Take Five and Double It!

Now the score is more detailed.
I don't know if thats actually a good thing.
But since you are good reviewers i think it will be alright, if not better.

EDIT: Firs.... nah thats stupid.

Wow great work guys! That must have been a mammoth effort to revaluate all those reviews and come up with appropriate scoring with a scale of 10.

At a first glance it looks like you have done an excellent job. I totally agree with the handful of games you deemed worthy of 10/10.

Preferred the old vc layout over the new wiiware look.
Alltough the 10 system > 5. Cant agree with all scores tho ;p

I think I would have preferred half stars - the star rating looks better at a glance.

That's good to hear. i do feel 5 isn't enough to seperate between games.

What a bold change to make... I think this is for the best really, a scale of ten is much better IMHO.

Hey, now we get another chance to comment on the reviews we liked (or those we didn't!) all over again!

I guess it's a good call for more accuracy. Hi everyone.

I like the 10 star rating better, but still wish the user rating was avail, it seems more like a (agree with us, since we know better then you) type of thing. And there have been many times I really have not agreed with the rating and was thankful for my, and others 2 cents.

But it does mean more arguments over the ratings now - SNES Super SF2 has the same rating as Genesis SF2 Special Champion Edition (8/10) despite Super SF2 having much more content and better presentation than the Genesis game. Oh well. * shrugs *

Hey Relevant, Welcome.

I do agree with Bass on that. There are a few that catch my eye right off the top that seem to fly against conventional wisdom. But I am sure that you guys did you best. Lets hope that the edit feature is not dead to you guys on this after user input....lol

It looks like the verdict is in: to get a high score from VC, use the word super in your title. Only two games recieved a low rating when following this formula.

That is great to hear dazza, and thanks for all the hard work you guys do here.

No, please, please not.

No to the 10/10 system and no to the extra review page =(.

Man, the old system was perfect, but now...

Why do we need two pages for one game? And the 5/5 system is perfect for old games, because everyone has an slightly different opinion for every game.

You'll get used to it, Ness. We all will. And yeah, some of the games jump out at me at being wrong in my opinion when compared to others of the same rating.

@ "You'll get used to it, Ness."

They could have made a survey or something like that.

Boah, I'm so furious about that changes, because VC-Reviews is one of my favorite Internet sites.

The next time there will be a 100/100 system...

Again, why do we need two pages for one game? If want to talk about a game I just need one page for it, not two.

@Bass X0 - I suppose even with a factor of 10 there are still gonna be some games with the same score which you don't think are equal if your own eyes. I'd say I agree with the majority of the scores here so I can't complain TBH.

@ness - It seems to me there is now a page to comment on the game and another page to comment on the review verdict separately. Seems sensible to me. I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it pal.

This is just like WiiWare World! I wondered about the different scoring systems in the sites!

Well going back to the SF2 example as I used before, all four SF2 games on the Virtual Console have scored 8/10 despite the series getting significantly better as it goes on. You'd expect the score to reflect the improvements in each new sequel over the previous game wouldn't you? Well, maybe not you particularly but I sure do.

I'm glad to hear this, I've been hoping for a new rating system.

I still think the original SNES Street Fighter 2 is the best of the bunch, but most would disagree. I also liked the Genesis version of SF2 better because of the 6-button Genesis pad. But that's also just me. Over time the degree of difference between the various SF2 releases has lessened to some degree and I think the 8 across the boards is fair. I can't see giving any SF2 game a 7, but I'm not sure they're up there in the 9 range anymore either. Not with some of the better fighters that came along after them like Garou: Mark of the Wolves and the King of Fighters games.

I would've prefered a school grade rating system format, but a 1 out of 10 system isn't that bad either.

yay,i liked the wiiware world scoring system and its great to see it on vc-reviews

jeesssss... mmmm no matter what you do, there will be people that wont like it.

Really good update!! Now it`s easier to see how good a game really is.

I prefered the half stars, as the new ratings are kinda akward to adjust to.
There's only four games rated 10/10, and only two games are 1/10 now.

