The Video Game Critic

Personally, my favorite grading scale is a letter grade scale like The Critic uses. Hell, it's the scale I use when I review anything. 

Before I go into this rant, I want to say that I understand why people use 10 point or 100 point scales. After all, 10 and 100 are nice, round numbers. Hence why you see top 10 and top 100 lists, and not top 72 lists. 

That being said, there are a few things that annoy me with those scores. Scores with those scales are often arbitrary. It really irritates me, for example, to see a game get a 9.9/10. I mean, what flaw could a game possibly have that prevents it from getting that extra .1? Seriously? If the flaw is really that minor, I think it should be considered pretty insignificant. What, exactly, is the difference between a 96 and a 97? I've also seen the criticism that if a critic gives a game a 10/10, then the game should be perfect. Sometimes you'll see a review that details flaws in the game, and yet gets a 10/10. Now, I don't necessarily disagree with that if the game is amazing and the flaws are negligible. However, I can see the point of the criticism. That's another reason I like a letter grade scale. A game doesn't necessarily have to be perfect to get an A+. It can have SOME flaws. However, it has to be an outstanding game, a true masterpiece in which the flaws truly are insignificant. A game that, over the years, will eventually be hailed as one of the greatest games of all time. A 10/10 or 100/100 indicates that the game has no flaws whatsoever. Plus, I think games, just like students, can have extra credit that raises the letter grade, like sidequests, unlockables, optional levels, etc.

Now that my rant is over, I will talk about some of the other review scales.

Some say that the best scale would be a simple two or three point scale, like Good, Bad, or Meh, or Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. Honestly, I think the scale is a little too simple for my taste, and doesn't really tell me enough, if that makes any sense.

As for the 5 point or 5 star scale, I don't hate it like I used to, and I can certainly see its merits, but I'm not much of a fan. It's not a bad scale and doesn't really have anything wrong with it, but it's just not my thing. I can't quite put my finger on it.

Some people say that we should eliminate review scores altogether. The problem with that is that a review score provides a summary of the review itself. It tells you what the critic thought about it overall without going into great detail, as that is the job of the review itself.

Saying all this, I realize that because I use a letter grade scale, I'm a little biased in favor of it. I mean, I'm sure one of the other forumers can point out the flaws of a letter grade scale. It's just the scale I prefer, and I feel that it is the best scale for reviewing. If I could, I would make letter grades the standard reviewing scale.

[QUOTE=scotland17]Good topic, VelcroZombie. Here are some thoughts off tbe top my head: 1 Every year rank the top 25 or 50 games, any criteria you wish. Anything else is just unranked. Not bad, just unranked. 2 Be like diving where there is a degree of difficulty multiplier that rewards risk. A really good but simple game would get a good initial score, but a low multiplier. Complexity, even if a bit rough, might have a higher overall score. (Diving also scores with a set of judges and tossing out highest and lowest) 3 Just released. Grade all games, not within a library as Dave does or with a distribution of grades in mind, but simply as if they game is about to be retailed for the first time. So a 1977 game like Combat would not be judged by later Activision or Imagic titles, let alone modern homebrews, but as if you were doing the review in a 1977 magazine. 4 Pros and Cons only, no score. What does the game do well, where does it disappoint. Who will like this game, and who won't. No game is perfect, and choices have to made that mean some things are weak, hopefully others are done well. 5 Comparitive. A new FPS shooter in town? How does it compare to others? What does it do better, worse, or not at all? If the current best in genre is defined to be a 50, what score does the new entrant get? Any of those tickle your fancy? [/QUOTE]

Thanks for the thoughtful post, scotland. I don't have my own Internet at the moment so I can't give much time to this, but I'll try:

1. I could see this being a good supplemental ranking system, especially if it stacks (22th in FPS all time, but also 5th best game overall for the XBox360, as an example). I'll have to think about it more.

2. This is something that I've been thinking a lot about, especially when compared to other art forms. Trout Mask Replica by Captain Beefheart and Loveless by My Bloody Valentine are two of the most unique and interesting albums of the second half of the 20th century, and they continuously reward over many listens, but how many people bought them and threw them on the shelf to collect dust after a single listen? I've always been attracted to things like Killer7 or Mirror's Edge, where the game launched itself off a high dive and, if they made a few gaffes on the way down then so be it. I would personally take this into account if I wrote about a game and gave it a rating, but I would do what I could to make my audience understand that they may not feel the same way and that they game might not be for them.

3. This doesn't work for me. Maybe if each game was sold separately and didn't need a console or PC to work (and thus was truly it's own entity), but not in a world were a history of games exists and continues to build. I do think some concessions should be made for the limitations of each platform, but only from the standpoint of technical limitations and the innovations a game may have contributed (in other words, it still has to be fun to play).

4. This is a fine solution. Describe what's in the game to the best of your ability and give your audience enough information to make an informed decision, since one man's Pro might be another man's Con.

5. Roger Ebert always used this to rate films and it made a lot of sense to me personally. When he gave George Romero's Dawn of the Dead a four-star rating in 1978, he wasn't comparing it to the Godfather; he was rewarding an exceptionally well-made movie within the context of it's genre. This is part of the reason why I don't agree the idea of a perfect score being unattainable on a rating scale (like having an A+ on your scale and refusing to give it to anything because something better might come along one day); giving a game a perfect score should be seen as the highest level of recommendation to a consumer, not of breaching or violating some platonic ideal that can never be lived up to in the physical realm.

I gots me muh own rating scales I likes. 1-9. I like the odd number so 5 fits the middle.
1 is garbage
2 is really bad
3 is bad
4 is below average
5 is average
6 is above average
7 is good
8 is great
9 is awesome
10 is radical dude!

[QUOTE=velcrozombie]
3. This doesn't work for me. [/QUOTE]

Thanks for the nice reply. I think we agree on alot, like rewarding risk or deepness. Like the movie Usual Suspects is one type of experience on first viewing, but a different type the next time. That richness, not apparent at first, should be rewarded. The Beatles would take risks too in their music.

3. I may not have expressed myself well. What I see is that games released in the internet age have real time reviews. The ratings for Assassins Creed are from its release, not compared to later iterations that may have done it better. So should not older games get the same courtesy? For instance, I prefer Imagics Demon Attack to Ataris Space Invaders, but Space Invaders came first, why should it be compared to future similar games?