How about an honest (out of 10) rating system

10 is the best. 5 is average. 1 (or 0, if you really want to) is the worst.

The issue is that we set 9 as the gold standard. Games like Uncharted 3, GTA 5, Zelda, and such often tend to be really flawed but still excellent games. So with 8 being commonplace and 10 being unattainable, the 9's totally vary in quality. There's the "deeply flawed but still awesome" 9. And then there's the "holy shit this is amazing" 9.

1 - Horrible
2 - Bad
3 - Weak
4 - Okay
5 - Average
6 - Good
7 - Great
8 - Excellent
9 - Exemplary
10 - Revolutionary

So, basically the majority of games would get a 4, 5, or 6.

That's why I like the 100-point scale.

Huge difference between a 9.7 and a 9.1 for example.

Doubt Devs would be happy having their "great" game getting a 7/10. Does not look good in ads and ads pay the bills.

Its all subjective anyway. Personally I would never have given a game like heavy rain anything above a 6. I dont like interactive movies.

Then I played the walking dead games and totally changed my mind. I would give those games an 8.

I take reviews with a pinch of salt. General consensus is a far greater indicator.

And here I am thinking how Heavy Rain could score less than 9.5

absolutely brilliant in my opinion, one of the best stories ever.

No, a 5 point system is best.

5. Must buy

4. Great or Good

3. Average

2. Bad

1. Avoid

or even just saying those things instead of attaching a figure to it. A review is an opinion based on experience, it shouldn't even have a number attached to it. You can't whittle a person's thoughts down into figures, there's a lot more to it. 5 point scales are the most clear cut and easy to put into words

true. very much like parents that want teachers to inflate their stupid kids grades.

so basically, lets make everything under 8 crap.

Totally prepared to admit that its a preference thing, I am aware my rating of that particular game is "well off" in comparison to the general consensus.

I hated a lot of the new games on the PS3 particularly the ones which achieved critical acclaim. Heavy rain, Infamous, TLOU. None of the ticked any boxes for me.

I loved PS and PS2 Sony. Spyro, Crash, Twisted metal. Maybe I am alone there however.

No, ads cost money. Game sales pay bills.

Yeah, but most people don't have the time or patience to read an in depth review. That's why websites have a score scale. To appeal to people who want something more simple. That tends to work better for bigger websites. The score thing only gets crappy when people start comparing scores with other scores and taking that stuff too seriously.

Scores were used to determine how much a dev got paid I remember reading at one time, scores are gross. I know perfectly well WHY they're there, doesn't mean I think they should be.

Like I said if they don't use the numbers then they should just put something at the bottom saying "must buy" or "great" or "avoid" etc.

Kotaku has the best review practices in the industry imo. Either you recomend a game or not. If there are launch problems they have the "Not Yet" to handle it. Then they clearly state exactly what they have played, what difficulty, how many hours and so on. None of this metacritic BS.

I also really like TotalBiscuits approach. His WTF-series is excellent as you can see for yourself how the game plays and if/how well he has mastered it. He's also very mechanics-focused just like me :)

i say abolish reviews

The ratings system isn't the problem, the problem is that we are too lazy to read the review and look at the reasons why they gave the score. (eg, GTA 5 gets a 9 with one utterly BS negative that ignores Tanisha Jackson).

Scores doesn't matter as much as the reasoning behind it. Lightning Returns sucked because the design is a list of contrary things (time limits with exploration and punishing you for skipping battles). Thief sucked because the story was terrible and the ending even worse. Knack is crap because of its uninspired gameplay that feels more last gen than any Wii game ever was.

Never going to happen when a game gets below a 7 it usually means it's broken, changing that around now would just F things up worse.

I think there's a bit more to it than recommending or not. There's a lot of middle ground there that can be talked around. But yeah TB's is good

Just think about how many games scored 8s and 9s last gen that people totally forgot about sometimes only weeks after they released?

Inflating scores is a huge problem, but it's a problem on both the side of the critics and the people reading the reviews.

Even when a game gets an 8 people question whether or not its worth buying. I'm sure reviewers realize this (and probably think the same way), and know that if they recommend a game highly enough to be purchased it should be above an 8 even if an 8/10 doesn't reflect at all the quality of the game.

I'm not fond of any website really. When I actually want to consider a review I may watch Yahtzee, or TotalBiscuit, or a Giantbomb Quick look video.

Gamespot's been pretty good about that recently. they don't pull their punches with reviews.

basically gamespot's rating system in a nutshell:

below 7 - crap
7 - alright
8 - a really special game (just like every other game out there)
9 - a really high gold standard
10 - unattainable.

Every facet of this industry should be modeled off of Famitsu.

The thing is most of those games actually deserve those 8 or 9 scores.People (specially here) gave websites (mostly this site) crap for always giving games high scores and for a good 2 years the whole "8.5 score" fiasco this site was going through was becoming more of a local joke. After awhile that's when Kevin stepped in and tweeted he wanted to change Gamespot's reviewing system and ever since then Gamespot's review system has been sketchy at it's best with Kevin's crusade of trying to change things, Tom's troll reviews and Carolyn's feminist rants in her reviews.