But I wish we could add our our ratings though. =

Well it will take some getting used to but at least using numbers is consistent with WiiWare Worlds reviews.

Well to me its good news i wanted a 10 scoring system instead of 5

I always thought the 5-Star system was good enough. Not that I really mind the change, though, except that the stars were easier to see when sorting through the main game list. But honestly, I never really paid attention to the scores all that much, just the reviews themselves.

They should've got all the kinks out of the new system so the user-rating feature wouldn't be eliminated.

Sadly we have decided to drop the ‘average user rating’ feature for now. This will get reinstated in the future so you can give a rating out of ten instead, along with some exciting new features.

So does that open up the possibility of WWW doing the same thing now? Anyway, I approve of both changes. More focused conversations and more accurate reviews.

Well I guess this explains why my RSS feed showed there being 20 new reviews up on the site...

I abhor 10-star rating systems. What's the difference between a game getting a 2 or a 3? It's a bad game either way. Who on VC Reviews is going to spend time and energy to decide whether a bad game should get a 2 or a 3 especially when there are different people having a different idea between what a 2 and a 3 rating is.

I prefer a 5-point rating scale because it's simple and gives more than enough information when accompanied by the written review. Why fix what's not broken?

@d.vader

Too many people complained when a game got 2-stars or 3-stars. Not that it will completely stem the complaints, what with people even complaining on IGN's site just because a game got a 10.6 when it should've gotten a 10.7, but hopefully it shoud be reduced somewhat (I have to admit, there's not a lot of score-related complaining in Wiiware World).

Personally, I'd advocate the elimination of scores all together so people more people would forcus on the actual reviews instead, but since I know that'll never happen (apparently the majority of gamers can't tell that a reviewer thinks a game is good unless there's some arbitrary number slapped to it), I'll just have to make due with this.

this is definitely an improvement, i will look forward to seeing all my favorite games rated in more detail

Fruit Eater, no matter what ANYONE does someone will ALWAYS oppose that action.

Well done guys! Great work! When can we expect a percentage?

Remember a review can never be "wrong", just a difference of opinion.
Wrong. If I review contains lies and misinformation it is indeed wrong.

The 5 stars were more useful to do a quick glance of the good and the bad games, half stars would've probably been better since they'd be easier to quickly browse, and have 10 different rating possibilities. 2 pages per game is kind of a bother as well.

I prefered the 1-5 stars myself, but that's just me. It doesn't matter that much one way or the other, to be honest.

Ick, two pages per game now? I'm ok with 5 doubling to 10 (but I miss the stars... ) but two pages? I can understand wanting to separate the review and actual game comments but still, I prefer having all the info I could need in one place. Especially when it comes to videos. Sometimes when I start reading a review and can't understand what the game really plays like so I scroll down and watch the video of it. Now that's gone, and it's something that I've always hated about Wiiware World.

Call me naive but I totally didn't see this commng. It's good though - it'll help distinguish games from one another in terms of overall quality (at least the reviewers' perspective of it).

It won't affect my own personal feelings regarding certain games, but as long as it does a more distinguishable job in defining great games in comparison to the old 5 star system, I'm okay with it. Viva la VC

Congratulations to China Warrior for no longer being the lowest rated game on VC reviews

This is a lot better, nice going guys!

Speaking of observant, it also let you guys completely re-rate some stuff. Not that I'm complaining; it's just funny to think that some of the flak on those boards that you guys got will be obsolete.

Overall, I've always liked the 1 to 10 scale better. Enough distinction without being overly hair-splitting.

i always liked 1 out 10 better as a rating system but i'll support this web site no matter what rating system it used

I think VC-Reviews had made the right call. Now that the scoring/review system is similar to wii-ware world, you can unify the sites. Also, I for one am glad to see the reviews become a news item. Sometimes it feels like days go by (namely monday NA release to monday NA release - when EU doesn't get anything) where nothing happens in the VC world. I think this will create more site traffic and be good for you guys.

Keep up the fantastic work, this is one of my favourite sites.

