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Game Review \"score\" - remove them?

C
codemonkey

Ok, Im looking for some feedback on this, maybe Ill post it in the forum if I dont get enough here.  Drost did a review last month on UNO, and he didnt give me a rating for how cool the game was.  He had a valid point on "why" he didnt:

People dont always read the article if there is a number rating to tell them to buy or not.

This is a powerful statement, and I believe that, for the most part, it is on the mark.  Our magazine and much of our site is highly editorial in nature (besides the breaking news and such).  We are responsible adults and we know that we sometimes have to do a little research before spending hard earned cash.  Why should you trust that CodeMonkey rates a game a 9/10? (notice in 2o2p magazine issue #4 no review has a score)

First, everyone does scoring, we dont have to be a follower, we can be our own entity.  We dont need to rate games because IGN does.  If people just want a score theyre going there anyway, what difference does 2old2play make?

Well, the difference is that we play games for fun and not really for a living.  We invest time into them, we play them through to the end.  We dont sit down for two hours, write a review, and move on.  SO?

So that means that what we have to say in our review is detailed, important, and contains reasons we like or dislike a game/technology.  I may rate sound as a 2 out of 10 because I hate game music, and it annoyed me.  Maybe you like game music, and perhaps you would read my review and go "no, actually, that sounds kinda neat."  If you went purely off the rating that may change your mind about the game, no?

So perhaps, our best practice should be to leave off our numeric value for a game or piece of equipment.  Just say "this is how it is folks, this is what I think."  If you went to the store to buy a new home stereo system do you ask the guy at the counter "so, do you give that box over there a 10?" or do you go into the sound room and listen for yourself?

Tell me what you think: rate games using a scoring system, or tell you like it is with text?

CodeMonkey

Comments (7)

G
GyverX·
No Scoring. If you tell how it is in the story or the article then there is really no use in scoring it.\r \r On a scale of 1 to 10, How bad is the pain? \"It FUCKING HURTS DOC!!!! Scale that and.....\r http://www.hunterdonhealthcare.org/images/pain_adult.jpg
T
TANK·
I agree with that statement. Sure some people still read the review in full, but i think today people look for the quickest result, the #. In the review ive done for the Trittan AX360 headset i did not include a numeric value.\r \r
S
SirPoonga·
Well, I for one, never trust scores but they are useful piece of info. A score is why I at least tried Obvlion and read a review. It wasnt because it was a high score, it was because it was a high score from a reviewer I know isnt into RPGs. Im not into RPGs I wouldnt have read it normally. If it is a game or product a reader is interested in they are going to read the review no matter what the score is to see what the review thought about it.
L
Lester_Ziggs·
No scoring is the best way to go IMO.
B
bunsen27·
A numbered ratings system for video games is bogus. I like the fact that 2O2P does not give \"game scores\". A compromise between no rating and a numeric scale would be the: pass/rent/buy/must have kind of scale, but I think most of the 2O2P reviewers to date have typically given that kind of \"implied rating\" at one point or another in their reviews. I could be totally wrong though.
K
KingDrewsky·
A person reads an article to find out if a game is good or not. And if it is good, how good is it? The best and quickest way to quantify it is with a score. By leaving out the score, the reader is left with having to read the whole article to find out the information they are looking for. This is not a problem for games they are truly interested in, but for games that they are not interested in it is a major hinderance. I have never desired to play a Ping Pong video game. So when we publish a review of Rockstars Table Tennis and there is no score or quick summary attached to it, I am not going to bother to read a two page review of the game just to find out if its good or if its sucks. Thats all I care about, awesomeness or suckage. So give it to me. That information needs to be displayed somewhere prominently in the article so that the readers can decide whether or not they want to read the article.
D
DeadDrPhibes·
i agree with Kd.. i go by the score generally.. tho i still read the article to see why the game is so great or why it sucked so bad.. someone might rate a game high because they loooove turn based combat and japanese characters that talk on and on.. i hate that crap so that score would be worthless to me.... but if we had an even simpler system.. say all games were rated as \"Buy\", \"Rent\" or \"dont bother\"..it would give the reader enough information to firmly know where the reviewer stood, but not enough that they can skip the article .. imho anyway..