Topic: What Makes A Game A 10/10 For You?

@FishyS (Not arguing you here, just talking generally) I don't think a game gets 10 out of 10 because of' nostalgia lmao! That's absurd. It's an appreciation of the idea. The initial idea is the hardest thing to do. Nintendo are absolute industry leading in this (and why I am a fan - not because I thinjk a plumber wearing dungerees is cool!). No one else thought of it. When everyone else copies it, the additional ideas are as generic as 'ice level' ' fire level' 'Norse mythology' 'Greek mythology;' 'beards.' It's easy mode. A modern game may play better but I promise you, you won't be blown away as much as the first time you encountered the initial idea. In fact, it's probably the same hit as the first game with that idea you played. Kinda how some folk that think FF7 is the best FF probably got into gaming with PS and didn't play 6. I dunno. (I'll adnit it's late, I'm drunk and rambling lol so please don't read anything at the moment too serious) So I don't think it's nostalgia that keeps a game a 10 outta 10, I would like to think it's people appreciating the artistry and craftsmanship of the original. I mean, it is a creatively artistic industry (according to Sarah Bond.) A Van Gogh is still recognised as a masterpiece and there is no one left alive to experience nostalgia for his work kind of thing.

@skywake Yeah, I have no idea what the middle score would actually be. It wouldn't shock me just from the amount of eShop games I've played if it was between 5 and 6. I don't really know how one would test that since if you dip into e.g. steam scores rather than professional review scores you tend to get some nonsense.

@GrailUK I didn't mean that nostalgia makes a 10/10, just that purely at an unconscious level I tend to look more favorably at games or series I have nostalgia for which might raise corresponding scores. The fact that I am conscious of that unconscious bias doesn't mean I am good at ignoring it 😝

@FishyS Fair dos

Most of my favorite, but not 10/10, games have satisfying gameplay loops, like pikmin 4 or lugi's mansion. A good gameplay loop can make a game addicting to play and fun to revisit.

@GrailUK
I think gaming in general is a bit of a funky media to give a score because of how it interacts with improvements in tech. Not just in the sense that "better tech = better games", which I think is a part of it even if some overvalue it, but also in the sense that these are new tools and people are discovering how to use them. I think it only makes sense for some games that used to be 10s to now not be because stuff that came after it has pushed the media in some way that pulls it down from its perch

It's kinda like how in music there would be the first song made where someone decided to put pickups on a guitar. Then there were people who innovated with that clean electric guitar sound. Then someone deliberately took a screwdriver to or deliberately pushed their amp to the limits and "invented" distortion. Then people innovated with this new distorted sound. Then multitrack recording became a thing and some guy decided to double track the guitar. Then people innovated with that sound

So then you get to a modern ear and.... is Chuck Berry a 10 retrospectively because it was innovative in that space? Or is it not a 10 because stuff that came after pushed that sound further (eg The Beatles, Sabbath, MBV, or Sigur Ros)? I mean, it's art, it's all subjective... but I think academically you can make the case for either point of view. Personally I tend to subscribe to the latter definition, that a 10 is something that you don't have to qualify with stuff like "for the time" or "for the platform its on". A 10 is something that you can put infront of someone, no matter how much they know about the media or genre or whatever, and they'll get to the end of it and go "I need to rethink how I view this media"

Games are pretty unique in that regard, because you are actively experiencing it. You go back and watch a movie from the 70s, and while technology has obviously progressed, because you are experiencing it passively you can just sit back and appreciate the artistry of the sets, the matte paintings, the ingenuity that had to go into getting that sequence on camera. Even if by objective measures you could probably do it all for cheaper with CGI and it'll look better, but those dated effects, you the viewer doesn't need to overcome them in some physical way.

Games I feel don't really have this same grace. While the generational leaps have shrunk to the point of near non existence now, you try and go back and play a game from 15 - 20 years ago and its maybe got awful difficulty balance, or its got ugly graphics, or limited systems, or awkward controls or whatever. Because these are things you have to physically contend with as a player, it is a lot harder to just sit back and appreciate it got made at all. I dunno, maybe that is just a me thing.

That isn't saying I advocate for going back and rewriting history in terms of the reviews for these games, though. If we are saying that close to perfection cannot be used to denote what game deserves a 10, then probably the next best measurement is "did the title define its genre in that period, or push its genre or gaming as a whole forwards in some way?". And if it did, then that will always be true for the time it existed so the score should remain as it is, even if placed into modern hands the title may not be good any more.