Well my comment got deleted earlier because I posted it on the Winter Games review and not here, but I'm perfectly fine with the 10 point review system, but I still don't understand why anybody would want a page with game info and a page for the review. What is so wrong with having it all on one page?

I still don't understand why anybody would want a page with game info and a page for the review.

The game info page is put up sometimes months before the game is released and a review is posted. By then the comments at the bottom of the info page have already been made, some over the course of months. We want the review page separate so that new comments can be posted once the review is out without having them start up at the end of the current comments on the game info page. Plus having the review page separate allows for a News item to be made each time new reviews are put up live on the site.

btw . . .

General comment . . . thanks for the hard work on the site. It's especially great for us gaming oldsters. How old is 24 in video gamer years? <shudders>

Also--and this is just me--the generic Mario avatar still makes me do double-takes and think "gee, that guy sure likes to make a lot of posts."

Like Cally said, you guys have obviously been busy bees and I really appreciate that you've continuing to look to improve the website.

And how people can get all drama over a scoring format, preferred or not, just baffles me. Makes me wonder if people have forgotten what really ranks as serious stuff vs what ranks as largely academic/discussional stuff. Oh well, better to care than not, though better to do so in moderation rather than to extremity.

For my own point of view of scoring formats, a system of 10 just makes the scores chosen more meaningful (at least to those who chose them) and less is lost in translation between one 3 star game and another 3 star game. A 5 star system is more "cozy", but I like clarity rather than squinting at my 5 dollar bill to allow myself think it's a 50.

Although, I will say that I disagree with putting two separate comment spaces up for each game listing in two different places/pages. Often enough we have slim enough discussions about a given game as it is, potting two side by side places for people to comment/discuss the game seems counter-productive. A thread of discussion in one page might catch many peoples interest and participation, but because they stumble on the other page first and see next to no activity or less interesting comments, possible engagement and discussion from more people is lost. You might consider leaving one comments location for each game.....maybe whichever screen people come to from the "Out Now" list that many folks probably use to browse to their games of interest. Perhaps.

Sounds good. I love it when sites get more organised.

@ Captain_Konami

Yeah, I tend to agree with the separate comments page thing. I can imagine what you guys are aiming for, but I don't know if people would think a whole lot about "is this comment pertinent to the game news or the game in general." I mean it's different from Wiiware because a lot of people comment based on already knowing what the game is like before it gets released on the VC. Just my 2 cents.

I'm really going on, but it might be kind of cool just to be able to see each others' "my games" thing. Especially for the eds, here.

I suggested this to be changed years back, all hail me!!!!

Ohhhh okay.. now I feel stupid for the comment I made on the review page for Winter Games ... heh

I understand peoples' view about a review page and a game page each with their own comments. Would it be possible to later add the review to the game page? That way the information would all be in the one place rather then spread over two places. Although this would risk having the comments on every game's page start with something like 'I remember playing this as a kid... bla bla bla' and/or 'yay first!'

I wish people would stop saying things about the half star system and keeping it at 5. Because a half start is like adding a number in between the star anyways. For example, 4 and a half stars is easily a 9 rating. Seriously, people need to leave it be and accept it's going to change because change is usually for the better in the long run.

@Cally : Post 55 - Yeah, I know what you mean with the Mario avitars. I wish it'd randomize the avitars to make it easier to see who's posting what. And I also wonder what age 24 (my age) is in gamers years. lol... I remember playing the Atari when I was younger. lol....

For example, 4 and a half stars is easily a 9 rating.

Yeah. Thats the point. Some people rather have a visual rating than a number.

I think VC-Reviews had made the right call. Now that the scoring/review system is similar to wii-ware world, you can unify the sites
I'm not sure if it is really right to compare the two though. The two services offer very diffent games.

Well I don't like review scores so the fact that we now get a mark out of ten rather than five matters little to me.
I have to say I don't like having the review on a separate page though. I know it's just one extra click but it seems pointless.

I like 10 better myself, and there never were half stars as far as I remember.

And as far as the Street Fighter games go, if the games are getting reviewed based on time of original release, then yeah, they probably would all get 8's. If it were a system where they're getting reviewed as games coming out now, they may differ depending if the staff expected the latter games to be released.

