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The only problem I have with out of 10 is that there's different standards that might confuse readers. Like IGN condiders 5 to be poor, whereas I would consider it average. Most people understand that 2.5/5 is average though.
I find the "out of ten" scale to be the best for game review scores. "Out of 100" is ridiculous for the reasons Frog mentioned and the "yes or no" scale is even more pointless as it lumps decent games and masterpieces in the same category!
The only problem I have with out of 10 is that there's different standards that might confuse readers. Like IGN condiders 5 to be poor, whereas I would consider it average. Most people understand that 2.5/5 is average though.
That's true. I'm so used to the gaming media considering 5 to be a low score that I always thought of it as a bare passing grade, like 50% for school classes.
World Famous
Didn't (don't?) some reviewers use a rubric format? Graphics, Sound, Gameplay, Controls, etc all added up to a final score?
It would work best if there were different rubrics for different genres of games. That way a fighter could be judged on it's implementation of a blocking system and a FPS can be judged on variety and usefulness of weapons instead of one big "gameplay" catagory that compares apples to oranges.
Then have a conversion chart for number->stars and everyone is happy.
your mom
That would be a terrible idea. Besides the fact that it would be painfully hard to do, genres are hardly static things. They change and the line between them is hardly distinct. Many games take up more than a single genre, and then there are those that exist in their own. Not to mention, sometimes you have a game that seem to often fail at what you would typically expect from a game but it has something totally awesome and unexpected about it that it elevates it. Seems like a strict rubric system would be hard to account for so many things.
Ultimately it depends on who your audience is how you will do scoring. In a mainstream review you need to have a number system. The average person/kid reading video game reviews demand a number, as do advertisers and game makers. The out of 10 using the schoolyard scale seems to work best with this because it artificially inflates the score (6/10 is meh, but it looks better).
If you are writing reviews intended for a more sophisticated gamer or insiders in the industry or are actually attempting some artitistic/academic critic on gaming them a point system seems juvenile and worthless. People wouldn't be reading the reviews to determine that they should by a game, so much as they are trying to understand what makes a good video game good or how games can transcend the usual niche applied to them, etc. I think a market for this kind of writing exists, in fact allmost necesary to make a good video game magazine now. It won't ever sell as well as mainstream rags, but it would be incredibly interesting and beneficial to gaming in general (if it truly caught on and was read).
your mom
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