Let's Talk About Review Scores

[Village Idiot]

Am I the only one who's a little confused?

1. It seems to me that 90% of games score 7.0 or higher.

I'll assume this isn't statistically correct, but honestly, games that score lower than 7, nine times out of ten I've never heard of them anyway. The vast majority of popular games are coming in between 7 and 9.

2. Is a 7 good or bad?

Most games that score in the 7-range are considered crap. Why?

3. It defeats the entire 1-10 scale if only the very worst games score any lower than 6.

I've read reviews that bash a game from beginning to end, only to see a final score of 6.5 or even 7. Likewise, games with rave reviews oftentimes are scored an 8 or 8.5. What the hell is going on here? The difference between a good game and a utter heap of crap is 1.5 points? Another example. IGN scores NBA 2K8 a 7.9 and guys around here are calling the reviewer an idiot, yet these same guys are saying 'OMG this game is at least a 9!' Hmm ... lemme see: 1.1 points is the difference between total agreement and idiocy. I digress. My point is that we seem to be limiting ourselves to a 3-point scale when we're supposed to be utilizing a 10-point scale.

4. Are we talking a grade-based score (where, e.g., 7.5 = C) or are we talking the 'hot chick' scale, where 5 = average and 6+ = pretty hot?

As above, this seems to be a source of confusion. If you score a chick a 7, she's gonna be one of the hotter girls you know. Movies, same thing: films that manage a 7/10 are really good. Games for some odd reason can't slip below 8 or else they're a 'disappointment'.

Honestly - what's up? What do you guys think of all this?

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

Another thing I hate, is the quarter points that Game Informer hands out. You have 20 options on a simple 10 point scale with halves, but then you add quarters and can never quantify what makes an 8.5 or an 8.75. Not to mention GI rarely gives anything less than a 7 to shamelessly shill **** games to Gamestop customers thinking, logically, that 7 = 70% = C = Average Grade = Better than Half on a Bell Curve!

[DaveDQ]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

At one point, I was going to create a site called Review Refute. Now the primary plan would be to make a million dollars, but other ideas would include a tally of the most popular internet magazines and their scores and then have actual gamers review the same games and let those reviews run parallel to the magazines.

I suppose this is being done somewhere.

[Cyros]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

I think part of the problem is that went most review sites rate a game as a 7 they label it with the word average, when on a scale of 1-10 5 should be average.

[KG]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

i hardly even look at reviews any more...just give me impressions of the game....tell me what new features there are, how the computer AI is, so on

Especially in sports games when I dont know if the reviewer is even a sports fan.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

Another thing I hate, is the quarter points that Game Informer hands out. You have 20 options on a simple 10 point scale with halves, but then you add quarters and can never quantify what makes an 8.5 or an 8.75. Not to mention GI rarely gives anything less than a 7 to shamelessly shill **** games to Gamestop customers thinking, logically, that 7 = 70% = C = Average Grade = Better than Half on a Bell Curve!

Interesting topic. I agree wholeheartedly that review scales are confusing - in part because there are so many varying standards with reviewers. I think most people think a 7/70 grade equates to a C, because that's the most common standard. But many videogame sites change that, and make a 50 the median grade - which in a way makes sense, but goes against the more common grading scale.

Personally I feel the grade scale is easiest to use (A-F) and is a scale that's easy to relate to. When I see a grading scale that grades in 10pt increments (1-10, 1-100), I think most usually associate those numbers to alphabetic grades. For example:

81 = B-
77 = C+
96 = A+
75 = C
59 = F

9 = A (excellent)
8 = B (good)
7 = C (average)
6 = D (poor)
5 = F (failing)

I know bigger videogame review sites like IGN can protect themselves by saying "we gave your game a 7. On our scale that's good". But I think that score insinuates "average". OS recently gave NBA2K8 an 8, while giving Live a 7. While most could easily make the case that the disparity between the two titles is significant, I would think to the average Joe the scores insinuate that the titles aren't all that different. Yet if you read the content of the reviews, the games are very different. It's just that the score doesn't reflect that. It can be confusing.

[CS10029]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

At one point, I was going to create a site called Review Refute. Now the primary plan would be to make a million dollars, but other ideas would include a tally of the most popular internet magazines and their scores and then have actual gamers review the same games and let those reviews run parallel to the magazines.

I suppose this is being done somewhere.

http://www.metacritic.com/

[luv_mist]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

You know, I've been thinking this way too with 5 and lower never being used even though it should at least represent the average portion of the scale. One thing that I wonder is if sites and companies really used the whole scale, how many of the 10s would we really see as opposed to what they're throwing out now?

[Village Idiot]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

One thing that I wonder is if sites and companies really used the whole scale, how many of the 10s would we really see as opposed to what they're throwing out now?

That's a good question, and I think it speaks right to the heart of the matter: that by scoring bad games 6.5 and 7.5, etc., when you run into a game that's better than that, you're obligated to score it 8+. On the other hand, had you actually scored the bad game a 3 or 4 like you should have, that same 8+ game could have been given a 6.5 or 7, balancing everything out.

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

Need I bring up launch scores? When schlock like Fantavision for PS2, Luigi's Mansion, and others get 7's on launch day, and then a game comes out four years later in the console's "prime" and receives the same score despite being loads better...

[Tha_Kid]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

Need I bring up launch scores? When schlock like Fantavision for PS2, Luigi's Mansion, and others get 7's on launch day, and then a game comes out four years later in the console's "prime" and receives the same score despite being loads better...

Scores are based on what the system is capable of at that time, and the landscape of the games. Its unreasonable to take a game released 4 years after launch and compare it to the launch game. The launch game was worth a 7 at launch, not 4 years later. I don't see whats so hard to grasp.

[JohnnytheSkin]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

I don't see whats so hard to grasp.

You obviously don't read IGN then and how they "debated" what to score launch titles so as to not overrate what may be looked to as a mediocre game years later. They ostensibly TRIED to be fair to the early games, and yet still overrated them.

EDIT: Fantavision and Luigi were still piles of **** when compared to late games on PSone and PS2 (for the latter) at the time, so no, they didn't take into account "the landscape of games".

[Village Idiot]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

BUMP

Gosh fellas, that's it? I figured this topic would see some good, multiple-page action.

[Tha_Kid]

Re: Let's Talk About Review Scores

You obviously don't read IGN then and how they "debated" what to score launch titles so as to not overrate what may be looked to as a mediocre game years later. They ostensibly TRIED to be fair to the early games, and yet still overrated them.

EDIT: Fantavision and Luigi were still piles of **** when compared to late games on PSone and PS2 (for the latter) at the time, so no, they didn't take into account "the landscape of games".

key word "didn't" now they do. I know about then, it was in the last couple years that sites redid their review scale (notably Gamespot) so obviously i wasn't looking at ps2/gc/xbox launch.