@ d.vader (#38): "I abhor 10-star rating systems. What's the difference between a game getting a 2 or a 3? It's a bad game either way. Who on VC Reviews is going to spend time and energy to decide whether a bad game should get a 2 or a 3 especially when there are different people having a different idea between what a 2 and a 3 rating is. I prefer a 5-point rating scale because it's simple and gives more than enough information when accompanied by the written review. Why fix what's not broken?"

I absolutely agree with that. A review should always just give a overview about the game and an unsubtle appraisal. A 5/5 system is perfect for that.

@ Tides of Chaos (#45) "Ick, two pages per game now? I can understand wanting to separate the review and actual game comments but still, I prefer having all the info I could need in one place. Now that's gone, and it's something that I've always hated about Wiiware World."

The same here, I can just agree with that.

Nice one, guys - it's a lot easier to judge whether or not I should be buying a certain game now - and the new game profiles make the interface a lot nicer. How long did it take you to do all this work though?
Also: sad to see the user ratings go, but I can't wait for their return.

Awesome, I've been waiting for this. Good job!

Very bad idea. I disapprove this.
The rating of the stars is much better in my opinion.
Only see games Nintendo with 10/10 gave nauseas to me.
Please, come back the old system rating !

Love the more detialed scoring guys, good job.

But of course, continuing my WWW tradition here, anything that gets a 10 here I must buy. You guys just love to make me spend money, dont ya

Good thing I already have all the10s though But no way am I doing anything 9+ on this site. Im not Bill Gates ya know

Good work guys. Nice to know you aren't all slacking off!

YEAH! Good call, guys! The revamp was definitely worth it!

I'm impressed with the revamped ratings and find them to work better than the 5 stars system. It will be much easier for me to decide which games to get now.

Can't wait for the user rating feature to return, maybe this could be used on WiiWare World as well. Great work VCR team!

the problem with an out-of-10 system is that too many game reviewers treat a 7 as the par score, leaving anything scored 5 or below as five different kinds of crap, and the score system ends up becoming out of 5 anyway.
a 5 star system works well because if we were asked on the street "did you like this game?" we would reply "yes"/"no"/"it was OK"/"i hated it"/"i loved it" (followed by "please stop following me, you're freaking me out").
one reason why a more detailed score would be necessary is for 2 versions of the same game (SFIIturbo/champion): both 5 star worthy, but one is more worthy than the other.

but most of all: a well written review says more than any number or star.

I personally like the new scoring. Looks like vc-reviews is getting bigger. I LOVE IT!

Nice I was thinking of adding a scoring system to my website.

I insist: very bad idea.

The system rating with stars is much better and more just.

See the Youtube rating stars system, for example. It´s perfect !

Come back the stars again, please.

@Ferret75 - But we never featured half stars to begin with?!

There are 8 games rated 10/10, we're not that stingy lol

I meant 5 stars system, since half of 10 is 5.

Bah, I miss the user ratings.

I think this will be a good change in the end. As long as we can rerate the games, then I'm happy.

^Um, okay? XP

@Dazza-Will the new user rating system apply to WWW too?

@Daz: When can we expect it?

With 1-10 scales there's more room for subjectivity, yeah. I know what ness is saying.

I mean, Nintendo makes "perfect" games (really, not to be messed with). Like, you're not going to pick at it and find a lot of technical flaws. And then other times you have games that aren't quite so "perfect," but arguably have a higher ambition level, which means more opportunities to make mistakes (and therefore results in varied opinions). Games I would personally give perfect 10's to are very few.

I think with scoring systems you can just do your own translation, like 8-10=5 (Rpgamer converted their ranking system the other way around )

A 10/10 system gives just too much room for discussions.

For example: Why does Donkey Kong Country not get a 10/10? And Super Mario Bros. 1 gets a 9/10? The same as Donkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog 2?

Or Mario's Super Picross. It's a perfect Picross game with a absolutely high game volume, why does it not deserve a 10/10?

