http://ps2.ign.com/articles/556/556635p1.html
lol it looks like markryan wrote that
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http://ps2.ign.com/articles/556/556635p1.html
lol it looks like markryan wrote that
I can think of other TNLers who would write something like that rather easily. Entertaining piece of tripe though.
What's that supposed to mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by cka
"Right now it's sucking in the universe and bending light."
I like that line. Other than that, I don't think the dude's trying hard enough to sound like Tycho from PA. Okay, yes I do.
This was written by the same guy who wrote the Crisis Zone and Under the Skin reviews. He sounds obscenely bitter (although both of those reviews are markedly better than the ChoroQ one -- the fact that both games are significantly better (even being below average) probably helps).
These scores really screw up the standard IGN bellcurve though -- normally, a game getting a 5.0 on there would translate to an uninflated -6 out of 10.
-Dippy
There's a sort of on-going war here as to what the scores should actually mean. Some people (PS2 guys) think that 5.0 should be a middle score--anything above 5 is "decent to great" and anything below is "bad to utter crap." Other guys (PC) operate on a school grade scale--an 8 is a B, a 7 is a C game, and anything less than a 6 is a complete failure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dipstick
And then there's the Xbox guys, where anything that's Xbox exclusive is an 8.0 or higher :)
I predict that someone on TNL, probably Jeremy or James, will buy this game, make a thread about how its "worth the $15", then tons of people will buy it and say "yep, Im loving this so far...". And then I will laugh and call of them fags and then Ill get yelled at and the mods will then hate me even more. That's justice for you.
I agree with the PC guys. I mean, really, we've all, with the possible exception of IronPlant, had our 13 years of compulsory educaton, so that system is ingrained in our head. You see a game get a 6.5, and its not decent, its not great, it sucks. And really, whats the difference between a 2.3 and a 4.4? Theyre both terrible.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
I also agree that this rating system, while also imperfect, is a lot easier to react accordingly to. I got a 6.5/10 on a paper last week. That's a horrible grade and since I have the option of a rewrite, I'm taking it. If I see a game get a 6.5/10, I'm feeling much less enthusiastic about dropping $50 on it.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
If they have to use a 10 scale, 5 should not be "decent."
Personally, I hate rating games period. But I think using the entire scale, 1-10, is a lot more flexible than the A, B, C, D, fail shit. There might as well only be a 5 star scale if you're going to limit what a "good" score is to three numbers.
I agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
That just so happens to be the system Im in favor of.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
Besides, that was Next Generation's system for years, and it worked just fine.
***** - Revolutionary
**** - Totally Excellent
*** - Good, competent
** - Fair, weak
* - Straight up bad
Besides, the X.Y system is retarded. Nobody has yet told me what the difference is between a 8.8 game and an 8.7, or even an 8.5.
Your idea of "flexibility" seems to be muddling up and confusing readers with a vague, unclear, non-rigorous, unexplained, and non-descriptive rating system so that pretentious reviewers can pat themselves on the back some more - "silly game doesnt deserve an 8.3, but an 8.1! Ahhh! Yet another triumph of the written word, by me!". Ill have none of it, though.
By your own admission in this thread, you idiots over at IGN cant even decide on what a 5.0 means, its different throughout the site. If the writers cant figure it out, then do you expect the readers to? Give me a break.
I despise rating systems in general, and avoid them whenever possible. There is far too much interpretation for them to be of any real meaning anyway.
Telling people that you avoid rating systems in your reviews is like me telling people I dont throw the split-fingered fastball when I pitch because it cant be controlled adequately. In either case, we're too terrible at the mentioned task to weigh in with our opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremy
It's basically used to rank games. Like you may agree that Halo and Metroid Prime are both A games, but Prime got a .1 score higher and is therefore ranked higher.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
And before you say "Who cares?" the answer is "our readers."
I think the problem with that is that if you work on that scale, then half of your ratings system (1 through 5) is rendered useless. This was one of the bitches I had at GameFan - because of a handful of reasons, the GF 1 ~ 100 scale ended up being "95% of games fall between 80 ~ 100, and the other seventy-nine numbers are there when you want to trash a game and you just pick a random number."Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
If you want to equate a ratings system to a school grading scale, then just switch to ABCDF and be done with it. I think that if you are going to use a one through ten scale, then five indeed should be "average."
