How to Rate a Game

[PainInTheAssInternet]

If you were a reviewer, how would you rate games? This is of course assuming you would use the 1-10 scale. No need to interject into the conversation on how you think it's useless and arbitrary.

If the game has one mode (let's say multiplayer) that is really well done but the other segments (such as single player or cooperative) are lacklustre, broken or effectively nonexistent, how would you represent that on a scale of 1-10? Should it reflect at all if the poorly done modes weren't the focus of the game and the really well done modes were the only reason anyone would be playing it? What if certain parts of the bad modes gave you items to use in the good modes?

What would your average be if the average was actually really well-done? Do you think that giving it a 5 and therefore putting it closer to really bad games than decent games is a good policy?

Is it possible to get a 10 if the game is well done, achieves all its goals and then some but has some flaws?

To answer my own questions.
1) I'd give it a higher score approaching perfect because the mode everyone's there for are great and the modes that are bad no one cares about. If the good modes genuinely are affected by the bad modes, then the score would drop but not too much.

2) I'd say if the average is really well-done, it's fair to have the majority of games be higher than 5. 7 would seem appropriate because it's far from perfect but very competently executed and entertaining.

3) Yes, it is possible. No game is ever going to be perfect, but there will be fantastic ones deserving of praise even accounting for shortcomings.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Remaiki]

I've thought about this before - how the scope of a game interacts with its accomplishments - and I've still not got something I'm happy with. This is mostly because I am someone who calls for both excellent design and a well constructed narrative for a game to be considered good in my eyes, no matter how good either part is. Hence why I would only allow myself to give Super Meat Boy - a game that I considered my 'game-of-the-year' when it came out - a 7 or a 7.5, no matter how fantastically designed it may be mechanically (I would still class it as one of the best designed games in a while). Indeed, when there is a platformer that I consider to be only good in design (like Battleblock Theatre) I feel as though it would only get to the 5.5-6.5 range, because of its abysmal narrative (it has great writing though, don't get me wrong!) and its difficulty in regards to how 'murky' it is as a platformer. (The only reason it gets past the 5 mark is because its art style is fantastic and it has a great commitment to theme.)

I've not even touched on the issue of 'scope', only of mechanics vs. narrative, so I'll try and make this short: if a game truly wants no part in a certain area, it should drop the pretense and remove that aspect entirely. Your game isn't about the story? Don't write an excuse plot, just remove the plot entirely. Your game isn't about multiplayer? Don't bother with it then. Your game isn't about mechanics at all? Go all the way: make it a visual novel.

...Whoops. I don't post often, so I'm not very good at the 'making posts elegant' thing, hopefully next time I won't write so much waffle.

 

[ZedOmega]

I've honestly never put any thought into how I score games, but I generally rate five categories separately (Story/Premise, Gameplay, Graphics [compared to other titles on the system in question for the most part], Sound/Music and Replayability) and the overall score is the average of them.

Each category starts out with a score of 6. Things that increase it include either melding or stepping away from the traditional tropes involved with them, mercy towards lower-end systems if it's a PC game, how easy it is to pick up and play if you're unfamiliar with the genre, voice acting that's good without going full-on hammy (unless that's what the game is going for), depth of customization if the game allows it, things like that. Factors that'll decrease a score are things like insane system requirements, poor graphical quality compared to system averages, storyline that either makes little sense or just feels paint-by-numbers to me, horrible voice acting or soundtracks, SFX that don't really match the even that would make it, or anything that would keep a player from picking it back up as far as replay value goes (too monotonous if it isn't a puzzle game, controls are too sketchy, etc.).

I think the only time I've ever had to eschew a section score was when it didn't even apply, and that was simply because the game was considered kusoge (literally 'shit game', it can be considered the game industry's counterpart to a B-movie), so Replay Value had to go unscored just on that basis alone.

I'll admit that trying to review games objectively does get tricky if I actually love the game. The temptation to gush is amazingly hard to squash.