A Different kind of Video Game Review

I wanted to precede my soon-to-be regular video game reviews with a short discussion about scoring in game reviews, and an introduction to my particular method of scoring.

Being that more often than not, the focus of the game review reader is on the score more so than the content of a review, I feel it’s an important first step in discussing game reviews to discuss the scoring. It is unfortunate, when you think about it — that people who get paid for their journalistic merits and objective criticism might as well just be paid for their ability to assign arbitrary 1 through 10 values to pieces of software (with levels of subjectivity agreeable to their audience). It is unfortunate, but probably inescapable, as I see it.

The problem is there are just too many games, generally costing upwards of $50. Many people (such as myself) look to reviews to weed out the unworthy so we don’t end up blowing $60 on a flashy new shooter with mediocre gameplay; but I don’t have time to read every review on the planet, obviously, so I set a kind of bar with review sites I trust and the scores they give out. For example, if a game gets a 7.0 from [SOME WEBSITE I TRUST] and I haven’t heard of it before, then I don’t waste my time reading up on why it’s just average. Of course it’s possible the reviewer hates something that I might like about the game (as that’s just the nature of entertainment: it can’t be all objective), but when there are hundreds of games that fall into that category of “might not be bad, but isn’t exactly being praised as good either”, then scores start to matter more than content.

So now that I’ve spelled out the nature of my consternation towards the realm of game reviewing, I’d like to now explain how I hope to distance myself from that world entirely while still prattling on about the quality of games.

First and foremost, as a one-man operation, I don’t intend to be the Ford Motor Company of video game reviews. Enough sites exist to review most every game on the market, and by only reviewing games as I see fit, I hope to make the content more important than the score.

That much was obvious, I think, but perhaps slightly less obvious is that I also intend to write my reviews from the standpoint of a developer speaking to other like-minded developers. The takeaway from these reviews should not be, “Wow, that game sucks, I won’t be buying THAT any time soon!”, but rather, “Wow, that idea was horrible in concept and in practice, I will never be so foolish as to design a mechanic THAT asinine and contrived!” The focus of my reviews will be to talk about [game] design patterns, conventions, innovations – that sort of thing; things that we as developers can look at and hopefully analyze to make our own products better.

Now then, without further ado, here’s the rundown of my scoring system, with categories, weight, et al:

General:

Essentially, the scoring itself will be based on the traditional 1.0 to 10.0 scale (a variant on GameSpot’s old method of rating games, which I happened to think was incredibly clever). The crux of what makes this system different from the slew of other internet game review systems, however, is that the final score will not be some random number I think up in my head, but instead a calculation of several numbers I think up in my head aggregated together to make a number I hadn’t thought up at all.

Scores themselves are divided into five sub-categories. Each category has its own 1 through 10 value for the particular game (no decimal places, to make things easier on me) and its own weight in the final score. I do this because I want the final score to be a very exact (and thereby, hopefully, more objective) value that’s comprised of smaller parts with simpler values (so I can take it piece by piece and say something like, “The core gameplay was superb, but the aesthetic qualities were just mediocre”). Therefore, the score won’t be some testament to my astounding ability to fabricate numerical value from thin air, but instead a reflection of all things said in the review itself.

The system is, of course, subject to change over time, and I’ll update the formula, review scores, and tag stating “last modified on [SOME DATE]” each time that happens. In many ways, the scoring system is just an experiment to try and get the most accurate scores (by my standards) for games, and like all experiments, when it fails, you need to revise it and try again.

Categories:

The score is broken down into five categories listed here from most weight (in the final score) to least:

Foundation (or Core/Primary Gameplay) – this is the basis for the entire game, or in other words, the fulfillment of the high concept. The essential questions of this category are: How is that which the game was built upon (and thereby, what you should be spending most of your time doing) fun? Is it solid in concept and execution? And, can you do it again and again and not get bored?

Design (or Secondary Gameplay) – working off the concept of core gameplay being a “foundation”, the secondary gameplay then becomes that which is built on top of and around the basic foundation, or the design. How is the gameplay used in the surrounding world? In what ways does the game expand upon the basic premise to keep things interesting as the game goes on? How creative are the ways in which the player is forced to work with this core gameplay? Killing the Covenant in Halo is a fun thing to do time and time again, but how fun would it have been if the entire game were set in a dark, underground tunnel? Certainly it was one of the biggest criticisms of the first game that you saw the same corridors time and time again, but very rarely do I see a good place for people to knock off points in a scoring system for that.

Aesthetics – this is the place for graphics, visual art, audio, story, and anything else that doesn’t directly interact with gameplay, but rather serves to make the experience more engaging without directly affecting the way the game is played. Here, however, we may notice an overlap where other systems would make things simply black and white. Take the game Guitar Hero, for instance. To most review systems, the soundtrack in that game might be considered part of some generic “audio” category, but here it wouldn’t fit into aesthetics at all, as it directly affects gameplay. The different song choices with varying levels of inherent difficulty (“I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” is a far cry from “Bark at the Moon”) is what secondary gameplay is all about; and the quality of the songs themselves greatly contributes to how much fun you have playing them. Aesthetics might be your avatar shredding on stage or the way the game tells you when you miss a note (does the song cut out, just the guitar, or do we simply hear a generic “bad note” sound), but the music itself is all gameplay here.

Embellishments (or Tertiary Gameplay) – this is where all the little things that keep completionists happy come into play. The little unlockables, easter eggs, or just depth of the world are all considerations here – for example, the ability to buy new guitars in Guitar Hero or unlock new trophies in Super Smash Bros. Not every game has these things, but in just about any case they’re nice to have and help keep players coming back for more. This isn’t aesthetic, as it’s still about player-game interaction, just on an almost superficial level in many cases. It’s not just about small things, but rather any part of the gameplay that doesn’t center around or expand upon the high concept.

Innovation – some might say that this category is far too significant to be the bottom of the list, and perhaps some might even say that it shouldn’t be on here at all. I think advancing the status quo for games is important enough to merit it being a factor in any game review written for game developers as a reminder as to how far we’ve come and where we’re going; yet I don’t think it’s necessary to make an amazing game. Little innovations are usually what matter most in this day and age – the refined cover system in Gears of War, the regenerating health bar in Halo – so by and large the commentary for this category will center around those kinds of things. The big purpose of this category more than anything, however, is to say that in order for a game to truly be a 10.0, it must not only be outstandingly fun to play, but also push the boundaries of convention.

Formula:

Finally, here’s the actual formula (again, subject to change) for my scoring system:

Foundation = F

Design = D

Aesthetics = A

Embellishments = E

Innovation = I

F*.50 + D*.20 + A*.15 + E*.10 + I*.05 = Final Score

( Last Updated: 03/21/2008 )

And that’s it. I’ll be using this system in the reviews I make in the weeks to come, so I look forward to seeing how it works in practice as opposed to simply in theory. If you have any thoughts on the matter, please don’t hesitate to share them.