Topic: Should Nintendolife adopt a half point review system.

Been thinking about this lately that nl should have a half point system. It would give a reviewer a chance to say I think (said game) was closer to say a 9 in stead of just an eight. It also would work the other way in that the reviewer doesn't think a game should get a 7 for say but gave it an 8 instead.

Would this be a good Idea or does everyone like the current system we have in place?

They could just review out of 20 instead of 10, and then they have the same range of scores without adding in complicated decimal places.

But in all seriousness, does it really matter? At the end of the day, you still need to read the article to see whether the game is for you.

I don't think reviews should be relying on numbers so much

If we had to change our numbering system I'd want to go back to 1-5 to keep things simpler. The whole granular weighing of numerical quality is just silly.

Agreed. I had no problem with the old 1-5 star system. Ah well, just so long as they don't make things more complicated.

Ugh no. And I'm in agreement with Panda. 1-5 makes it much simpler and the reviewers can focus more on reviewing the game as opposed to correctly placing the review in a numerical value.

I also prefer 1-5 myself. The number is just a rough guide to the reviewer's opinion. The content of the review should be where the details are.

1-10 is good. 10 is a nice number which people can relate to 20, not so much.
If you start adding decimals we'll start getting scores like IGN, and then only the graphic, SHMUPMS will get perfect scores.
Also 1-5 is too vague. There is a BIG difference between the quality of a 6/10-8/10 and an 8/10-10/10. Also, this system reminds me of military ranks and famous hotels/restaurants.

Ultimately, the ratings are at the bottom of the reviews are there to give readers who are too rushed to read the review a general point of reference. If the score is good (7+) and its something they might be willing to get, they should probably read the review to learn if the game is right for them.

I like the 1-10 range the best, too, but I prefer using 5 stars with half stars instead.

sometimes there's a game that's better than one number's description but not good enough to match the description of the next one up... half points would be nice IMO.

It would be nice since it would seperate more games and show which is better but I don't think it should be changed now that there are so many reviews on the site and scoring games out of 10 is fine anyway and I think that scoring games out of 5 is too vague.

That's pretty much the exact same range as 1-10.

this.
i love half points. yay! what i don't get are the Gamespot style systems in which games score like 8.2's and 8.3's, but I think they use a half points system to score individual game elements (graphics, gameplay, etc) and then combine those into a total score. but those total scores just seem so arbitrary. 8.32561

I would prefer a scoring system of over 9000.

That's because they are arbitrary. I still don't see how one could accurately equate quality with a numerical value. It just doesn't seem possible to me. I prefer it when scores are just rough estimates of how much the reviewer enjoyed the game, which is what it usually ends up being on most sites, anyways. That's partially why I dislike half-points - it's just getting too specific, and now you gotta try to determine what separates a 9 from a 9.5. I mean, wasn't 9 already good enough as an estimate? We'll find out exactly how good you thought it was when we read your review that you pain-stakingly spent your valuable time writing (at least one would hope, effort was actually put into it). The other part of why I dislike half-points is that then people are more likely to argue over the score in the comments section rather than talk about the actual game or things that were written in the review. Its like the score suddenly becomes more important than the content, and that's just plain sad. Sure, there'll always be people like that, but from what I've noticed, the more specific the scoring system, the more often people argue over the small values, while the harder it is to define, the less often people try to define it.

Phew

With that said, I can understand what tBD is saying in a way - sometimes there's a game were the reviewer just doesn't know what score to give it, and sometimes half-points just make that decision easier.

I want a facial expressions system, instead of a rank the reviewer posts a photo of themselves, the look on their face showing how they feel about the game.

that sounds surprisingly accurate, Reala, provided the reviewer isn't afflicted with a palsy or uses Botox. :3

That's why I like the idea of a simple 1-5 scale. It would also encourage reviewers (overall, I'm speaking to all publications) to use the whole scale rather than what some publications seem to treat as starting at 7. Readers would argue less with a 3/5 than a 5/10 even though they're basically the same score, or even 2/5 compared to 3/10. And why bother with 8.5, 9, 9.5 or 10 when you can use 5/5 and mean essentially the same thing? 5 stars = great game. 8+ = great game.

Sometimes I do wish we had half-points, but ultimately I just wish we had fewer to deal with.

Giant Bomb sorta does that, but it's mostly for fun.

we already get nailed for giving out the occasional 10... i can hear the screams now when everything from 8 up gets lumped in as a 5.

I think having a smaller, stricter scale would instill a little more leeway in giving out top scores. It's when you get granular that people start to complain the most because they have the most fodder.