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Game Reviews are Broken?
Kotaku is running an opinion piece looking at the process of reviewing videogames, and comes to the conclusion that the whole system is entirely broken. Author Mark Wilson takes potshots at the concept of assigning a numerical valuation to a game, and the emphasis on product reviews rather than content reviews. "If there is no such thing as a perfect game, when why the hell are you scoring out of 100? It's not just PC Gamer that thinks this way--most publications, even those who do give out 'perfect' scores, do so begrudgingly. It's as if the developer has somehow cheated and broken their system. The movie reviewers solved this problem a long time ago. That's why most adopted a simpler rating system in which a 4-star movie didn't imply 'perfection' but supreme excellence. In most cases, games are penalized through being divided by a sum that they can never possibly reach."
Game publishers, consumers, and even the reviewers themselves have been going on about the shortcomings of the current system for quite a while now. Yet we never see any alternatives being proposed. I say to the article writer, "Yes, I agree that the current system sucks. But what is your alternative?"
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
Although he has a point, we humans love to compare and if you don't give us any metric by which to do that, then we don't feel like anything has been achieved.
"SuperGame is really good" is meaningless to me. What I want to know is, is it any better than GreatGame? If the reviewer gives a score for both then I can understand which he/she feels is better and by what margin. Since I've played GreatGame (and assuming I trust the reviewer), then I can set some sort of expectation of what SuperGame will be like.
Personally, I use Metacritic which aggregates a number of reviews. Again, it's not perfect, but when it gets a 75 or above score, I can be reasonably certain that I'm not getting a dud game. It might not be my type of game, but if it is, then it shouldn't be disappointing.
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The best review has no score. Simply somebody playing the dang game, and talking about what they like, what they don't like, what they'd improve, what really bothered them, what really excited them.
Find a reviewer with a decent command of the language, and who likes the sorts of games you like, and you're good to go.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
These very thoughts came to my mind when I was reading all the Halo3 Reviews... When a game has so-so single player and awesome multiplayer...how does that get the game loads of perfect scores? A perfect game wouldn't need to make up for areas of lacking ANYWHERE. That aside, even the multiplay, while fun, is far from perfect. Halo3 was, and is, a great package but it's nowhere near a "perfect" game. I'm not just picking on Halo3 here either. HL2 for instance was a phenomenal game....but to call it "perfect" (like so many reviewers did) is just naive and downright inaccurate.
I believe when i see a 100 in a game review that it means that its a game worth playing, if there is no such thing as a perfect game.. then why give it a value?.
It's a sad fact but reviews from most major magazines have always had a bribe element in them. Weather it's the keg of beer the Magazine gets with the game they're reviewing (for marketing purposes) or a flat out pile of cash for being the mags newest sponsor.
In the early days the developers would simply bribe the writers and they'd write a review without even playing the game! That kind of practise has changed but not by much for some illustrations.
But I find the average score from reviews at www.gamerankings.com something I can trust. A good average score simply means that the game is good.
One opinion for something can never beat the average of thousands opinions.
I've always liked the reviews coming out of Nintendo Power for Nintendo games. Anything that ranks 7.5 or above is pretty decent. I agree that the numbers don't mean that much but at least I can identify a lower bar (7.5) that I look for.
I catch episodes of X-Play for the rest of my game reviews. They seem to have a good grasp on what is crap and why its crap as well as what's good.
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
So, someone in the game review world finally discovered that there's a difference between qualitative and quantitative measurements? Way to go guys!
Though in general the score is only a minimal part of a good game review as every gamer has different tastes and a good review is one that doesn't just tell you whether a game is, in general, good or bad but one that tells you if this game is one that you, in particular, would enjoy enough to part with your $50-60.
The cake is a pie
Review scores are proportional to swag which is calculated on a ratio depending on how much money was in that brown envelope.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I kind of like the old ZZAP!64 method, where they had little portraits expressing the mood of the reviewer about the game. Not much different than stars.
Whoops... I just checked, actually they used % as well, for the various parts and the overall.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
... but reviwer comments can be worth a lot. I read the german games magazin ""Gamestar" regularly. Their numerical scores give only a rough impression. Also, despite vows to the contrary, thier average is significantly over 50 (socres 1...100) now and a game with a 70 rating can be both pretty good and pretty bad. However onec you read the article that comes with the score and look at the individual sub-scores, you get a pretty good picture of the qualities (or lack thereof) of a game. With good writing, you can even find out about matters of taste and, for example, find that you will likely not want to play a game that a specific reviewer found to be very nice.