But I think even a one through ten scale gives the reviewer too many possible choices for a score. Some will think I'm crazy, but I think the less choices, the better. Five stars is probably one of the best systems out there, done like NextGen indeed did. The more numbers you have, the more confusion over what means what, and the more nonsense each number becomes. Seriously, for anybody who read GameFan, what in the hell was the difference between an 81, an 84, or an 87? I worked there, and I can't even begin to tell you. Given one hundred possible choices for a final score to a reviewer, especially the GameFan crew, was an absolute mess from the word go.
The fewer choices for a review score the reviewer is given, the more sense the final score will make, and the better off the reader will be.
I'm bringing it up, and I'm gonna be yelled at. I know it.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
GameGO had the best rating system, bar none. Take Ebert & Roper's system and apply it to facial expressions. Happy face; demonic, evil, posessed face. You like it, or you don't. Simple. Thumbs up, thumbs down.
...either that or just tell people what you think you should do witht the game.
Three choices:
Buy it.
Rent it.
Avoid it.
Maybe one would add a "convince friend to buy it so you don't have to spend any money on it, period" option, too. I wouldn't. It's that simple because that's what you're going to do: buy it, rent it, or avoid it. It's not like all the games you buy are going to sit in a row and you're going to divide a specific amount of time with it based on scores. 24.6 minutes with Katamari Damacy, 46.3 minutes with Halo 2, etc. It's a waste of...
...well, everything.
True, but you cant fight the fact that the system we used for school is ingrained in all of our heads. Its not unreasonable to emulate that system because readers are innately familiar with it thanks to their years of education. Every issue, EGM has a long-winded diatribe in the front of their review section trying to tell people that the system they use is not like the one they used in school. Why waste the space? Use the one like school and move on.Quote:
Originally Posted by shidoshi
Either do that, or replace it with a different scale. Like Next Generation's, or the standard movie-critic scale. Both are easy to understand and, in the latter's case, easily recognizable.
A lack of flexibility would, arguably, force people to actually read the text, anyway. Attaching so much weight to a score leads to the situation we have now, where nobody reads the review (also, IGN's writing is awful, but I digress). But really, Next Gen's and Ebert's are easy to digest and the score stands as a complement to the review, and the two are to be taken as a whole.
Exactly. If the editorial staff that is assigning the scores cant make heads or tails of the rating system, then how can you expect readers to? Its horrible.Quote:
I worked there, and I can't even begin to tell you.
I like this system as well. It was kinda like Daily Radar's, too. And say whatever you want about DR, DR was way better than IGN is at the moment.Quote:
Three choices:
Buy it.
Rent it.
Avoid it.
I was going to mention GameGO in my "no scores" post, but figured that yeah, folks would just bitch me out for it, luckily diff bitched me out for the same thing that he always does, how cute.
AssQuote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
That's not crazy, that makes perfect sense. I think the majority here can agree with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by shidoshi
I've always looked at the 100 point scale like test scores. 88 is almost great, 81 is pretty good, 70 is ok etc etc. And I think the difference between a 4.4 and 2.1 is that the 4.4 is just unremarkable while the 2.3 is remarkably bad.
's how I would interpret those kinds of scores. Though I would usually ignore the ones place in gamefan scores.
I agree. However, I would like to point out how weird it is to hear Americans refer to 80s as Bs (up here, 80-90 = A-; Bs are 70s).Quote:
Originally Posted by rezo
Thus, if a game received a 70 or 7 (a la, Shinobi), I wouldn't mind purchasing it if the flaws weren't gamebreaking, and I were really interested in the game.
Just thought I'd mention that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brisco Bold
:lol: Damn , I need to go to school up in Canada. that 50 I got on my last Calc 2 test would be what a C+ ?
Ha,ha.
No. It'd be just as shitty as down there.
