Concept: Ok the idea I have here is to, as a community, come up with a list of game aspects to be rated for reviews of games. But the twist here is that unlike so many sites that give a score that doesn't average properly I wanted to come up with a community made format that not only explains why a score doesn't average properly but actually goes further and makes sense also.

Then after we get a good list of things to score (ie Gameplay, Graphics, etc...) we can also assign an importance of each of these factors in a game by weighting them so that each review score on an aspect will properly take into account the importance of each area and its impact on a game.

Explanation: For now we will decide on some categories, we will start off with a few basic categories which I will post below but from there each person gets 3 votes and you can only vote for a given category twice. You can also add a category but please at least give it 1 vote when doing so. Once we get a good amount of input we will use the top 5 or 6 categories and move on to the next section where we will be deciding the weighting of the categories. But for now each of the categories is going to start with 1 vote.

My hope is not to enforce a format for reviews that people must use, but rather to come up with a format that a wide variety of gamers can agree apon and make it distinctive to VGChartz reviews that are written by our members for our members.

So please take a moment to cast your vote or add a category.

Starter Categories:

Graphics : (1)
Sound :(1)
Story : (1)
Controls : (1)
Gameplay : (1)

I will add my votes once (if) things get rolling so I don't influence it before anybody gets a chance to read it.

PS - Also if you have an opinion on it please also specify how many categories you think we should use. I personally don't think it matters too much since we will be weighting it but I am trying to make this a community consensus so I want to leave as much of this stuff open to debate as I can for now.

my votes are gameplay, story, and control


id like to add design

Slightly off topic, but I had a slightly different idea/concept for a review system.

The "review graph".

The y-axis is your score out of 10, the x-axis is how long you have spent playing the game.

Always plot a point after 5 min (start), and one at the end (completed) game - your overall (final) score for the game.

Then every hour (or whenever your impression of the game drastically changes), you plot another point.
...

In the end you draw your graph, and post it. Just thought it was a slightly more interesting way to review a game than by giving it a single overall number. Some games might start slow, then pick up gradually. Some may start off with a bang, then fall away badly towards the end.

You could also extend the idea to work with categories within the game (gfx, gameplay, etc..) and also with multiple reviewers.

...

Anyway, just an idea - something I hadn't seen done before.

I like it shams...but I doubt most people finish games before they review them. I think it would also be good if they annotated that graph to show what caused the up/down of the graph, that way there is more context to it.

Graphics: (2)
Sound: (1)
Story: (2)
Controls: (2)
Gameplay: (3)
Value: (1)

I added value as well. That way, the length and replay value of a game are added into the score. Why pay $60 for a one hour game (obvious exaggeration here)?

And what's the difference between gameplay and controls? Is gameplay more geared towards level design or something?

Story is also important to me, but I didn't vote for it so i could add in value.

Gameplay and controls are two two totally different things though controls does affect gameplay.

Graphics: (2)
Sound: (1)
Story: (2)
Controls: (2)
Gameplay: (5)
Value: (1)
Presentation: (1)

Added presentation as it's a pretty important thing for me and needs to be on there (though I would have liked to spend my last vote on controls or value but gameplay needed the more votes).

opps didnt mean to quote.......

Graphics: (2)
Sound: (2)
Story: (3)
Controls: (2)
Gameplay: (3)
Value: (2)
Presentation: (1)

Sound, graphics, gameplay and replay value are the most important things to consider in my mind.

 Graphics: (3) +1
Sound: (3) +1
Story: (3)
Controls: (2)
Gameplay: (4) +1
Value: (2)
Presentation: (1)

And now I am adding in my votes....

Graphics: (4) +1
Sound: (3)
Story: (3)
Controls: (4) +1
Gameplay: (5) +1
Value: (2)
Presentation: (1)