And what is with Mega Man 2? "platforming action at it's very best." (From the review)
Not a 10/10? Why then "very best"? What is missing to get a 10/10?

You see what I mean? The 5/5 system was just perfect for the old games.

Quote: "We have debated making this change for some time as so many classics ended up getting rated with five stars (rightly of course!)."

Huh? That is a contradiction. You say they deserve a 5/5, so why then a change? I really can't understand why a high quality site like VC-Reviews should change its scoring system.

I see it coming. In the past: Game A = 3/5
Comments: "A quite good game, I will give it a try"

In the future: Game A = 5/10
Comments: "Wow, so bad?"

Yeah, it's less agreeable. And there will be more debate about old reviews matching the new scores like you said.

MM2 is my favorite game ever. So you can bet there was a little reaction from over here.

You're also right that most people don't use the scale right with 5 being average (Game Informer nixes that and compares their scaling to school. Who the hell wants to be reminded of SCHOOL when their reading about games?! ), and that's partly circulated by the people who don't want to see stuff they really like get called an average or just-above-average game. Who knows why, but to some, 3 stars tends not to look as bad as a 6/10. Plus, most of the stuff on the VC (generally) happens to be picked fairly well out of the vast number of games on their systems.

I'm sure VCR took what they did seriously, here, though. And that's what matters to me, I guess. (I just hope the same reviewers did the re-rating, of course).

I'm not complaining, Dazza. I respectfully disagree (about Mega Man 2), but I'm not complaining. There shall be more (hopefully respectful) controversy!

I mean, I can think of how a certain somebody here on the staff is reacting to not even a single shooter (such as Gate/Lords of Thunder) not getting a 10, either.

A 10/10 system gives just too much room for discussions.

For example: Why does Donkey Kong Country not get a 10/10? And Super Mario Bros. 1 gets a 9/10? The same as Donkey Kong Country and Sonic the Hedgehog 2?

Or Mario's Super Picross. It's a perfect Picross game with a absolutely high game volume, why does it not deserve a 10/10?

And what is with Mega Man 2? "platforming action at it's very best." (From the review)
Not a 10/10? Why then "very best"? What is missing to get a 10/10?

You see what I mean? The 5/5 system was just perfect for the old games.

Quote: "We have debated making this change for some time as so many classics ended up getting rated with five stars (rightly of course!)."

Huh? That is a contradiction. You say they deserve a 5/5, so why then a change? I really can't understand why a high quality site like VC-Reviews should change its scoring system.

I see it coming. In the past: Game A = 3/5
Comments: "A quite good game, I will give it a try"

In the future: Game A = 5/10
Comments: "Wow, so bad?"

I agree 100% !
The stars rating system is perfect for retrogames. It´s a big wrong changed it.

The thing is, you can't really give a game a 9/10 without saying what gives it a 9 instead of a 10.

And also, some games are getting the wrong ratings IMO.
Street Fighter 2 has four different versions, some which are apparently better than other versions, and they still all have the same rating?

@92. Cally - ... "I mean, I can think of how a certain somebody here on the staff is reacting to not even a single shooter (such as Gate/Lords of Thunder) not getting a 10, either."

Wow that was oscar award winning smoothness, the way Cally tried to deputize an army from within VC Reviews own staff...... heh.
.
.

And many scores will not look right to many folks. As the number of people (evaluating something, in this case) involved goes up, the odds of even getting a solid majority agreement goes down. It's an Internet law of nature.

And it's looks a bit peculiar that some games still have matching score in a more detailed system, but then no not said the 10 point system would solve all rating oddities. But hopefully it's an improvement. At least now it is more qualified grounds to make cases for score comparisons and more worthwhile discussions of relative game quality. It's not complete improvement, but definitely an improvement, I'd say.

And while I can't agree with Mega Man 2 having any score that indicates any flaw in the game at all, I know some scorers do like to try to "reserve" 10, sometimes just "for the future" rather than for comparison sake. Olympic judges used to be suspected of favoring later contestants with better scores, avoiding giving the upper scores out too soon and trapping themselves from giving "better" scores to unknown future entries.