Face it: Grading something is a subjective process. Even more so in this area that in others. The final number/score/mark is not so important. What is important is thae rationale on how the final mark was reached and what are positive and negative points. Those that cannot grasp evaluations beyond a single number will allways misjudge things.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Movies have not solved that problem at all. There are very few 4 star movies, just like there are very few "perfect" games.
There are some phenominally crappy 2 star movies, and there are some that are underrated.
There isn't an actual criteria behind each star.
All "100" really means is that there are 100 possible stars... and everyone I know treats it that way.
That is, if one game got 70, one got 80, then we know both are rated at similar quality. And having played other games in that range, I have an idea what that quality is.
When you boil multi-dimensonal factors down into a single number, something is going to get lost... just learn to deal with it. Or scrap it.
The movies have "dealt" with it, not scrapped it.
The fact that technology is evolving rapidly doesn't help much. Quake 1 got great reviews in the day, but would anyone rank it that high today? (Not trying to dis Q1, but compared to other games today, it doesn't hold up that well.)
So instead of scoring a game out of 100, or 10, or whatever, movie reviewers solved this by using stars! Brilliant! /sarcasm
.037 for attempting to be funny and -.455 for random pictures that had nothing to do with the article.
Having 4 stars could just as much represent perfection as a game that got a 10. It is just as arbitrary. It is really hard to take this guy seriously after that. I still read on, though, but I should have stopped. This article was of the form: 1) Put up out of context quote. 2) Rant about it in a way less intelligent than other people already have.
If this is all it takes to be an author on Kotaku, then I think a bunch of Slashdotters should apply because I read better posts here every day.
I give his article a 3.457 out of 10. He got a bonus
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it's as simple as that. there are so many review sites out there that you are bound to find one that "agrees" with you. for my taste in gaming, i find IGN's review system ideal. if i'm interested in a game, i look at the score. if the score is high enough, i read the review to see what makes the game so good. if i like the review, i buy the game.
i use the score stricly as a guide to whether or not i read the review. i use the reviewers words to decide if i want the game.FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
Penny Arcade is a good example of that. And it has the added bonus of a web comic thrown in for free.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I didn't think that an article titled "Game Reviews are Broken" would complain that the review scores *aren't high enough*. Must've been written by the game publishers.
Chris Mattern
Great, average, poor ratings only in the following categories:
1. various gaming facets as compared to other games in same genre, and why.
2. overall gameplay vs. all games this year -- game length, learning curve/complexity, etc and why.
3. Does it make the gamer consider entering this game in their all-time favorite games, and WHY!
Don't forget tons of real gameplay video and screenshots, since the commercials will just have gratuitous and irrelevant animations.
stuff |
If more reviews were like Zero Punctuation, then they could charge for reviews.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
I like ign's reviews, I'm not a heavy gamer but I know what I like, I know what they like, and I know how their up to 10 reviews match mine, and I know that anything under 6 really isn't worth it (they give them: http://pc.ign.com/articles/831/831573p1.html ) I know when it sounds like they were paid, I know when the score is too high that it's either great or a total bust. It's all a matter of learning with the reviews you are dealing with. Do I want to read the whole review? Not really, I'm very picky. I want to see the score. Too low, or too high, I check online and google for reviews from forums, and go from there. I know what types of games I like and just because it's a 9 or even a 8 doesn't mean I'll think it's more than a 1 or 2 if it's not what I like. You just learn as time goes by. There's no perfect solution. I think the numbers work well, and failing that, forums with actual people, remembering that most people hate stuff, if for no other reason than to hate. So expect 75% it sucks 25% it's sooo awesome, look for the inbetweens and look for changes to that ratio.
Game reviews aren't broken anymore than movie, food, book, or any other form of entertainment reviews are. You have to find a reviewer (or close group of reviewers) that you mostly agree with their past reviews and take their future views accordingly.
It's all opinion people, plain and simple.
For instance, RPGs: I hated FFVII but I enjoyed DQ8. Survival horror: I thought RE4 was needlessly frustrating (and yes, I have the Wii version too) but I really enjoyed Eternal Darkness. RTS: Starcraft and War2 get a thumbs up while War3 and AoE get a thumbs down. I would play Wind Waker dozens of times over including the sailing around parts before I'd ever want to play that blurry no-fun mess of Okami again.
