My scoring system.

I was looking through past reviews recently for some reason, and I realized that I had given 5 out of the past 9 games I’ve reviewed a 9.0 or higher. This information doesn’t concern me, I’ll defend those scores to the death necessary, but I was having a conversation with someone else recently about where exactly reviews come from. I figured that maybe I’d just give people a rough idea of where my scores come from and what they mean.

It’s not really a complicated process; I don’t take the average of anything, and since I have 100 possible scores to work with the numbers are a little bit arbitrary when you consider tenths of a review point. Basically, I consider how much fun I had while I was playing the game, and then I plug that into the following Official Review Rubric (patent pending):

0.0 – 0.9: deemed "cruel and unusual punishment" by the U.S. judicial system
1.0 – 1.9: a broken, unplayable mess that no one will ever enjoy
2.0 – 2.9: a working, playable mess that no one will ever enjoy
3.0 – 3.9: fundamental gameplay flaws with minimal polish, but maybe it was fun at some point in development?
4.0 – 4.9: it had the potential to be good, but it’s just out-and-out bad; give it to someone who won’t know any better
5.0 – 5.9: on the bad side of mediocre, franchise fans may overlook the flaws that cause me to tear my hair out
6.0 – 6.9: on the good side of mediocre, non-picky gamers will enjoy this
7.0 – 7.9: hey this is actually a pretty fun game, people would enjoy this
8.0 – 8.9: all-around good title, for any fans of (insert genre here)
9.0 – 9.4: I couldn’t put this title down and my friends are sick of me talking about it
9.5 – 9.9: WHY DON’T YOU OWN THIS GAME ALREADY WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

Usually it’s pretty easy to put a game into these categories, based on its fun factor alone. Once I’m there, I think about the other elements of the game, like presentation and replay value, to see if it’ll be on the high end or the low end of that score range (8.8 instead of 8.2). Sometimes, though, these elements can push a game into a higher or lower score range, depending on whether or not I think the game deserves it. As a general rule, though, if a game falls into a score range listed above, the proceeding comments will describe my thoughts of it. If you’re pressed for time, feel free to just cross-reference a review score with this list, but keep in mind that some games may not be for all audiences (Mega Man 9, for example).

I do not speak for other members of the NintendoGal.com staff with this editorial.