But then these are just video games, so I say let the 10's happen. Let the "great" games have the ultimate scores, even if a NES "great" might later be "topped" by an N64 "great". .......""

@58. Cally:

Doh. I had just assumed all this time that folks could see each others My Games lists and scores. It seemed almost designed to be a social sort of thing rather than a Mwahahahahah, MY scores, these are MY SCORES!!! MUAHahahahah <cough cough sputter>

Bummer. And I agree with Cally's comment, the Wiiware model really doesn't feel fully desirable for the VC concept. Frankly, those oversize numbers for the score kind of annoy me. I'd rather see almost anything, even technicolor rainbow, to highlight the review score than font size 40.

@59. Auntman:

Remind me in a couple years to All Hail you.

Edit: After reading more posts......I recommend changing the 10 point system to a 10 star system. Can we line up 10 stars? It sounds like people just miss their stars.

I mean, I can think of how a certain somebody here on the staff is reacting to not even a single shooter (such as Gate/Lords of Thunder) not getting a 10, either.

Don't get me started...

Keep up the good work

@Ness

That's why there's a link to the scoring at the bottom of every review, so people will know that a 5/10 isn't that bad(accually, in this case, it's "average).

With a 10/10 system you have to argument why a game deserves a 8/10, not a 9. Or why a 9/10 not deserves a 10/10. That is missing in nearly every review of you. Often a game has no negative point, but still "just" get a 9/10.

@ Dazza (#91): "A 9/10 for Mega Man 2 is still a great score, are you really complaining now that we didn't give it 10/10?"

You didn't give a reason why it does not deserve a 10/10. But that is not the point. Look at my examples (Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Bros. 1, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Mario's Super Picross, Mega Man 2) to see what I mean. You didn't dwell on that subjects.

@ Mickeymac (#99): "That's why there's a link to the scoring at the bottom of every review, so people will know that a 5/10 isn't that bad(accually, in this case, it's "average)."

Go to WiiWare-World and you will see that most people think that 6/10&7/10 stands for a average game. You don't have that problem with a 5/5 system.

Btw. were stars better than numbers, especially for a retro-videogame internet site.

Reviews were written for the old star rating system and the scores for each game were only re-evaluated just recently. I'm finding myself disagreeing with a lot of the new scores while I was quite content with the scores under the star rating system. I also have to agree that scores out of ten are better suited for new games like on WiiWare and scores out of five are better suited towards retro games from yesteryear - we don't know these new WiiWare games or how good they are which is why we need a detailed score while many of us have been gamers for two decades or more and have formed strong opinions on the VC games that a more vague five star rating makes people content with a games score. I think maybe if VC-R had rated the VC games out of ten from the start, we wouldn't have had a problem.

I actually prefer this 'new look'. Nice job you guys. This will help with comparing with unique games like Zelda against other games like Lords of Thunder that had the 5 star systems, but would be different in scores. Although I do disagree with some scores (I think a 4/10 for Yoshi's Story is way too harsh compared to 3 stars, it makes it sound like a bad game)

@ slangman (#103): "This will help with comparing with unique games like Zelda against other games like Lords of Thunder"

How can you compare 2 games from such different genres?

Not by genres but by the quality of the games themselves that. I always thought of Lords of Thunder as an 8 while Zelda OOT is 10/10 for example (both deserve 5 stars but should have different scores).

Maybe my example is not that great but I reckon it's better to see which game is better as they don't have a even scoring system now.

I don't think games from different bit systems should be compared. A 7/10 Master System game can be compared to a 7/10 NES game but should not be compared to a SNES or N64 game rated 7/10. Otherwise the SMS game would be way too highly rated.

The rating system should allow for half points as well.

so basically out of twenty then?

Much, much prefer the 5 stars system. I think the average user understood 5-stars meant excellent, not perfect. There's no need for a "perfect" rating anyway because perfect games don't exist. I've always noticed a lot more complaints about scores at Wiiware World, also. 5 rankings are more meaningful and immediately understandable, but I've ranted about that enough already.

