Hypothetically, what if all critics did that? You would end up with the same result Metacritic has now.

People would be interested in games most critics recommend.

Furthermore, people would boast when a higher percentage of critics recommend ______ over ______.

I give this thread a 4/10, because your avatar is not too boobtastic. :'(

Started with the last post, now I won't read anything! It hes an 4, that's a bad thread score!

I agree with this. Judging a game by a single number after a team has poured their heart out developing it seems too harsh in my opinion.

I think a simple 4 scale would be best

1: generally poor title
2: average game
3: excellent
4: exceptionally good

1- 100 is not needed imo

Exactly the whole goddamn point!!!

Agreed, it would make people read the reviews. I must admit though, whilst I like the idea of not giving a "score", I also enjoy scores in reviews and if I was reviewing I'd probably give scores out at the end alongside a summary.

If you don't have time to read a review how do you have time to play the game, or for that matter post in the forums?

And how would you get informed without looking at reviews? I base most of my purchases off a selection of critics who's judgement I trust. I likely know more about gaming than most if only because I'm on the internet daily and keep up to date with gaming news. Surely a more casual or busy gamer would get even greater benefit from a decent critic.

Well said. Too often people want to expand the scale because they feel a need to rank things. The whole "I can't give it a 7 because I game [X] a 7 and it's better than that, and I can't give it an 8 because I gave [Y] an 8 and it's not as good as that... better give it a 7.5"... before we know what's going on we have multiple decimal places and games being awarded a 9.75/10 and other stupid crap.

I think maybe a 1-10 scale can work and this is how I'd use it.

0 - Game is unplayable, doesn't work - eg. Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing, Sonic Free Riders, SimCity (2013)
1 - Game is terrible - eg. Superman (N64), Ride To Hell: Retribution, Rambo (2014)
2 - Game is poor - eg. Aliens: Colonial Marines, Fable 3, Final Fantasy XIII
3 - Game is niche appeal - eg. Brutal Legend, Assassin's Creed, Kane & Lynch 2
4 - Game is below average - eg. Binary Domain, Bionic Commando, Sonic Colours
5 - Game is average - eg. Lolipop Chainsaw, Deadpool, InFamous
6 - Game is decent - eg. Grand Theft Auto IV, Vanquish, Alice: Madness Returns
7 - Game comes recommended - eg. Spec Ops: The Line, DmC, DKC: Tropical Freeze
8 - Game is excellent - eg. Resonance Of Fate, Shadow Of The Colossus, Red Dead Redemption,
9 - Game is outstanding - eg. Mass Effect, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
10 - Game is an example of the media as an artform... should be very rarely awarded (ie. maybe 1 in 100 reviews).

Now, this is a scale worth having. It's a scale worth respecting. The problem is people don't like being told a game they enjoy is "average", and definitely not "below average", but obviously not every game can be a 7/10. It's the same problem we have with people... have you noticed how no-one knows anyone in school who's below average. They're either average, above average, the smart kid, or "they have a learning disability". Bollocks, they're just fucking stupid! Someone has to be. Think about it, by definition 50% of people are below average.

So, is it OK to like a game that get's a 4/10? Hell yes, all three of the examples I gave are games I enjoy. Hell I even liked the games I gave a 3/10 to here... the point is, they're clearly not very good objectively and we all know that, which is why they always get 6/10 on the "four point scale".

If I had to pinpoint the most average game ever made it would be the original InFamous. It's fun, but a bit bland. Open world is good, but generic. Controls and powers work well, but are hardly inspired. Enemies are OK but forgettable. Graphics are passable but nothing special. It's the video game equivalent of the hollywood action movie. It's fun, I own it, I enjoyed it, but I'm not overly inspired to go back and replay it. It was AVERAGE! Exactly middle of the road. The average video game now however is still pretty fucking good though. The average video game is a decent entertaining time for 5-20 hours depending on genre, that would be reasonably worth a budget buy. InFamous certainly fits the bill.

There are a few yeah ^^ I have no problem with reviews themselves, they are one of the most efficient ways of determining somethings quality (outside of just playing it), it's the scores that are unreliable. The games in my sig do all have high scores, but they are also highly praised in the reviews themselves. If you take out the scores and read 100 reviews, and all of them say something is good, then you can know with a good degree of certainty that it's a good game.

The other problem with scores is they can be a bit conflicting. For example games are often marked down for having bad visuals, but having good visuals doesn't really help you much (such as Ryse and Killzone). There are games like Cross Edge (52 on meta), which i loved, but got a lot of hate for it's crappy visuals.

My other problem with scores is how sequels are treated. Even when they are considerably better than their predecessor, they often still get a lower score due to the persons view being affected by their previous expectations of the series. From reading the review you'd know it was better, but purely looking at scores you'd think it was worse.

That's not at all a bad idea. One thing I've noticed with reviews is that that the score doesn't seem to match the comments that much for some reason. IGN's COD ghosts is a perfect example.