Rating the Ratings

Whenever I talk to someone about a game, I'm sometimes surprised at the praises or complaints they have about a certain aspect of it. I had a friend who refused to try Left 4 Dead because of the graphics. I had someone else tell me they could play Zelda and Final Fantasy games all day just to listen to the music. Then whenever I praise or criticize a game based on what's important to me I'm met with similarly raised eyebrows.

I've always enjoyed how Game Informer rates video games. Rather than just giving a game summary, ending it with pros and cons and capstoning it with an arbitrary score they give weight to things like graphics, sound, controls, replayability, etc., and then give it a rating that seems to reflect how all the pieces fit together to make the game. I've always enjoyed looking at specific aspects compared to just giving a summary because it better addresses things that are deal-breakers for people.

As a change of pace, I thought I'd look at all the things that reviewers tend to discuss and talk about how I rank their importance. Afterward, I encourage you all to join me in sharing what aspects of a game matter most to you!

Story - 9
I've always loved reading, so story is huge for most games. The only time I'll give a pass to story is for games like Call of Duty or 2d fighters that I play exclusively for the online component. Otherwise I expect the world to have a sense of believability and consistency. That includes characters with some depth, puzzles and other gameplay elements that make sense (I'm looking at you, Resident Evil), bad guys who could realistically exist off-camera, and a story that doesn't persist based on character decisions that no one would make (i.e. any time a kid/teenager makes a stupid decision as a major plot point).


Difficulty - 7
This is a hard one to rate at the moment. Before the release of Dark Souls, the only challenging game I'd played and enjoyed was Ninja Gaiden, and that's because most games' difficulty is more about overpowering you than requiring finesse. Giving enemies higher health and damage output is basically how most games scale the difficulty. I've never liked that because it just seems lazy - the same game that's holding your hand on easy is destroying you on hard and health numbers are the only real differences.

Otherwise you have games like Resident Evil 5 with the world's most arbitrary difficulty/tension builder added in to the game. If you ever want to aim something, your feet become rooted to the ground. Got an automatic machine gun? Enjoy being a turret. Handgun? Enjoy being a useless turrent. Bow and arrow? Say hello to being a baby ballista. Sure it made the game more difficult, but that's because the game imposed something nonsensical to make me more likely to die. The same is true for shooters that don't have a cover system, instead making it hard for you to survive simply because you can't fight tactically.

In situations where a game has a sliding scale on difficulty, I don't want it difficult because the designers likely didn't put enough thought in to making it a challenge. They just have a formula for adjust health and damage numbers, and that sucks. I will play the games on easy to enjoy the story and gameplay, and bump it up to normal if it's too simple. But when a game is meant to be difficult, I don't want my hand held. I want to struggle and fight my way through each victory and feel like I conquered a true challenge.

Controls - 10
If a game has quick-time sequences that don't let me watch the action on screen because I'm trying to figure out what button I have to push next, I will genuinely question whether I want to play it. If it has combat that doesn't let me fluidly control my actions, I will put it down as soon as the story starts to disappoint. If a character's movements aren't responsive and have "rubberband physics" that have me pushing a button to move or attack and it doesn't respond immediately, even if it's just to start the attack animation, I'm out.

Much like my views on difficulty, I want to be in control of my success in a video game. I want to be fully immersed in what's happening on screen and not be frustrated because I need to press the jump button 1/4 of a second before I want it to actually happen, or "realistic driving physics" looks more like I'm driving on ice. If a game has a weird button layout with no way to change it, or just poor controls overall, it's doubtful that I'll finish the game. I've taken many games (especially RPGs) back to Gamestop simply because I won't waste my time fighting my own character's movements.

Replayability - 5
Much like difficulty, this one has been changing for me lately. There are a lot of good games out there to play, and being a grown up means I don't get to play them all. When I was in school I demanded that a game not end when the final boss die. Give me a New Game + mode that changed how I played the game, extra missions, multiplayer... something to make my purchase last as long as possible.

Now, however, I want to experience the total package during the actual game. Part of a game's enjoyment is fighting your way to closure, beating the boss and seeing the story's end. Even doing sidequests for a bit of gold or a piece of gear is more enjoyable because you know that down the road that extra bit of money might give you the edge you need to save the world.

