Review Scores: I Love You and Yet I Hate You and Yet I Love You

With all the recent talk and random internet yelling about Grand Theft Auto V I thought I’d take today to talk about review scores.

What sparked this was a webcomic I read recently known as Critical Miss by Grey carter and Cory Rydell. In the panel in question the characters are talking about reviewing Grand Theft Auto V.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/critical-miss/10611-The-Sacrificial-Lamb

"Less than a ten? Angry mobs."

"We give it a ten? Snooty message board fucks say we sold out.”

Now here’s where lots of people tend to get messed up. So here’s what I’m going to do. Let’s get a simple break down of what review scores from one to ten really mean in the eyes of those that are actually reviewing the game and not in the eyes of angry twelve year olds on a message board. You might want to write this down.

1/10 - Atrocious. These are the true stinkers. These games not only play badly but look and sound badly in the context of the console generation as well. it has little to no redeeming qualities. Very few games are ever given this :coveted” score.

2/10 - Horrible. Honestly just a step up from the last one. These games are still marred with problems but have some redeeming qualities, but very little. Games with this score are still probably not worth your time.

3/10 - Very Bad. Yet again, just a slight step up. We have a few more redeeming qualities. Some people somewhere probably find this playable and/or fun.

4/10 - Bad. Not the best. Just enough problems keep this from being good or even average at best. Still, it probably has a niche audience that likes it somewhere. Perhaps they find its flaws charming. Or perhaps the game itself just only struck chords with a select group.

5/10 - Average. Yes, you read that right. Average. Games with this score are not that bad, yet not that good. Unfortunately the popular misconception is that something worth less than a 7 isn’t worth somebody’s time. Games with this score are definitely worth at least a rental.

6/10 - Fine. These games are better than average that’s for sure. Sure they may have their niche audience like those in the Bad camp but if you take the opportunity to look it’s pretty easy to see why those niche audiences like these games. Definitely worth a rental and maybe even a purchase.

7/10 - Good. As I said before most think that games given a score less than this are more often than not not worth their time. This is not the case. This is a good game. You will probably enjoy it. It’s most likely worth a purchase. But hey, those last two scores honestly could be too. This most likely just nets a wider audience.

8/10 - Very Good. These games really are above and beyond what others have done. Maybe they brought something new to the table and did it exceedingly well or maybe they didn’t but still did what they did exceedingly well. it’s rare that someone should be unhappy with this game.

9/10 - Great. Wow that was awesome! These are those games that should invoke that feeling in you. Audiences should be thoroughly impressed with what that game does. It will be both technically impressive and great by design. This is the point where people start getting mad if their game didn’t get this score.

10/10 - Masterpiece. This game defines what it means to be a game. it does almost everything right, is a shining example of its genre, has a great musical score, an awesome visual style and gameplay that should be fun for pretty much everybody. This game is nearly perfect and should go down in history. Note that I said nearly perfect. No game is ever perfect.

I hope what I said today has allowed some of you to put review scores into perspective. Now I just need you all to remember one simple thing.

Review scores are the opinion of someone on the internet. They are a guide to help you, the player, make an informed purchasing decision based on their own personal opinion. It is not something you should take to heart. It is not something that validates or invalidates everything the game you like has done. This is not something you bring up when discussing how great that game you like is.

Does GTA V deserve a 10? I don’t know. I haven’t played it yet. But just because somebody else decided it didn’t does not mean you have to go torches and pitchforks on them. And just because someone did does not necessarily mean they are being paid loads of money to say that.

The score itself is an arbitrary number that someone has attached so that people who don’t want to read their long studied review can just make a quick decision. You should take review scores into consideration but never let just that single number be the overall deciding factor of whether you buy something or not or whether you enjoy something or not.

Use your own judgment, try before you buy, actually read articles about the game to see if it is for you. Use the number as a guide, but don’t let it dictate your entire gaming lifestyle.

That’s it for me this week.