Review Inflation

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Onyxmeth said:

Kenryoku_Maxis said:

 

A 1-5 rating system is horribly limiting, the same as a 1-10 system.  You'll encounter the same exact fan outcry as you see today, but compounded because various games keep getting '3's while others get '4's.  And then only one game a year gets a '5' (lol GTAIV).

I would agree that sites should drop the rating system.  But they won't, because its what brings the majority of their readers back.  Our very forum being spammed with 'IGN gives [X] a [X.X]'!!!! is testament to this.  Probably 25% of people read the actual review and probably less than that actually take context from it.  And from what I've been reading on these review sites, it kind of looks like that's what they count on.

Fan outcry doesn't matter. Placating to that nonsense is partially why it's such a mess in the first place. If everyone were to go to a 1-5 system, fans would read it. Trust me. They will read it, and then adjust and adapt to it because they have no alternative. Subsequently, it would correct many of the problems game reviews have. What do you think forum folk are going to do, stop paying attention to reviews? Yeah right.

The 5 wouldn't have to be mainly for just the top title of the year though. It could be for any game the reviewer feels is a top notch game within it's genre, so essentially you could judge Nintendogs as a 5 for pet simulations, and Halo 3 as a 5 for FPS, and then let the readers get the context of the worth of each title from the review itself and not the numbers. This could also help to cut down on genre bias, but not necessarily so.

That's the problem I'm worried about.  Certain reviewers, like Famitsu, review games as you described, as being 'the best in their genre' or 'best on their system'.  While most western reviewers are taking a different approach and reviewing games based on a multiple point scale including graphics, presentation and a completely gray area of 'gameplay'.  When you throw these things into a pot, most Wii/DS games get downscored next to 360/PS3 games because they don't have as good graphics and are more harshly judged in gameplay.

Putting that into a 5 point scale would be a madhouse is all I'm saying...generating a ton of 2s and 3s for DS and Wii games and a lot of 4s and 5s for 360/PS3 games.  Its essentially what we have now with the difference being DS/Wii games range between 7.0-8.9 while 360/PS3 games avg between 8.0-9.5.

But who knows...maybe it could fix everything.