Long time readers of the blog will know that, when we review a game, we do so without assigning a score to it. The rationale has always been that the body of the review is where the game is, well reviewed. Our arguments, positive, negative, and otherwise, is presented in the body of a review. If you’ve read the review, you know what we think of a game. That’s where the effort is put in, anything after the fact is just dressing, and only dismisses the “words” part of the review.

That’s changing.

From our next review onwards, we will be utilising a five-star scoring system. That does not change the above, but, as we seek to grow the site, it’s become something of a necessity in order to gain recognition of aggregators and the like. For sure, it’s a cynical way of viewing things. That’s just the nature of the beast, sadly.

Indulgence

I like to look at the positives, however. I’m as much as reader as I am a writer. And I, as someone who plays games too, find review scores very helpful. The “at a glance” nature of them helps put something on my radar. And I like discovering the justification. Reading how a reviewer came to that conclusion is the great joy of reading reviews. Above answering “is it good?”

So we’re doing it. Five stars, no more, no less, no half points. The review will remain unaffected. The body of the review is where you’ll find what we liked, what we didn’t, how it made us feel, etc. But each review will be accompanied by up to 5 stars. We toyed with the idea of going for a score out of 10, but found five stars more of a challenge to work to. The difference between a 6 and a 7, for example, is minimal. The difference between 3 stars and 4 stars, however, feels sizable.

And therein lies the challenge. Justifying our decision to award a specific score should drive up the quality of the words you read. Good for you, good for us, everyone wins. 

Coming Soon

Like we said, this change will come into effect from our next review (next week, if you must know). There may be some experimentation as to the location of the score as we figure out what works best, so bear with us there. But now’s the time.

Thanks.