When I played Skyrim, an absolutely massive game filled to bursting with unnecessary sidequests, I made the mistake of focusing on the main story first. I figured if I beat that, surely I'd feel free to enjoy the rest of the game at my leisure. Rather than feeling like I was letting wasting my time finding a farmer's daughter when a dragon was threatening the kingdom, I could go save her from those bandits and feel like a hero instead of someone with mixed up priorities. Instead, the amazing replayability turned in to a chore because I had nothing to work toward except getting toward max level or finding some really enjoyable side quests, neither of which I had the patience for.

So while replayability may have been an 8 or 9 for me years ago, my old age had dropped it down to a "take it or leave it" ranking.

Graphics - 4 or 10
A weird rating, but let me explain. There are certain graphics that make me nauseous. Games with fuzzy textures, a bunch of muddy colors, polygonal environments, or jerky camera movements (that I don't control) make me feel like I just spun in circles. I realize the movement one is motion sickness, but I've yet to understand why some visuals make my brain feel hot. This problem was really prevalent in the days before Xbox when everything had crappy, dark graphics, so it's not as much of a problem anymore.

Now if a game doesn't make me want to literally vomit, I'm not too particular on how it looks. I've been awed by textures in Minecraft and Skyrim alike. As long as a game has a darkness adjuster so I can play my game brighter than normal, and the graphics aren't so bland that the game looks lazy I'm a happy camper.

Sound - 2
I just don't get it. Soundtracks are good, and there are some games whose sounds I can genuinely praise, like the guns in Battlefield 3. But really, what I'm hearing has never mattered to me as long as it's not offensive or grating to hear. I appreciate a rich soundtrack or quality weapon effects when I hear them, but I don't know that I've ever complained about how a game sounded while playing it.

Entertainment - 10
Is this even fair? I mean gaming is done primarily for entertainment, right? I've never really understood this rating as a separate entity rather than being the game's overall score, but it exists so I'm including it. If a game isn't fun, why waste my time on it?

Multiplayer - 7
I like the multiplayer games I play, but I don't like multiplayer in most games. I did multiplayer in Last of Us, Transformers (I forget which one), Assassin's Creed and Bioshock 2, and was pretty underwhelmed. I mean they worked well enough to be functional, but it felt tacked on to an otherwise enjoyable single player experience. The multiplayer may be enjoyable, but there's always a disconnect between a single- and multiplayer experience that doesn't work well with some gameplay features.

On the other side you have games with outstanding multiplayer, whether coop or competitive. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Splinter Cell, Borderlands... the multiplayer is what sells the game to me. So if it's a game with a multiplayer focus, I'm on board. If it's a solo experience and the developers say "Haven't had enough? Here, try this!" then I'm happy to call it a day.

Polish - 7
I don't know why I'm such a snob, but major hiccups in otherwise great games really kill the experience for me. If I can't complete a quest, kill an enemy due to a bug, or play without seeing the world I'm immersed in succumbing to graphical glitches, I'm going to be hard-pressed to want to finish the game (at worst) or play it without taking huge breaks (at best). Heck, it's a miracle I ever completed Assassin's Creed 3 before they released a patch to fix an ocean of problems.

Polish could really be applied to any of these categories. Whenever it's obvious that a game was rushed, or even just shoved out the door without a care, it's hard for me to care about it. There are some games like Skyrim or Fallout that are just so massive that bugs are expected, but even then I draw a line on what's acceptable sooner than other players.

When someone asks me to trust them with my money, I expect that care has been given to what they're selling me. All this nonsense with releasing a game and patching it on the days it's released has gotten out of hand, and as a result developers have been allowed to be lazy with the assumption that as long as they fix it some time, we're happy to deal with it.

I realize some games are cash grabs, and others have problems from start to finish. I understand that game creation is an intricate process that can go wrong in a million ways. However, if I'm only buying 3 or 4 games each year, I want my money to be well spent. I want to put down a game and feel like the development team earned my money. If I'm fighting bad controls, glitchy graphics, or just gameplay that feels unfinished, it's rare that I'll feel like the rest of the game was so meritorious that I can overlook those basic problems.


So that's my take on the importance of a game's aspects. Did I miss anything? Do you have your own preference for what is or isn't most important? Let me know!


See you tomorrow!

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