There is an issue with most major video game reviewers in which even mediocre or bad games receive good scores and therefore deceive consumers. I am not sure if this is a result of a poor critiquing system, corruption, or if it is something else entirely, but it seems like for most major companies a score of 7/10 seems to be an “average game”. Whenever a new Call of Duty comes out you can bet that IGN will give it a 9/10 which is “amazing” on their scale, despite the games just being rehashes of the same stuff every year. When Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare and The Last of Us are only 1 point apart on the scale it is obvious that there is a massive issue. When every game is receiving these high scores, it devalues the scores and hurts games that are actually extremely good. For these reasons I will have my own guidelines for scoring a game.

     I think it is extremely unfair to rate a game after a couple of years have passed. The first main reason why I refuse to give a score to older games is the obvious nostalgia factor. I am prone ignoring the faults of games or brushing them off if I played it during my childhood. The other main issue with older games is that they are going to be underscored if there is no nostalgia involved. Things like hardware issues, technical limits, and just lack of knowledge of what works well in games makes it hard for older games to compete with newer games. This is not a knock on these older games, as they did the best they could with the resources they had. A good example of both nostalgia and underrating games because of their age is Super Mario 64. If you played Super Mario 64 today you would definitely underrate the game because you would have no idea of the impact it made on the gaming industry and how revolutionary it was. On the other hand people who did play the game during their childhood overrate the game and tend to ignore its faults like the wonky controls and strange camera angles. I think reviewing older games is fine but giving them objective scores is tough and difficult to strike a balance, so I am not going to give scores to older games.

The ratings themselves are as follows:

10. Masterpiece, no game is perfect but this is close.

9. Fantastic, the game some faults but they are small and infrequent.

8. Extremely good, it has some obvious issues but they do not detract from the game too much.

7. Very good, the problems are more glaring and do hurt the game a good amount.

6. Good, it is entertaining but has some major problems.

5. Okay, the game has merit but has big and frequent drawbacks.

4. Mediocre, there are some enjoyable parts but for the most part is not so fun.

3. Bad, the game just really has nothing interesting or fun about it.

2. Very bad, the game works but is just a disaster all around.

1. Unplayable, the game is just completely broken and has no redeeming qualities at all.