Unless you have measurement of what is perfect, I don’t think you can assign 10 to mean a perfect game.
This and the combination of the 7 = average meme, creates the stupid 7-9 scale, so I say use 10. or else!
I agree that a 10/10 does not denote a perfect game, but the problem I see with this scheme is what do you give a game that comes after the one you gave 10/10 to, and improves every aspect of the game, and is an overall better experience? Do you give it another 10/10? Shouldn’t there be a quantitative way to show that this new game is actually better than the one before it that got a perfect score?
By actually reading the text of a review and thus discerning why the game received a perfect score. Is it because it’s perfect? Is it because it’s just exceptionally good?
Unless you plan on retro-reviewing every game and adjusting the number scores, no. The date of the review should be quantitative enough.
All scores have to be viewed in the context of their time, not just 10s.
I use a binary scale, games either get a 0 or 1.
But since 1 means perfection, and no game is perfect, everything gets a 0
Once again proving the old CGM / CGW five-star system is the best. I don’t remember accusations that five-star games were being pitched as “absolutely perfect.”
Or it’s an argument for Gamer’s otherwise-annoying percentile system, since they can give all the great games 91 to 99 and never have to give a 100.
Yeah, five star systems (without any annoying half-stars!) are my favorite rating scale by far.
The problem is the 7-9 scale. 7 = average, 9 = very good game, so when an excellent game comes out, they have to give a 10.
If you give a 5 to average games and 7 to good games, you still have 8-9-10 to very good, excellent, and masterwork games.
Also, reviewers should be be harder, our medium is slowly advancing and the games are usually better. Better pacing, better plots, better graphics, better difficulty progression, etc. So now they need to demand still better games, as the average quality has raisen. And yes, the medium can still improve a lot. Scripts at the same level of the classics of literatury and film, player freedom, better IA, new multiplayer modes, more interactivity, gameplay more dynamic, etc etc.
In the rating of anything (movies, restaurants, vehicle crash tests, games, albums…) there is an upper limit of score. 5 stars out of 5, 10/10, 100%, A+, call it what you will.
In none of these cases is it ever considered “perfect” because the creation of something that could not conceivably be improved upon in some way is just about impossible. It’s always just considered to be more than just recommended. These scores are usually reserved for, understandably, the best of the best. Something that raises the bar for everyone else, and sets your expectations for similar items (restaurants serving that type of food, movies in the genre, vehicle crash test results, albums of the genre, whatever).
The idea that games are any different is preposterous.
Ebert’s 4-star system (with half stars) is more than enough for me.
The primary issue being that people spend way too much time and effort worrying about astonishingly inane things.
Well, as others mentioned, that 10 is really only in comparison to games already released. If Game B is a lot better than Game A, which got a 10, so much so that Game B is now unrivaled at whatever it does, it will get a 10, too. The assumption there is that since Game B came out after Game A and yet still got a 10, it has to be better.
They did give it a 10. “Multiplayer quality, quantity and depth that rivals Halo’s.”
Can’t say I’m too surprised after they gave Halo 3 a ten though, my impression was that COD4 was seen as the year’s FPS after E3.
Only reason I don’t like the 10/10 (or 100%) is that it doesn’t give you any room to ever rate something as being better than that game. If that’s the best you can get, everything else will only be equal or of lesser quality.
In my history of rating games, the highest rated is a 9.3 (TLJ). That gives me plenty of space for adding in better games, but at the rate it’s going, I’ll be dead before filling up the 9.4-10 area. Really, all that it means is that I understand that my current highest rated games aren’t the pinnacle of achievement in gaming but that it’s possible to get there.
Trying to rate something as better than the best game from 5 years ago is more for AFI-style “BEST EVAR” lists, not for discrete individual scores. They can both be four-star games and that’s all I need to know. Otherwise you get people navel-gazing and comparing their Bioshock rating with their Ocarina of Time rating and it’s really stupid.
I don’t think it’s “stupid” to compare how much you’ve enjoyed one game with your enjoyment of any other game. It’s like saying “the best book I ever read was…” or “my favorite movie of all time was…” and you know that to be true so you can give that book, movie, or game a rating that represents the top of your current list. The numbers just reflect a “standing” for me, and don’t have specific meaning other than a generic great, good, neutral, poor, bad sort of spread. Something that is a 9.3 is hardly that much different than a 9.2, but I know from my experience that the 9.3 game was more enjoyable than the 9.2 one, even if only slightly.
Eurogamer gave the Orange Box a 10/10. Given the insane (and I mean if you think about it too long you will literally lose your mind) value and quality of that package, I don’t see how you can argue with that.
I’ve never bought into the notion that something can’t be rated at the highest end of the scale because it implies perfection. Nothing can ever be perfect in the literal sense, especially when it comes to any kind of entertainment. Besides the fact that everything’s completely subjective anyway, why would you even use a scale that included an unobtainable score?
I believe that there are games worthy of a 10/10, but that there’s no such thing as a game worthy of a 100%.
I see a difference in the two scales – 10/10 being an “absolute must-buy” and 100% being perfect, which no game is.
-Vede
Let’s say we never give a game a ‘10’, making ‘9’ the effective highest rating. What do we do when a game comes out which is better than the last ‘9’?
Better make ‘8’ the highest score we award, I’m certain that will solve the problem.
Well, I’m not sure what a rule regarding bridge has to do with game ratings… you gave me a great idea.
The problem with 10/10 scales is once you rate a game 10, there is no where else to go. Say you play a game, and its fantastic, and you want to give it a good rating. Unfortunately, you can’t, since you’re limited to 10. I think we can fix that.
My rating system would rate games out of 11. So now, just when people think you’ve really given a game a great rating with that 10/11, you suddenly surprise them with an 11/11!