While these may be personal opinions, all of those games I just listed received at least a 9 out of 10 score by many reviewers. If someone starts out a review of Blue Gear Forever by telling me that it's the best RPG since FFVII, I might still read it but I'll have to see some more compelling reviews before I go out and try the game.
Reviews only work if you're willing to review the reviewers.
I've done an undergraduate, masters and now i'm converting to another discipline, and this isn't new news to me.
One of the reasons most courses don't mark past 80% is that 80% is unattainable - the only way to attain it is to have a copy of the marking scheme. When a marking scheme only identifies the points necessary to make a "complete" answer, and not every possible answer (impractical) it is just as guilty as cheating in this respect.
This is why we have grade adjustment, or weighting. You adjust a score based on the "current level" - a weighting compared to peers. Should Half-life be reviewed now, it would score badly in graphics, animation and possibly sound. Game reviewers should look to creating a standardised weighting system that has regular reviews.
Matt
It becomes very difficult to rate games in the same way as movies. A four star movie from 10 or 20 years ago is typically still a very good movie. A game that would have rated a 85% or a 90% 10 or 20 years ago would not hold up to the same scrutiny today. Love it or hate it, video games exist in a moving target of expectations, and until we see a general leveling off in terms of artistic and technical capabilities, I don't think you'll see the reviewing camps move to a more general rating system.
Reviews have been fundamentally broken for years and years. Ten years ago Gamepro gave Bubsy 3D an impossibly high score of 3.5 out of 5 - a score comparable with Screamer 2, tempest, Cruis'n USA and other playable games. Playing Bubsy is about as enjoyable as stabbing your eyes out, it's a turd among turds. Incidentally there was a full page add for, you guessed it, Bubsy 3D in that very issue.
Problem is that these magazines are at the mercy at the games they review. They need to get exclusives, interviews, previews and adds to stay in the game. They are therefore very reluctant to give out bad scores to games from well known publishers.
Once upon a time there was a magazine (Amiga Power?) that did just this, said things as they were, and they found themselves cahoots by devs like Team 17, etc, for simply stating their actual opinions.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how bad do you think the 10 point rating system is.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
I honestly think that the reviewing system is too nice to bad games, it feels more like a high school grading system, and far too many games score in the 90s.
I wish as far as reviews go a 5/10 would be the baseline average, and anything around a 9 or a 10 would be exceptionally rare. Something receiving that high of a score would basically say that the reviewer thought it was one of the best games ever released in the genre. A score in the 8s would be game of the year material, and 6s and 7s would be above average and worth looking into.
I know what genre I enjoy playing so I look at upcoming titles/descriptions and ..... rent it first. I don't need a douche to tell me his/her thoughts on what was "kewl" or "teh sukness". If it's a worthy game (or movie), it'll remove funds from my wallet on it's own. True this only works for console, but that's all I play. If you troll any game forums there is no shortage on opinions on there for you pc folks. I value the opinions of people who play the game for fun and not to pick it apart for a paycheck.
I used to be with IT..now IT seems strange and scary to me.
Just like the article in question, all reviews are an opinion and nothing more. Are you really going to sit and dissect someones opinion to make you feel good about yourself? If you are you need to step away from the keyboard and get a life.
In my moderate-gamer life I can think of a few 100-score games but I don't get in a huff when other people come by and tell me that "American McGee's Alice blows" or "The Thief series is overrated".
Why do we have to have this eternal debate over whether a quantifiable score can be applied to an opinion? If you don't like it simply don't use it.
BTW: Portal? 90%!
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I review games out of 10, but I think the actual content in my written review is much more important than the overall final score (that's my justification for writing really long reviews). I consider the final scores to be simply for comparison's sake, so it's easy to say that this reviewer thought this game was better than this game but worse than this game. I also think of my scores as fluid and I've changed a score a couple of times because I played another game that I thought deserved that score, but now the other game didn't.
Anyways, the industry puts too much emphasis on the scores, it should really be about the actual thoughts and feelings while playing, something that can be written down relatively easily but doesn't always translate to an abstract score.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
But there are other problems: I still have to find reviews which contain all relevant information, especially on console games. A few days ago I tried to find PS3 games which can be played co-op in offline mode. (No PS3 jokes, please :)
If a multiplayer mode was mentioned at all in one of those two dozens or so reviews I looked at, it wasn't mentioned if it was online only. Even in the summary or fact sheet of a game, you didn't have the simple information that you get when looking at the back of the actual box! It's embarrassing!