Gamespot really needs to redo their review system and actually get competent writers/reviewers. Honestly I think they should do the 1-5 scale system (with the .5 system scale) and have a 2nd opinion/writer/reviewer to give a broader look on some of those games. GI has done a 2nd opinion on their reviews for god only knows how long (a good 8 years) and it's worked out well for them.

Wait what? You hated TLOU? How is that even possible. Heavy Rain, okay I might understand some may not like but TLOU? One of the all time greats...

Nothing wrong with the current rating system. Problem is some of the Gamespotter reviewers.

Bring the goddamn 100 point system back... I have no idea why the damn site and staff refuse to put it back in place

You're basically talking about the difference between a 9 and a 10. So a 10 point scale is all you need. People wanting the 100 point scale, please tell me what's the perceptible difference between an 8.4 and an 8.6 (for example).

Its dead simple.

Two games release for the exact same platform, on the same week.

Both look appealing, neither more than the other. Which one do I buy? I am equally interested in both titles.

I'd use the 8.6 vs 8.4 as a tiebreaker.

Why not kill scores all together?

So what if they are in separate genres? An 8.4 may hold different weight depending on the genre. I mean, this is totally ignoring the fact you would use a score of .2 to make your mind up. Am I the only one here that find that a bit silly?

lol @ using numbers to decide on what to buy.

lol 9.7 and 9.1 out of 10 is practically the same as 97 and 91 out of a 100

want a honest review system? 3 bar system

1. PLAY it

2. MHA if you get around to it

3. AVOID with your life

No shit sherlock?! What's next, 970 and 910 out of 1000 is also the same as 97 and 91 out of 100?

Same genre, same game basically.

We'll use PES15 and Fifa 15 for this "experiment". You have 3 friends that play PES 15, and 3 friends that play Fifa 15. You like all your friends equally. Which football game do you buy? you make a poll on GS and its 50/50 between both of them. both cost 40 dollars. why spend 80 dollars on what is basically the same game minus of few tweaks? both are about kicking a ball in a net. One has a score of 8.4, the other a score of 8.6

Since they are tied in every other aspect, the only logical choice is by going by score.

This is the most OCD approach to game evaluation I have ever seen. You treat this as if "better or worse" is a universal metric that any one scale can address. When in fact it's a balance of variables and in most cases some games of the same genre do some things better and others not as well as it's competitor. This can include things like customization, replayability, experience accuracy (be that shooting, driving, melee combat, etc...) story, dialog, animation, physics... well I think you get the idea.

NO game is completely universally better in ALL aspects then any other game compared to it. It comes down to which is more important or more desired to the gamer for the kind of experience they want and choosing the game based on those variables. And no metric can unilaterally determine this.

no OP, it doesn't work like that. its the same reason getting a 50 on a test in school isn't a fail and not average

honestly, reviews are just marketing material.. the numbers are meaningless, like what does 8/10 actually mean? you know?

There is no such thing as an honest review on a website. When you ask a gamer on the internet what they think about a game, they tell you what they liked and disliked about a game. They however will use terms like loved (10) and hated (1/0). When a website reviews a game they are guessing how their view of the average gamer will react to a game. They also do not play games because they think they will enjoy them, they play them because they want to get paid.

That is how you get reviews of GTA that subtract points for mistreating women. No one who waited in line to play the game thought “Huh, women get a bum rap in this game” while they were plowing their car through yet another mass of helpless civilians that scream in terror before they rag doll and splatter. No one who is counting the days until they got their hands on this game contemplated political correctness while they executed their six hundredth peace officer.

They wondered how many of those red-shirts they would have to butcher before they got a chance to steal a tank. If you want an honest review, you have to ask a buddy, and that buddy isn't going to give you a numerical score.

I don't have a big problem with the numbers. They give reviewers licence to say what they really think while still appeasing editors with a big, shiny 9/10. I also kind of like the fact that they force sites to stake their reputation in the form of a comparable metric.

That said, I don't pay much attention to the figures themselves. Honestly, if you're not reading between the lines, you're going to get suckered no matter what system is employed.

but what about 97,000 and 91,000 out of 100,000?

As I already said, those figures could easily be rounded to a score difference of a 9 and a 10.

It's making any qualitative differentiation between .1 or even .3 of a score that's pointless.

Maybe I do have OCD?

Here's example number two. Only this time, you have an Xbox One and a PS4.

PS4 version gets 8.6 for having 1080p resolution but otherwise being equal to X1

X1 versions gets 8.4 as it has lower resolution (720p) compared to the PS4 version.

And before you ask; yes I think PC versions of almost every single game deserve a higher score, ESPECIALLY games like Skyrim. If it gets 9.5 on consoles, it deserves 9.8 on PC. (those mods)