Thursday, November 09, 2006

How Reviews Are Done/Scored

Before I put up my first review of the new VV blog, I thought I would explain how reviews will be done. I'm taking the step to not give any sort of rating (stars, 1-10, 1-100, grades, etc.) that can be used in an aggregate review site like GameRankings. My friend Bill Harris (Dubious Quality) talked about this before I could unveil my ideas for reviews, but I think much along the same lines as he does. Scoring does nothing for your average reader other than give it some arbitrary score. Instead I'm going to do something different.

The review itself will be pretty free flowing, but at the top I will have the information and my rating for the game. There are 4 ratings: Must Own, Buy It, Rent It and Skip It. I think they are pretty self explanatory, but I shall explain nonetheless. Must Own can be considered as being akin to an "Editor's Choice" or top rated game. Buy It would be considered a really good game and one I would recommend buying, but it isn't as good as Must Own. Rent It is pretty easy, you should rent it and see how you like it before buying it. The Skip it is obviously a game that you just shouldn't look, but or play.

There is no perfect game out there, but there are games that must be owned simply because they are fantastic. I wish more gaming websites would run away from the scoring template, but the reverse side is that they rely on being noticed on aggregate sites in order to get more business.

I hope you like the ratings, although I am open to other ideas or ratings to give. I am not going to go with any sort of percentage scoring though. All people want to know is whether a game is worth it or not honestly and not debate whether this game that scored 9.6 at this time is better than the one that scored 9.8 years ago or not.