Oh come on, how many threads do I start around here? I'd contribute to it, depending on how well I liked it, but I doubt I'd start it.Quote:
I predict that someone on TNL, probably Jeremy or James, will buy this game, make a thread about how its "worth the $15",
That was a pretty harsh review of Choro-Q there, and though I'm expecting to disagree with it it's not worth getting up in arms about. To me it read like one of those reviews where the game was sent to exactly the wrong person.
As for ratings- 5 stars, no half stars. Simple.
James
Man, where were you people when GameSpy changed to this some time back? All we got was a massive wailing and gnashing of teeth.Quote:
Originally Posted by James
Now we have a watered-down half-star system which is not worth using as an example of something good. But I'll still take it over any 100-point system ...
Tell you what, though. People cannot understand a movie-like five stars system in the context of games. Their thought process goes 3 stars -> 60% -> teh suck. Every time. Of course, GameRankings' insistence on breaking every system down this way doesn't help.
By the way, what little I played of ChoroQ (CQHG4) left me thinking it was garbage. I quickly passed the review to a freelancer.
I'm a big fan of Road Trip (CQHG2).
Just so people understand, a 5 star system is dumb. It should be 4 star, unless you totally rule out the possibilities of a game scoring 0 or 1/2 a star. The five star scale is essentially a scale of 6 points. The 4 star scale is the best one devised by a human.
I hear the 50 point scale does wonders for seals, though.
The four star system just seems odd to me, because I can't imagine giving a game zero stars unless it is absolutely horrific. And whenever you take surveys or whatnot, they are always "one to five" or "one to ten," having no zero for the lowest opinion. Thus, in the five star system, five is the highest you can go, one is the lowest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew
Ya but it's still true. ChoroQ got a 2? And it's no different than a 0 aside from IGN pussy footing around giving a designed a score of nothing for their crap. ChoroQ was absolutely terrible, according to that review, and not a single pro was brought up. So what did they earn the 2.2 for?
A scale from 1 - 10 doesn't mattet about the .5 because, like you said, who's going to give them that? But on a star scale it matters more because of the condensed, vaguer scoring system. It's not a big deal, but 5 stars is kind of dumb, considering you have 6 points on the scale.
The only reason reviewers don't use the typical 4 star scale is because they're afraid to mark down the big fat goose egg. It's lame. Mark that sucked down.
Couldn't this all be easily solved by whoever is writing the reviews (IGN, GamePro, TNL, Got-Next, Gamespy, etc...) to have a simple table to define what their scores mean?
Is it that fucking hard to come up with something like this:
96-100 Instant Classic
90-95 Great game, better than much or most of it's competition
86-90 Very good in its genre. Minor issues.
80-85 Above average, minor flaws detract from the title
76-80 Average to above average, a decent effort with multiple minor flaws or inconsistencies
70-75 Average. Rental defined.
66-70 Below Average - game needs improvement in certain areas that should've taken place before it was released.
60-65 Well Below Average - Major issues with control, camera or other elements of the game.
40-60 Awful. As in DO NOT BUY or RENT.
1-40 Steaming pile of horse manure. The lower the score, the higher the amount steam coming off that pile. This as an arbitrary number, 1-40, that let's the writer use his imagination as to how strongly he/she feels about how truly bad the software is.
I typed this up in about 7 minutes. Think IGN could hammer this out and make it clear and concise for their writers to follow? It's not rocket science. Doing descriptions for 1-10 scores, 1-5 scores, or even 1-3 scores is even easier.
I like the ABCDF system myself, but that of couse can get silly to when they start to implament +-. "Its a C game, but a better C game so...C+"
It seems like its a matter of the reviewers getting scared that they might not have made a good enough point in their review so they want as much possibilites to express what they mean I guess.
The extra little decimal point is like another review in it self,
-"Of 8.0 games I give it a 7, so its a 8.7"
-"This 8.0 game is a poor 8.0 game, so I give it a 8.1"
-"What a classic 8.0 game! 8.9!"
Makes sense.Quote:
Originally Posted by shidoshi
So now there's another douche aside Hilary Goldstein that reviews on IGN?