At least the basic facts of the game (how many players, co-op vs. versus, co-op campaign, online, offline, 2 player splitscreen horizontally or vertically split etc.), should be mentioned. Yet this seems to be too much to ask. Go ahead, try to find out how many players can play Rainbox Six Las Vegas on PS3 on one console? Is the compaign playable with 4 players?
The solution is kind of obvious when you think about it. If there is no such thing as a perfect game, then remove the number for a perfect score. In other words, don't have a "maximum score".
In other words, the first time the scale is used, we take a few well known games from history (Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Doom, Final Fantasy, etc) and give them a grade on this new open ended scale, so people can get a feel for it. Then we just start rating games based on that. New game is really good? Maybe it scores a 95. Next game even better? Perhaps it gets a 102. Next game better still? Grade it even higher.
You get the idea.
If there is no such thing as a perfect game, when why the hell are you scoring out of 100? [...] Games are penalized through being divided by a sum that they can never possibly reach.
Here's what I think about scoring out of 100. Have you noticed how it's as easy to go from 0 to 80 as it is to go from 80 to 90? Here's the thing, scores are not linear, they are logarithmic, so if you want to report a score out of 100 into a linear score, f(90) might just be twice as much as f(80), and f(100) is infinity. That's why there's no such thing as a perfect game, a game can't rank to infinity on a linear scale, and thus not score 100 in the scale we use.
As for the rest, the metric is just a means of comparison, and is a speed trade-off to make yourself an idea of how good a game is without reading an entire review, which is itself a quicker way to make yourself an idea without trying the game.
You just got troll'd!
I don't think I am full of original ideas on this topic, but I have some thought that weren't yet in this thread when I started typing.
There is nothing wrong with game reviews being out of 100; changing that number to 4 or 5 or a 100000 has nothing to do with what's wrong with game reviews. Here's what I think is wrong:
This is why I like the Zero Punctuation reviews so much. Yahtzee has a decent command of the language, goes through all of the good and bad parts of the games, and gives a quick conclusion stating his opinion of the thing.
:)
I thought we all liked Yahtzee because he's fucking hilarious.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Game reviews are almost purely based on subjective measures just like movies, fine dining, and so many other facets of our lives. There can never be a 'perfect' rating system to a subjective 'opinion' period, end nadda just stop trying. When someone to say 1-100, or 1-10, or 1-4, or Good-Bad, or just a blurb without any rating at all, etc.. are the best, what are you really basing your 'opinions' on? The rating of a subjective rating system are also just as subjective and the ratings themselves, so to argue over the topic at all seems ridiculous and ultimately unsatisfactory for all.
If a reviewer likes to make non-scored reviews of games and there are people that want to read non-scored reviews, they're most likely going to read his/her review. If nobody wants to read about a 1-1000 scale review then the reviewer won't get much ink.
The 'problem' is that whenever YOU disagree with someone's personal opinion of a game, you decry them as playing up the numbers, or perfection not being perfect, etc.. but what it really comes down to is that you don't judge the score in the same way the reviewer does. I talked to a friend once that would NEVER rate a movie 10/10 on IMDB because there could only be 1 movie that could ever reach 10/10 and he hadn't seen that movie yet. To some, 10/10 means 10% of all movies put out. Some would just say 10/10 means that they left the movie happy (regardless of the cinematic value of the piece).
You can 'solve' subjectivity. All you need is a world's worth of borg implants.
Bye!
My sole complaint with game reviews is those reviewers that rate the games on things they 'aren't' as opposed to what they're designed for. Specifically when they downgrade great single-player games for not having some sort of multiplayer or some flawed multiplayer gaming. I don't buy many multiplay/online games. They're simply not my cup of tea, but to slam some really good single player games (Bioshock comes to mind) about not having good (or any) multiplayer content is a waste of my time. Perhaps splitting up the rating into different categories would solve this. My 2 cents, YMMV.
Specifically, the point is made that game reviewers needs to bring themselves up to the level of book or movie reviewers. Good movie critics don't recite feature lists and technical specifications, they talk about the ideas behind the art and how well they were realised. They talk about subjective things, with no claims to being an objective review.
games journalism blog
9.68/10. Highly recommended for everybody.
