8.4 > 8.2 Big Deal?
By Scientist 20 Comments
My philosophy on rating games is to keep it on a small scale and have those letters or numbers make a big difference. If I'm rating a game I prefer a 1-5 scale rating system.
If I give a game a 1 I'm basically telling you it's the worst game out there and should not be played by anyone, not even for torture purposes.
If I give a game a 2 it might be a rent, or for only die hard fans if it's part of a series, had big flaws but still playable, etc.
This way a 3 is going to be smack in the middle and easily represent a mediocre game, a game where you may like it or hate it, you may rent or just buy, there may be minor flaws or minor bugs in the game.
A 4 rated game is a good game, probably a buy if you're looking for that genre of video game to add to your collection. There may be a few bugs here and there but nothing that will halt the flow of the game.
5 rated games are easily enough games that you should own with no questions asked. The developers obviously took the time to construct this masterpiece and isn't plagued with bugs. The story is something to be told for generations and we'll all droll over a rumor later on if a sequel is announced.
We're all entitled to our opinion and we all like to write our own reviews but I'll have my opinion on a rating scale as long I can until someone can tell me a how a 2 rated game is different from a 3 rated game on a 1-10 review scale. There has actually been some huge flame wars on some forums about a game getting an 8.3 and another similar game an 8.2 and of course the 8.3's are flaunting they got the better score but in reality what is the difference here? Did the reviewer not like the background color on the main menu for him to drop the score by 0.1? It gets a little ridiculous. The same goes for reviews that use letter ratings with symbols included. Is an "A-" game really different from an "A"? I think not. If you can really decipher a legitimate reason let me know because I find it pretty pointless.
Stick to simple and straight forward 1-5 scales or A-F scales with no + or - or decimal points. We all want to be able to look at a review and really know why a game got a 2 or a 3 and not have to decipher a simple .4 or .8.