I think we're going to get along just famously. :wtf:
Now that's an opinion that worries me far more than all the ranting IGN posted. Concise, too.Quote:
By the way, what little I played of ChoroQ (CQHG4) left me thinking it was garbage. I quickly passed the review to a freelancer.
I'm a big fan of Road Trip (CQHG2).
James
What a great idea!Quote:
Originally Posted by haohmaru
That page is linked in the ratings box of every IGN review.
How about no stupid score at all? Because 7 means "very interesting concept that doesn't work well", "old concept that works very well", "buggy game with 90 hours of gameplay", etc etc etc.
A score doesn't convey anything because there are reviewers who give a game a 7 and another an 8 in the same week and prefer the game that's a 7 because the 8 has a lot of issues that might not matter to them but will to a lot of other people.
When I review movies in my live journal (yea, I said it) I use a 4 star system. 0 is reserved for a special event that I have never witnessed, 1-2 stars is an at-your-risk kind of movie, 3-4 is a put-it-on-your-list movie. I don't like to resort to 1/2 stars, but some times it is needed and will usually signify that I am having trouble deciding between bad and really bad or good and really good. 2.5 is a head scratching kind of movie. So, technically we almost have an 10 point system right?!?! But it can be viewed effectively enough to utilise every single part of the scale with out the association of a % (since it is 4 stars not 5 stars). I have debated many times on just switching to a 2 star scale...
That, my friend, would be Heaven.Quote:
Originally Posted by Joust Williams
But then the idiot readers would have to actually read the reviews and not just look at scores to fuel their fanboyism.
Expect people to...READ THE TEXT!??! By crikey!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremy
<insert long stupid Jeremy can't write worth shit joke here>
OH SNAP
Better you than diff/Ninjas/KotP/etc.
<insert rant about how you should ignore them>Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremy
OH SNAP SQUARED
Of course, because someone who couldn't even dribble a basketball is the best person to criticize you on your game.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremy
I'm not sure using grading systems which were designed to apply to other media really translates. Even if Half Life 2's script & story suck, it could still be a remarkable experience because of AI routines or its physics model. Advancement in film or music isn't as definable, and given that games cost me 6x as much as going to a movie does, I require more information and clear assessment of a game's various features, strengths & weaknesses before I'm going to drop money on it. Numbers state that in a black & white way that not every writer is capable of expressing in word, or with just their two thumbs.
I like this system the best. It breaks things down into several identifiable categories, and gives room to rate games relative to one another within those categories.Quote:
Originally Posted by haohmaru
I generally enjoy Gamespy's reviews, but think that's the trap with the five star system - if you enjoyed something and want to recommend it as being worth a shot, you're given a very limited range in which to do so. You either give it the 3-3 1/2 star treatment, which as you pointed out most of your audience will shrug off as being not worthy of real attention, or you bump it up to four stars, in which case you've just given one of your highest possible ratings to a game which may not necessarily be one of the best games ever.Quote:
Originally Posted by skelly
I mean, using GSpy examples, are Ninja Gaiden and Burnout 3 really only a half star better than Gladius? Do Tiger Woods 2003 & NBA Street vol. 2 truly deserve the same rating (5 stars) as the very best games ever made; the OoTs & Halos, whatever one decides those are? An larger-range system allows you to give those games a 94% or whatever that screams "MUST PLAY!!!11" without sacrificing the relativistic integrity of the editorial big picture.
Behave.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionX
IGN gives out scores for every single game they review, and they have a page that outlines what scores are supposed to mean. Yet, the editorial staff cant decide what a 5.0 actually means. Im just calling a spade a spade.Quote:
Originally Posted by StriderKyo
We'd give it the 3 treatment. That's what the 3 is there for.Quote:
Originally Posted by StriderKyo
To be honest, I don't care what the audience thinks concerning scores ... or rather, I don't care if they misinterpret them. The meaning of the scores is linked right there in every review. If they choose to remain ignorant that's their choice. We try to make the meanings as clear as possible.