It seems as though the software entertainment press has been so affected by the grade school method of grading that it's pretty much in-grained in their minds that 90-100 (A) is Excellent, 80-90 (B) is Good, 70-80 (C) is Average, 60-70 (D), and 0-50 (F) is Awful which actually isn't the fundamental problem.
The problem is that reviewers don't take into account of the reason why grade school has this stratified curve; It's the curve you get when students are graded based on the percent of quantifiable problems they can either get right or wrong. I'm assuming the average amount of students can get about 75% of problems right on a math test which is why that's considered average. However, there are no quantifiable measurements you can make with artistic mediums like video games so it doesn't make sense at all to have a grading scale based on a scale of five, ten, or a hundred when most of the marks are going to be pivoted around the 75 average. You're not going to grade an essay based on the ratio of correct/in-correct questions so why are we grading video games this way?
The best way to get out of this 100-scale ditch is to rate on a scale of A-B-C-D-F where you're still communicating the idea of the 100 scale, but you get rid of any implications of quantifiable measurements. Plus, you get rid of the superfluous 0-60 range of scores.
For starters, a majority of movie reviewers use a 1-4 or 1-5 star rating. This is good because it gets rid of the silly micro-comparisons you see with games. "Oh you gave Halo 3 a 92 and Metroid Prime 3 an 89 - Halo 3 is obviously the better game!" On a 4 or 5 star system they get the same score.
More importantly is the author's contention that we're grading games as products, not art. How many movie reviewers give separate scores to the special effects, audio quality, and re-watchability of a movie? Sure there's some exceptions (usually formate-driven enthusiast sites) but the vast majority score the value of the piece, not the value of the package.
...and I wanted to make the scoring system out of 10 rather than 100, on the grounds that stating one game is one percent better than another is absolutely insane. How can you possibly quantify something like that?
I was told in no uncertain terms by my bosses that my mag would be using percentage scores until the day it died, because "that's how the industry works." In other words, if a game didn't score at least 85% overall, you'd be on the publisher's bad books. And it's easier to for a PR guy (or your mag's own ad sales department) to beg and wheedle an extra couple of percent onto a score to tip the balance than it is to persuade someone to mark a game up from 8 to 9.
You must think in Russian.
...was it super great?
Too many times you'll come across a review that has some pretty negative things about this or that feature but still score well. "The graphics are bad at one point...I give it a 9/10". That always makes me scratch my head. Either the problem was worth mentioning in context of the score or the score is out of context which leads to the problem of using scores as some sort of "fact crutch" when it really is never that at all. Reviews at their heart are subjective opinions on something, in this case games. Attaching some number like "90%" tries to make it look objective. No reviews are objective so why do people keep seeking to make it look more factual?
In professional realms, they are generally good about scores being a semi-accurate reflection of the reviewer's stance (otherwise the editor would flog them). In particular I favor Ziff-Davis mags, like EGM with their 3 reviewer formula, for review information where they seem pretty honest and upfront about things they see in games where they have zero qualms about scoring something 5/10 and then tell you exactly why. Or as others have mentioned I'm really starting to favor entirely scoreless reviews like "Zero Punctionation". You know exactly what he feels about the games, even if there is a sarcastic venere to it, which is exactly what you want from a reviewer. A review should be full of the reviewer's feelings and opinions not a chart of numbers.
I don't understand why people want to see a "X/10" instead of the reviewer's honest opinion. The score/numbers obscure the opinion and make it seem factual. When someone gives a 9/10 on a game it is because it is fun for the reviewer, not because it is "universally fun for all" or automatically good for any individual reader. Why do people keep asking for scores then complain when they think a game that got 9/10 really wasn't that fun for them? In this case it seems the misinterptation lies with the reader not the publisher/reviewer.
Movie reviewers solved this issue, not by going with STARS, but guys like Roger Ebert decided to give it a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' knowing that liking a movie is very subjective. In essence he's saying "I liked it" or "I didn't like it".
People want to give a absolute rating (4 stars, 99pts 'this game rockz!') as it gives them some self appointed absolute ruling, for which there is no unit of measurement. Is a 90% sports game better or worse than a 90% FPS from gamespot equate to the same 90% from ign?
You can't tell. So go with "i like it" or "i don't like it."
