are good or not. There really isn't a need for fancy review scores, the point of a review is really just to tell if it is worth the time and money, and pretty much any system can do that.
I think it is a correct way to parody the laughable 1-10 system. Tell me, what is the difference between a 8.3 and an 8.4? What makes the latter any better than the former? And how can you tell?
1up is the only one who seems to be doing it right IMO.
Man, Casey you are going to receive a lot of flak here. And come on guys/gals, no need to be rude, what happened at GS is in the past and stays at GS, this is a new site, and we all need to just...show some love for one another :D
On another note, yeah I really like the review system, easy to use, and you can even give .5 increments to the 5 star system which is a plus (+) I've done two reviews already, and can't wait to get cracking at more!
I like it. Much better than a numerical figure. I feel that 100% or 10/10 imply that a certain game is perfect. And no game is perfect. (No, not even GTA4/MGS4 :P)
Its hard to explain but the star method is more like a recommendation: i.e. 5 stars = You have to own this game, 4 stars = Still very good, you might not want to miss this, 3 stars = Maybe worth a rent first?, 2 stars = Maybe if you have nothing better to spend your money on and 1 star = Avoid. A bit simpler than the numerical method.
A five point system gets us away from fanboys arguing "MY GAME GOT A 9.7, AND YOU'RE GAME GOT A 9.6. SUCK IT FOOLS!" Also, their explanation for the 5 star system on the "help" page almost makes it seem silly to have more than a 5 point scale. If you want to see a 100 point scale attached to a game, check out metacritic.
They won't do scores with .1 increments. That's what Jeff and the other staff members did away with on Gamespot. But it would make me happy if they did.
i totally understand the reason they went with the 5 star rating but im still stuck in the 1 to 10 scale. i think something like the OXM scale where it goes in increments of 0.5 would be welcome. but to be totally honest... i dont think they care what we think. A couple of people disliking the rating system wont change their minds
I think six stars would be perfect, the sixth star would be for the most exceptional games like Ocarina of Time, or maybe GTA IV for some people (like this: Perfect, very good, good, mediocre, bad, very bad), and I would like to know what the other editors think about the game, for example Brad really likes The Force Unleashed, but Ryan seems to think otherwise, so if Brad reviews the game it might get a good score and review, but I still want to know why Ryan doesnt like it.
My feeling is that increased precision merely exaggerates the illusion that quality can be measured numerically. The five-point scale gives enough precision to express broad sentiments ("this is great", "this is good", "this is OK", etc.), but doesn't have any pretence of sorting everything into a hierarchy. The more granulated you make the scale, the fewer people each score will be right for. You could argue that reviews should describe the editor's views rather than attempt to predict the audience's, of course. But that's a different discussion.
God, I'm really talking like a ponce today.
EDIT: An interesting side-effect is that people are more reasonable with smaller scales. Sixty per cent is generally considered to be pretty bad, unless you've got some special reason to be interested (a fan of the franchise, etc.), but three stars could be worth a look, even though it occupies the middle spot. I guess we have a tendency to count down from the top of the scale in what we consider to be appropriate increments. On a 100-point scale, we tend to go for ten-point sets: 100%-90% is excellent, 89%-80% is great, 79%-70% is good, 69%-60% is so-so, 59% and below is pretty bad. Smaller scales force people to spread the top end over a greater portion of the whole thing, which makes sense, because how much does it matter whether a game gets 40% or 20%? Is anyone likely to buy either? Reviews obviously aren't purely buying guides, but the top end seems much more important to me.
I'm sure we've all been over all this stuff countless times already.
I prefer 1-10 system without the points. 5 stars really is not enough to tell whether the game is really worth it or not. i mean 2 stars could be like a 6 or something. i really dis like .1 incriminates though, makes it to complicated.
The star system works fine. It's clean and simple, there is no need to have 1-10, what does 6.5/10 really mean, the exta .5 makes a lot of difference?, it ridiculous. The star system is more straight to the point.
"I wish they would use half stars too. Something doesn't sit right with me when they give Codemned 2 and BF BC 5 out of 5 stars. "
those games are both amazing and fully deserving of those stars No game is ever perfect , gerstmann has stated this the 5 stars is based on the worth to the player
"I wish they would use half stars too. Something doesn't sit right with me when they give Codemned 2 and BF BC 5 out of 5 stars. "
those games are both amazing and fully deserving of those stars No game is ever perfect , gerstmann has stated this the 5 stars is based on the worth to the player
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