Not everyone at GameSpy shares this uncompromising attitude, which is one reason the 5-stars / no halves system is (regrettably) no longer in place. I may come off as a hardass, but I'm sick of people not bothering to think before they take a shit into our feedback form. -_-I like 5-stars / no halves because each of the five possible scores means something. Bad. Iffy. Good. Sweet. Radical. It doesn't get much clearer than that. And thus it's relatively easy for the reviewer to attach the appropriate score to their review. No meaningless dithering between 81 and 83, looking up past scores to see if an 83 would put it above something it shouldn't be above. (What meaningless BS!) Just five simple scores.Quote:
Originally Posted by StriderKyo
Sure, this removes your "ability" to compare games on a microscopic level, but that's all an illusion anyway. So NBA Street Vol. 2 gets a 94 and Zelda gets a 97. Can you feel that three points of difference while you're playing them? Of course not. Could other reviewers have reversed those scores? Sure. It's all arbitrary numbers. Switching to a coarser system is an acknowledgement of this, and goes a long way toward eliminating that meaningless "noise."
And no, I really don't feel bad at all about Zelda or whatever classic untouchable golden child of a game sharing space with stellar sports games, because people who enjoy sports titles tell me these games are just that great. I can accept that. Gladius ... well, that was before halves came in, I think. I can accept someone saying it's more of a 4 than a 3. It has its fans, or so I hear. I guess that's a little tradeoff of a coarser system. Some games are going to seem like "low 4s" while others are "high 4s."
I think some people are really over-complicating things. Do you really need to know exact scores for the story, graphics, sound, things like that? Do you really need to know, "Well, the first game was an 81, the second an 84, which one is this closer to?"
It really does come down to this: Is the game worth playing, yes or no? A simple score system, to differentiate a "good" and a "great," or something like "buy it" or "rent it" I can see, but honestly, any more than that is just excess. Use your review to tell me what's good and what's not, and use your score to make yourself be clear on if I should be playing it or not.
It's kind of like girls. When you first meet a girl, you know if you'd hit it or not. Simple as that. There's none of this, "Well, Suzy is about an 81 on the hitability scale, so maybe I'd put this girl at a 86 or so." You'd hit it, or you wouldn't. End of story. I say the same works for games. Either it's worth putting out the effort to experience, or it isn't.
One thing that bothers me with scores is how so many people actually base purchases soley on scores. When I'm buying a game, I'm not thinking, "well, this game got a nine...", I'm thinking about the facts involved with the game. Is the story interesting? What compelling reason is there to play Game X over Game Y? and so on. I simply can't imagine basing my spending on the numerical representation of one person's opinion on a game, or anything else for that matter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kano on the Phone
T_T
Actually, it wouldn't. Most private or prestigeous schools in Quebec give extra credit most of the time. A Quebec 50 is really a 65 everywhere else in Canada. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Brisco Bold
Honestly, it's too much to expect. Nobody's going to read this stuff, and I'm sure some sites have it too. If your rating system is plain as day enough to get through to the reader on the first look, then you need to look at your rating system and not your readers.Quote:
Originally Posted by haohmaru
I don't think many people buy only because of reviews, atleast I hope not. For me, it's just a second opinion if I'm not 100% sure on a game. For example, I was kind of interested in Magic Pengel back before it came out, but I wasn't really sure if it was going to be a good game for me or other wise; when the good review started coming in though, I figured it was a safe bet to buy it, and I was right.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeremy
I give Magic Pengel a 3 out of 5.
Yes. No, seriously, I can. Not because I have magic Nick Rox sunglasses that display exact percentiles onscreen when I'm playing, but my brain does slot different aspects of a game into a hierarchy measured against its peers. Now, does that matter if all you need to know is whether something's worth buying? I guess not. But game reviews are the closest thing gaming has to serious establishment discourse for individual games. In my perfect (and wholly imaginary) world, they indicate more than "yeah it's good, go buy it."Quote:
Originally Posted by skelly
Gladius got 4 1/2 stars. It's a well made, relatively fun srpg with great production values. It's also fairly repetitive and currently sits on my shelf half finished.Quote:
And no, I really don't feel bad at all about Zelda or whatever classic untouchable golden child of a game sharing space with stellar sports games, because people who enjoy sports titles tell me these games are just that great. I can accept that. Gladius ... well, that was before halves came in, I think. I can accept someone saying it's more of a 4 than a 3. It has its fans, or so I hear. I guess that's a little tradeoff of a coarser system. Some games are going to seem like "low 4s" while others are "high 4s."