This is why they have game demos. Download the demo. Try it. Buy it. Or don't. Does anyone actually listen to movie reviewers? Half the time I completely disagree with someone on the quality of a game or a movie. Why would I buy a game based on a review? There are basically two things I need to know when I'm considering a game. Is it full of bugs? How much does it cost? Oh. You play console games. I'm sorry.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
People fail to grasp the idea that games reviewers exist for the sole purpose of helping game developers sell games. If reviewers actually did the job they claimed they did we wouldn't have so many crap first person shooters out there. Developers would actually stop and say 'we'd better come up with something original otherwise the reviewers will crucify us'
If you have a job where it's perfectly acceptable to take bribes for good reviews, why would you want to suddenly stop? It's not like they're real journalists for gods sake.
I have nothing compelling to say
Nothing beats getting your hands on a demo and actually playing the game. I won't even buy most games unless there's a playable demo (try before you buy). I only visit a couple game related websites, such as GameRankings, Metacritic and Yahtzee's reviews at The Escapist. Any other game info I need I will check out the Wikipedia entry (for release dates, etc).
I used to get game magazines 5-10 years ago mainly for the demo discs and articles about upcoming games, but with the internet, game magazines are pretty much dead. Review sites like IGN and Gamespot are also useless to me when I can just visit GameRankings and see all the scores compiled in one place.
The games industry is always crying about how games should be considered art, like movies and books, however they won't accept the 4 or 5 star rating system - like movies and books. Shit, how about thumbs up or thumbs down?
"Video Game Reviews Are Broken, Please Fix"
published by Kotaku
Graphics: 3/10. There are some pictures and graphics on the side, but for the most part it's just text one a screen. I could forgive it not being 3D, but they're not even using sprites! The in-game ads are also kind of lame, considering how little effort they put into the graphics.
Sound: 1/10. No sound to speak of, just the hum of my computer's fan, which is kind of annoying.
Gameplay: 5/10. There's not a lot to the gameplay. Basically, you submit messages in the box, and if they're good other people write stuff back to you. On the one hand, this could be a really good idea, since the other messages are sent by other players, but in practice it doesn't work, because they don't show your stats, so it's not even clear if you're winning or losing.
Overall: 4/10. I like the idea, and I'd be interested in seeing a sequel (or maybe some additional downloadable content), but with the way it's implemented now I cannot recommend this game.
Buy/Rent/Skip? Skip.
Most games are rated "perfect," 10/10, 100/100, not because they are perfect, but because they are tons of fun.
A solution is to have a variable system. Edmund's doesn't try to rank sport sedans the same way the do minivans and they don't always use equivalent categories for different types of cars. Game reviewers should do the same. Pit games of similiar genres against each other.
Sometimes they do Accord vs Camry, sometimes it's a "5 car family sedan comparo"
They do have a review rating and a reader rating
I personally think all game reviews should follow the model of critics like Ebert: A binary "Recommended" or "Not Recommended" which summarizes the reviewers opinion. This is accompanied with a linkable article that explains why it's recommended (or not), to what degree, and how it compares to other games.
Sites like Metacritic can then aggregate these Yes/No results (with any weighting system they like) to produce a generated (and hence less arbitrary) numerical score.
Without weighting, the results from this system would at least tell you the number and ratio of reviewers that recommended the game and those can be useful numerical metrics.
I suppose, technically, the system already works like this. It's just clouded with a lot of noise and fuss and pretentiousness, which results in articles posted like TFA.
D.
As far as I know, Action Button is the only site I've seen so far that rates games out of 4 stars - the review style is dark, but witty and charming at the same time.
When you'd go to the toy store and buy the game with the coolest looking box.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Dead or alive extreme beach volleyball, as reviewed at IGN:
http://xbox.ign.com/articles/383/383421p1.html Score: 9.2
As reviewed by Gamespot:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/sports/deadoralivextremebv/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;review Score: 6.0
When I read the IGN review for this game, having played it, I was yelling at my computer screen at how rediculous it was. 9.2 for that game!? I don't need to say anything else, really, just read the two reviews. The gamespot one is much more accurate. Not to say gamespot hasn't done the same thing, I just don't have any examples.
-Xoltri
When I review games for friends and family, I give two metrics: "How many times would I (re)play it?" and "How much would I pay for it?" Of course, those two numbers are often related, but they provide something tangible.
For example, Project Snowblind was actually a descent game -- for $20. I did play it through one and a half times, to boot, so the experience wasn't all bad. Some games, like Pariah, can provide a descent value if cheap enough, but still fall into the "Do I really have to finish this game?" category -- such games are just tedious.