The Perfect Review System

[Mythmaker1]

Intrinsic said:

Mythmaker1 said:

"The Perfect Review System?" No such thing.

There is not, and never will be, a one-size-fits-all system for reviewing. Everyone has different standards, interests, and priorities with games, and the rigidity of this system in particular makes it unlikely to be of use to someone without the same priorities. And the fact is that the individual categories leave so much room for subjectivity that it defeats the purpose of adopting such an inflexible system in the first place.

It's not a bad system, of course. But it's not much better than most systems I've seen.

Standards and categories are good. its the only way to minimize subjectivity. If everyone has a specific measure by which a product is criticized, then not only would it make it hard for reviewers to bullshit or over hype a game review it would also make it easier for developers to fine tune their games. Its like the review becomes a contextual benchmark.

If people find numbers so uncomfortable, another way to do this would simply to use letters for each category. Using grades  A through C. That way when reading the review you only concentrate on the areas that interest you as a gamer. If the gameplay gets an A, the emotion gets a C, and everything else gets a B, you could still buy it is the reasons the other areas got a B don't apply to you. 

Today's common review system is an average-based 1-10 scale. 5 and under is below average and 6 or higher is above average. If I tell you the game got a score of 6, then, you'll understand what that means.

Using you're system, what does a 6 mean? The scale is not average-based, and the points for that total could have come from anywhere. Was it a 22200, a 11112, a 20202, or a 10212? The fact it scored a 6 means nothing. So why even try boiling it down to a single metric?

That's just the concept behind the rating. I haven't even delved into the issues with the individual categories (firstly, that it has basically the same problem as the overall rating). It's straddling an unhappy medium between too much and too little stratification, and the result is the sum of its weaknesses, rather than its strengths.