As for Tiger Woods...it was okay. A pretty fun golf game. I could name 10 sports games that are better. Possibly 20. I could even name golf games that are better. I'm not questioning the reviewer's opinion that he felt it was a great game and worthy of purchase, but there's no distinction in that score between TW 2003 and games that redefined genres or gaming as a whole. Games that sold systems, gave birth to cults of worship, and passionate communities that stuck with them plumbing the depths of their gameplay and debating their finer points for years.
Safe to say, Tiger's not really such a game, and were he scoring out of 100 or even ten, the reviewer most likely would not have given it a 'perfect' score - nobody else anywhere did. But from the review score, there's no discernible difference of opinion between the quality of an annual EA update and a Half Life or Metal Gear Solid, since they're all judged well worth buying in that system.
Yeah, but if I was choosing between Suzy & Ms 86, I'd take Ms. 86 & be damn glad I had such a precise rating system, otherwise I'd be dating a chick who barely cleared 80 instead of a solid "very good in its genre. Minor issues" chick. And thus, reproductive superiority is mine.Quote:
Originally Posted by shidoshi
Okay, but there's a way to express that without resorting to nasty personal attacks. And you're bright enough to know how to do that.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
Opaque, scarily, I've actually seen this first-hand, with folks in a store talking about what to buy. Then I saw folks on the web do the same thing...rather scary in some ways, actually.
I also don't think comparing girls to games is a valid counter scale. While guys like me can play the AAA's, guys like Mzo are stuck with 3 out of 5. Unless we're talking prostitutes here, in which case the rules are pretty much the same.
Seriously though, I think every game should assign a game a perfect score at the beginning and deduct points for mis steps, specifically, in certain categories.
And I think the logical breakdown of games is idiotic.
I use a 5 point system with half points and a score based on my enjoyment of the game, which every factor contributes to (yes I can judge my enjoyment with ten levels of accuracy). I'd give Morrowind a 5/5 because despite the numeroous flaws it possesses, it offered me such a level of continuous enjoyment that hasn't been matched since. I'm not going to get all technical on it and take points off for the repetitive music or the stiff animation because that seems to miss the whole point of games in the first place. To me 'is it fun?' and 'is it worth buying?' are the same question, so that's what I shoot for when I think of the score.
BTW, I got a review copy of Choro Q and it's pretty meh all around. The racing and customization work well, but the visuals are surprisingly bland, the music downright annoying, and the menus pretty clunky. Though I only played it for a half hour so far.
Really? Ew.Quote:
Originally Posted by DjRocca
"Seriously though, I think every game should assign a game a perfect score at the beginning and deduct points for mis steps, specifically, in certain categories."
This is the only scoring system I would like. I've thought about it myself for some time now.
IBTN.Quote:
To me 'is it fun?' and 'is it worth buying?' are the same question, so that's what I shoot for when I think of the score.
For all of this Japanophile fagginess, Ammandeau knows how scoring games should be.
Shows you how much I read IGN. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by MarkRyan
This is true.Quote:
Originally Posted by diffusionx
Nobody could realistically call a lot of games art at all or anything crazy like that.
S'okay, I didn't know either until I had to write a review for SpongeBob Square Pants and was shown the scale.Quote:
Originally Posted by haohmaru
Score one for Andrew - that's it. I don't like the idea that discussion of a game's relative merit only boils down to a binary buy/don't buy decision.
Film and music can get away with scoring systems like that because there is a body of scholarly discourse that exists outside the reviewing beadledom. Gaming largely lacks that discourse, and I feel reviews have taken on a more significant and defining role to in part make up for that vacuum. For that reason I prefer a system which can more accurately reflect where the reviewer places a game in the grand scheme of things.
I am a walking body of scholarly discourse. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by StriderKyo