I think it's fair to say that many of us would like to drop the score or make it less specific, Reasonable, and force people to take the content alone, but given the current climate for reading reviews it's just not feasible for us right now if we want to continue building a readership. A site like IGN might be able to get away with it, but us? Not yet. We can't buck trends that hard.

The review system is always under review, though, always being talked about, and you can rest assured that what you say is being taken into consideration, because you do represent at least part of the readership.

That's exactly why you shouldn't be using it.  For the very reason (which I'm betting you can guess I agree with 1000%) you state it falls apart when you have different people assigning a number to it.  Essentially a 6 for Value for game X means nothing next to the 7 for Game Y... the problem is scores have to have some level of consistency if you're going to use them.

A review should indicate the length of a game, any repeatability, the quality of the experience, etc. and the reader needs to decide for themselves whether that implies enough value for them - I know you can't please everyone, but its clear to me from your and Nazna's comments that the scores in general, and Value in particular, do not make sense as applied currently.

You can't have a score mechanism that is open to individual interpretation with every title - it simply undermines the whole point of a score.

The more I think about it (repeating some feedback from a moment ago) I would advice a single score or no score at all.

Score's are for whimps and people who can't be bothered reading anway!  If you care enough to check out a review then focus on the content, not an arbritary score.

Again, pls see this as constructive - I'm not whining, etc. but I really believe there is a flaw here you could catch early and fix.

I understand your dislike of component scores, and that some people will not used them correctly, but others will. A lot of people use component scores as a means of gaining information on parts of the game that are important to them quickly. I'm sorry that you don't like them, but at the moment they are a necessary part of our reviews.

Oh, and review scores are not averages. Value has different affects on different games, just as the other 2 components do.

Ah, Reasonable, do correct me if I'm wrong, but I am taking you to mean this:

Since the Value score is necessarily subjective (as a weight of time spent vs. money spent, quality of time spent, and potential for replayability), it means that there is no way to make our scores concrete, and the individual interpretation inherent in such a score invalidates it.

But.... that's not quite right, either, is it? Because removal of the component scores would do absolutely nothing to objectify the inal score: if anything, it goes in the other direction. Any of these scores is based upon an individual value interpretation, if you will, and no two people are going to have identical interpretations of how these scores should be assigned.

One can make the argument that component scores obscure the purpose of a composite score if they are not averaged, but at the same time a score by itself is always going to be subjective. There is no contradiction there.

i like the reviews





the people do a good job at reviewing games

now you raise a good point here. My definition of value definately would differ from some.

Well, now I have read the thread, and I realise that.

So, to move onto the new topic, I like the numbers. Much better than that horrible, A, B+, B- system, because I'm used to numbers, and the only way I had of converting letters to numbers was that god awful Metacritic chart which claims A+ and A are both 100.

I personally think that graphics and sound scores should be separate from Presentation, as before, with the letter system. Yes, you can read the review to find out about those things, but imagine a game where the graphics are excellent, but the soundtrack is a bunch of screeching cats, and the menu screens and story are okay. Wouldn't it be better to have this:

Graphics: 9.5

Sound: 4.0

Presentation: 7.5

Than this:

Presentation: 7.0?

I also think you are a little too harsh on Value. I believe Uncharted got a 7.0, while it's good for at least 3-4 9 hour playthroughs, to get more trophies, and just because it's awesome. That's 27-36 hours, which is pretty damned long. And I think it affects the overall score too much; I would rather play an 8 hour game which was incredibly good (such as Shadow of The Colossus, although that is taking me some 12 hours), than 30 hours of absolute crap (Haze, if you play online)

Machina, I was not implying "most" in that, nor was I limiting my statement to contributors.

Downgraded or streamlined?

Complexity isn't always good.

When a game like ToV gets an 8.8 and a game like Halo 3 gets an 8.8 why do people whine about it?

I always thought ToV got an 8.8 when compared to games within it's own genre, not when compared to shooters and action/adventure or Halo 3.

Halo 3 got an 8.8 when compared to other shooters within it's own genre on it's own platform as well. Yes Halo 3 may be played even today, but reviews are not based on popularity. I for one would easily rate Bioshock above Halo 3 any day of the week.

Complaining about Uncharted vs. Civilization and then whining about it?

Once again, reviews are not scores in general among all genres, reviews are to be scores given to a game when compared to other games within it's genre.

At least this is how I thought it worked.

The scores here are fine, people need to stop whining about this all the time, it is annoying.

If ToV is better than every other JRPG on the 360(in my opinion), we should still bump it down because it scores higher than a shooter that wasn't the best shooter in it's genre? How in the hell is that fair?