Doesn't matter though, I'll continue to ignore the scores like at WWW and just read the reviews, which are much more useful anyway and well written. By the way, this may have been commented on already, but I really hope the user rating feature gets implemented at WWW, too!

So now we have more pages? Sigh. Great. Now we'll have more opportunities for kiddies to yell "first message, first message"...

@Ian Daemon I will agree that is the one thing about this Web site that is very annoying. I don't understand the obsession....

Sooo, speaking of more pages... what games have been added today?

nothing yet. we're still waiting.

114th message, 114th message!!!!!

Maybe it will be something good for once.

We're expecting todays VC game(s) to be on the Commodore 64.

@Bass X0 pain

@VC-r I see what you guys are trying to do but its all fail just the same. You've only managed to fragment the scoring system making it harder to tell if a game is really good (5) or average (3). With a 10 point scale reviewers are going to be tempted to put games in the 789 bracket but never a 10 because 10 is just a means absolutely nothing but the fact that the game was reviewed by a fanboi.

What you need to do was keep the 5 stars but add attributes to the ratings for example; best schmop, best multiplayer, best puzzle, best graphics, best music. So even if you give a game a 3 overall then you could still tach on a best multiplayer or best music on it and then people will be able to tell WHAT ACTUALLY STANDS OUT IN THE GAME.

7,8,9 ratings are stupid and show no more detail that 7.8 or 8.99999995. Good work on the update. Yall shoulda started a poll.

Hey, no need to crudely insult them just because you disagree with the change.

I'm not tremendously enthusiastic about this change. I can understand the attraction in making scores out of 10 rather than 5, for accuracy, but that becomes pretty meaningless when you consider how heavily personal opinion will influence the decision of whether a game is worthwhile. In the face of this ratings mean nothing and by focusing more on them with an increased range it only serves to distract from the actual points of the review.

Also:

1 star = 1 or 2/10
2 stars = 3 or 4/10
3 stars = 5 or 6/10
4 stars = 7 or 8/10
5 stars = 9 or 10/10

So, have you changed your minds about some games?

A good thing about the new game ratings, Must have a look at some of the titles I've downloaded!

@ Fuun Saiki (#119): "So, have you changed your minds about some games?"

Yes, they gave Yoshi's Story a 3/5, and now it has a 4/10.

@ Dazza (#102): "Long term we want WWW and VCR to be much more unified, the beginning of doing this is having the same rating scheme across the board."

There are so many magazines and websites where the rating scheme is different between WW and VC games, and this for a good reason...

And you still didn't answer about the following paragraph:

You didn't give a reason why it (MM2) does not deserve a 10/10. But that is not the point. Look at my examples (Donkey Kong Country, Super Mario Bros. 1, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Mario's Super Picross, Mega Man 2) to see what I mean. You didn't dwell on that subjects.

I think this is the best thing you've ever done! Even though I don't agree with all your ratings, I think you overrate a lot of mediocre games as well as lay into some perfectly solid games, at least now I can agree 100% with your perfectly rated games! Before I got the impression you were chucking the 5 star rating around far too liberally. 5 stars could mean anything from 'decent at the time within its genre' to 'absolute gaming perfection'. Now you can click on the score filter and it doesn't come up with a squillion perfectly scored games. Cut a long story short I'm one happy gamer

@Bass X0 It wasn't crude or insulting. Just stating my view as they asked.

There are a lot of 5 star games that I haven't downloaded. Just because its 5 star doesn't mean its good, it means that somebody likes it at a 5 star level. No if your coy enough to download all the 5 star games then thats your loss. This new rating system now only makes it HARDER to FIND THE 5-STAR GAMES because some of them will have 8s and 9s and 10s.

The new review scale is not going to help anything at all, fan-bois will always be fanbois, your faviourite game will now get a 7 instead of a 4 (which it deserves) and bad games will only be harder to spot.

Infact WW has a even harder time because ALL the games suck at some level ( well 90% of them compared to PONG/SMB1). Attributes/tags is the best solution I can come up with.

Doubling the score range is a good idea, but I absolutely HATE that a game's site and its review are now separated like over at WWW. Means double the clicking with no benefit I could think of whatsoever except for potentially shorter loading times for a specifiv site...though they already are extremely short anyway.
.

