•  
  • Mathurin47
  • Level: 34 (71%) 
  • Rank: Paramecium
  • Member since: Mar 9, 2005
  • Last online: 12/09/09 6:19 am PT
  • My Emblems:
    • Rank: Registered Member
    • Convivial
    • Greatest Game Hero Bracket Submitter
    • Readers' Choice 2007 Chooser
    • Virtually There: E3 2007 Microsoft Conference.
    • Public Access
    • Tagger Flirt
    • Serious Collector
    • Rank: Registered Member
    • Convivial
    • Hella Old-School
    • Bad Taste
    • Serious Collector
    • Tagger Flirt
    • Public Access
    • Virtually There: E3 2007 Microsoft Conference.
    • Readers' Choice 2007 Chooser
    • Greatest Game Hero Bracket Submitter
     
     
    Close

My Friends

My Recent Ratings

Title Score
New Super Mario Bros. Wii 9.0
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story 9.0
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 7.0
Borderlands 9.0
Valkyria Chronicles 9.0
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal 8.5
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures 7.5
Tomb Raider: Underworld 7.5
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes 8.5
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 8.0
30Dec 08

Rating Guidelines

A work in progress.

Until mid-2007 any score I gave a game was purely arbitrary. While that was working, I decided I wanted something a little firmer than that. I ended up with a weighted average on five categories, loosely based upon Gamespot's breakdown. With the mini-reviews and attached scores that have been appearing in my Monthly Blog, I wanted to take a few minutes to lay out where the scores come from and what they mean to me.

Gameplay (3/10) - Covers a broad range of categories. Play mechanics, story, etc.

Graphics (1/10) - A measure of how well the game looks compared to its peers. Easier to compare the modern games, but a little more difficult for older games

Sound (1/10) - Soundtrack and voicework.

Value (2/10) - In these days of $60 games, I'd better be getting my money worths out of it. For the RPG's I play, that generally isn't an issue with play time alone, but for shorter games, there had better be some replay value or other extras.

Tilt (3/10) - In other words, the fun factor.

The weight is shifted towards the gameplay and tilt, away from the graphics and sound. To me the audio and video is the least important aspect of the game. They'll enhance a good game, but they won't save a bad one.

Score breakdown

10 - While there is no such thing as perfection, a 10 is reserved for the games that come the closest. A beautiful blend of story and substance, these are the best of the best. To date I have given out only 4 10s. Final Fantasy VI and XII, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario Galaxy.

9 - The rest of the best. You really can't go wrong with a game in this range.

8 - Most of the games I play end up rated in this range. Generally pretty solid, but held back by something. If you can overlook that something,

7 - A solid game with some flaws. There is fun to be had here, but it requires overlooking some problems.

6 - The flaws get harder to overlook here. Fans of the subject/genre might get something out of it, but most will not.

5 - A truly mediocre game. While not outright bad, there really isn't anything good about it either.

4 and below -There are few redeeming qualities here, only the signs of something that never should have been. Something went terribly wrong here.

I do not pass judgement upon a game until I have either beaten it, or played deep enough that I have seen all it has to offer. As such, any game that would score on the bottom would have been dropped pretty quick in favor of something else.

  • Posted Dec 30, 2008 5:07 pm PT
  • Category: N/A
  • 5 Comments

5 Comments

  • AnelZukic

    Posted Dec 31, 2008 2:26 am PT

    that's a nice rating system, I'm also thinking to re-rate all the games, till now I gave the score based how much did I love the game, not upon th graphics, audio, gameplay and fun factor It's going to take me alot of time to re-rate all almost 200 games which got a score from me

  • Mathurin47

    Posted Dec 31, 2008 2:36 am PT

    I know what you mean. The vast majority of the games of rated on-site were done well before last year when I put this system in beta-testing and since then gamespot moved to their .5 intervals giving most games a nice little bump from where I want them.

  • Ravirr

    Posted Dec 31, 2008 11:52 am PT

    Seems like the old Gamespot review system. Oh how I miss it. But maybe you can fill the void

  • Mathurin47

    Posted Dec 31, 2008 12:21 pm PT

    I did borrow liberally from the old reviews, I even tried to duplicate their weight. I could get it close, but never exact before I went with what I thought was important to a game.

  • candlinnpc

    Posted Jan 1, 2009 1:04 pm PT

    great rating system, it looks very well thought out, to be honest right now i will still rate on how much i liked the game or not but when i write a review this would be great to go off of

My Recent Ratings

Title Score
New Super Mario Bros. Wii 9.0
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story 9.0
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 7.0
Borderlands 9.0
Valkyria Chronicles 9.0
Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 1: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal 8.5
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures 7.5
Tomb Raider: Underworld 7.5
Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes 8.5
Hotel Dusk: Room 215 8.0
advertisement