Topic: More detailed ratings

I dont see why people say take scores out completely, scores allow you to see where someone else stands on the game. Its like having an essay with no kicker at the end. And if there were no scores it would be hard for people to decide what games should be promoted or separated from the garbage games. Also, another problem with just words is many points might not come across clearly and result in a confused mind after reading and wondering if the game is any good because you can't decide whether "is he saying this is good or more bad?" or "is this bad stuff he mentioned much worse than the good stuff?"

To be fair, Yahtzee of "Zero Punctuation" fame doesn't use review scores now that I think about it, and he complained of receiving complaints like DaDun just posted, insulting those who couldn't figure out what he meant in his reviews. Which I find insane, since his ramblings often are very hard to define as anything other than hating on the game period.

But I've seen the reviews in Play magazine since they dropped the scoring system, and I think it works quite well under certain circumstances. If you're trying to decide if you want a certain game, a score isn't really worth much. For comparison, it'd be more necessary, I guess, but I prefer not to compare totally unrelated games to each other, so that's of no real concern to me. Like I said about the NLife TP review, the problem comes when the review doesn't seem to match the score attached to it. I hate that, and it seems to happen all too often.

I'm just messing with you guys. I'm sure the reader ratings will make a return, I'm just not sure when.

But as for this, "the review score doesn't fit the review" thing. Some people think if there are 8 good points and 2 bad points brought up in the review that it should automatically be an 8. But what they don't understand is that those two points might have been very detrimental to the overall quality of the game, so to give it an 8 just because you only mentioned two real faults would be incorrect. Some reviewers get so caught up in "evening out the review" that they end up mentioning things that don't really need mentioning and leave out things that should have been included in the review.

And what might be a real serious issue for one gamer, might not be as serious a problem to another. So even that leaves itself open to interpretation when it comes to reading a score into a review.

I agree with this, a score is useful for me not because i base my opinion solely on it, but i think its a guideline to let me see how much the bad actually affects or weighs/outweighs the good in games, if there were no scores, i wouldnt be able to see if the bad part of the game caused a detrimental swing in how the reviewer reviewed the game on a whole (i think i had a lot of commas in that lol). To me a score is a very good guidline for me to see how good the good is or how bad the bad is in the review

And I think a score should be nothing more than that - a mere guideline. Ultimately you're going to read about the good and bad points of a game in the review, and also the various gameplay elements. While I'm not quite for getting rid of the scores completely, I do wish more readers would pay them a little less attention in the overall picture.

Maybe we just need to make them a bit smaller or place them hidden inside the actual text of the review so that people have to read the damn things

I just look at the score and move on.

I don't have time for all them words.

I just look at the score and move on.

I don't have time for all them words.

Why does that not surprise me.

I also agree with James. I think we need to make the reviews like those pictures they have that you have to stare at to see the hidden image.

Hey when I do read them though, I read them with funny accents.

Like Corbie, I read your stuff as Larry the Cable Guy.

I usaly look at the score then read the reveiw like if I was already interested in the game and saw it got a 8 or higher then i'll usaly not read the reveiw to keep spoilers to the absolute least possable level but if I was on the fence or saw it scored 7 or less then I read the reveiw to better decide if I woud want that game.

Seconded. I did despair at seeing people saying "Too bad the game is crap" in response to my scoring a 6 for Minon, when I actually like the game (it's still on my shelf!). I was considering a 7, but I just didn't feel I could justify a higher score for it because the game doesn't have broad enough appeal. Even a 5-rated game is potentially worth a go; it all depends on your personal tastes.

I agree with you there Sean (and Corbie) I always read the review even if the score is bad, just to see where a game failed/succeeded to impress. Scores are like chocolate: some you like, others you don't and some you want to look completely different, but at the end of the day - no matter how you like them - they're just too easy to digest and never as good as a proper meal. I suggest anyone who just looks at the score shoudl take a look again - there's a lot of good stuff in them thar reviews

I understand what you guys are saying about fully reading them, but i actually think alex does have some say in saying that sometimes you don't have enough time or you don't feel in the mood to read a 1 page review so you just look at the score and then decide if its worth reading or passin on. Maybe the solution is to compromise here, maybe there can be (not trying to turn this into gamespot by any means) a small bullet summary at the top of each review that states the good and the bad in the game and then if you dont like to read a lot you can just read those bullets and decide from there if you'd like to go into more depth regarding the bullet summary. I admit i dont read all the reviews i see for a game with a low rating that i was interested in, i just end up going to the conclusion, only for games i really want that seem to have a decent score i will read the full review for.

Well, I guess you weren't that interested if you don't read the full review and that's cool with me. I don't see why having a score or not would make a difference in that case.

I said that i WAS interested in, cuz even tho i originally was, ill only look at the conclusion to see what the summary and then if i think...hmmm i really didnt think this issue would occur, id go more in depth to look for it. I really do not think it would make sense for no ratings to exist, cuz think of it this way, if every single review source took out the review rating numbers, and no game ever received a score and it was all just a review with words, I absolutely guarantee that wud be worse. People would complain that they wasted money thinking the game was super because of the way it SOUNDED in the review (but they never saw a score to scale how good the review actually saw the game) so really there is a significant place for ratings, and personally i think if we added .5's for scores (not too excessive like .1, .2, .3, and all thank super exact junk) that wud make it all the better. In no way do i mean scores are what to base your stand on the game on, but im saying it definitely is essential to scaling the context you are reading in the review, if its a 1/10 you can automatically know the good in the game mentioned is definitely not good at all in comparison with its bad and vice versa for 10/10 games.

Come on, if people's reading comprehension is so low that they need a score to help them determine if a game is good or not then I really think they should be taking remedial language comprehension courses rather than playing games!

Dumping scores might be good for quality review sites as they would encourage reading and feedback which would hopefully up the quality of the reviews. The present reliance upon scores as a means of raising visibility by feeding metacritic ensures a steady supply of "media review sites" that just try to amass collections of scores from staff and readers. Trying to find a good review of a niche title can become really difficult as a result because you have to slog through tons of "insert review here" websites that have game titles as placeholders rather than real content.

I agree but i choose to disagree, seeing as u are kind of shredding my argument a bit here, i will take a different stand. Personally, i still will always say number ratings will always have their place as a guideline (i think i did say they shouldnt be what u base your opinion on but w/e). And really, its personal preference to read reviews. Not everyone cares to sit down and read for 5 - 10 minutes a games review (i will, but most of my friends will just say to hell with this i just want to see the score and move on...if u took that out...then i really think a lot of people will be upset with the source) and i dont know what it is, but a score can really be what compels people to actually read a review in the first place, if there were no scores then the reviewer must have a pretty dang good review that will keep their audience reading or wanting to read through it. (for me even, especially for games i havent heard much about or seen a lot of, if theres a really high score, ill be like wow whats this and then read the review)