I really do feel sorry for the VCR guys. They spend a lot of time improving their ratings system (oops, better say changing as I may offend some people) and they get a load of complaints! One thing I can agree with Adam on is that when it comes down to it I don't even bother with the score, I read the REVIEW. Sure, the game got a 7, but you read the review to find out why it got a 7. If you can live with the faults detailed in the REVIEW then be free purchase the game. If the new scoring system has annoyed you that much then don't even look at them and don't bother with the site, but I doubt you will find a more in depth and well written VC site on the internet.
(Also can you please close this thread now and I can write Final Message, Final Message)[Note:Sarcasm doesn't work in text]

I'm really opposed to this change. It's just so weird. I liked having all conversation taking place under the review... Oh, well. Perhaps I'll just keep posting under reviews.

What's important is that the score reflects what is being said in the review. I don't like that you removed the user ratings, that was probably the best thing about the site.

I also agree with your perfect tens, but think that Mega Man 2 also deserves 10/10. It was my first Mega Man game and I still think it's the best Mega Man ever so my views are probably skewed. A 9.5 score would probably be appropriate, but I don't think you should go to decimals for classic games (unless showing averages of old reviews).

Also, I'm glad to see the Blue's Journey was bumped up a point, but still think it deserves 6 or 7 out of ten while ToeJam & Earl should only get 1.

Regardless, I'm glad you guys went to the 10 point system. Congrats. Keep up the good reviews. That's what counts anyway.

One thing you have to remember about opinions, is to never trust any but your own.

Take 10 and half it! It´s much better.

I prefer the 10 Star ratings. 5 Star ratings also have usually Komma-ratings

It's that if they're going to give a game a certain rating, they need to explain why it being say a 5 is the reason it isn't a 6.

Example.
OoT has a 10/10, but the review barely talks about anything in the game.

I prefer the 5 star ratings. More clever, and aesthetically pleasing.

Do a "sort by rating" and you will notice that all 8 of the 10/10 games are Nintendo titles: 5 Marios, 1 Metroid, and 2 Zeldas:
http://www.vc-reviews.com/games?sort=rating

One more good thing about the new system is that it gives silly people almost 300 new opportunites, to get the first post

^Well one of them was developed by Square.

"Avoid at all costs, this is a miserable specimen of a game designed by Beezlebub himself."

It's Beelzebub.

Well, after this change, I lost completely the interest to check new reviews of this site.

Good luck, VC Reviews.

So can we get a rough estimate of when we can rate games again?

Here's what I would like to see: multiple ratings based on multiple reviewers, the same way EGM and other magazines used to do--it provides a different perspective on the same release.

Also, consider having a post-review, another reviewer who later comes back to review a previously-reviewed title with a second look.

Yeah, a review panel for each game would make the reviews more entertaining, in addition to their already being informational. And the variety of viewpoints would help give a more comprehensive recommendation to those coming from different perspectives themselves who are looking for a good game, according their own tastes.

I remember the early Sushi-X led panels in EGM........it was almost more fun reading the persona than hearing about the games.

What they should do IMO is have a short Pros and Cons list at the bottom of reviews.
That would make the reviews awesome.

yes vc reviews have a pros and cons list and fit the review on 1 page

@Captain Konami

Man, that still makes me sad. I used to absolutely love EGM before some new eds made it obnoxious.

@ Kobayashi

Aw, don't be like that. Just have fun duking it out on the boards!

Yeah, all the classic enjoyable video game mags started out with so much character and fun, and then later just got eaten by the souless-cookie-cutter-mega-publishing-corp-disconnectedness

I've managed to hang on to a few stacks of the old EGMs, Nintendo Powers, and GamePros. Its good to have the reminder of what quality and effort looks like, for comparison with what is being published these days. A lot of the greatest stuff comes out when an industry is still in its youth, still fresh and adventurous. And then the money makers arrive to capitalize and standardize and minimize (the overhead) and suddenly MTV turns into VH1.