Ratings Guide

Some questions have been raised about our system of rating games. Ya, it's rather obvious that we rate out of ten, but it wasn't exactly clear what each number represented. Different sites/magazines have different ways of rating games. A 5 on one site may be the equivalant of a AAA title, while on another, it represents an absolute failure. These two extremes represent precisely what we wanted to avoid... So, the following is a precise guide to what our ratings mean.

• 10/10

  - The ideal, perfect game. Something we will be talking about and playing for years to come. These games set precedents by which we judge all others.

• 9/10

  - An awesome AAA title. These sorts of titles are the reasons why we buy consoles. Although not the most revolutionary, or perfect games, we just... We weep at their greatness... Yea...

• 8/10

  - An excellent game, something that is easily worth that $50 price. This is the sort of game that you skip things like... work, school, eating, and essentially life in general, to play.

• 7/10

  - A good game, a good play. Hey, maybe it's not the best game ever made. Maybe it has a few flaws here and there. But it's fun, which is what videogaming is all about.

• 6/10

  - A kinda fun game. It may not really appeal to everybody, and it may have a few glaring flaws, but those who can get past these minor irritations will enjoy it.

• 5/10

  - An average game. Nor good, but not bad either. It coulda, shoulda, woulda been good. But it isn't. But it's not bad! It's like the gaming version of purgatory.

• 4/10

  - *sigh* A rather mediocre game. It's not the worst thing ever made, but unless you're obssesed with the subject matter, it's really not worth even taking a look.

• 3/10

  - Maybe there was once a glimmer of hope over the horizon for this game, but it's pretty much faded out, like a flashlight on RadioShack brand batteries. Maybe one or two interesting ideas, but its essentially shovelware.

• 2/10

  - It coulda been a... wait... not really. A game that scores this low, sucks... But there's something that keeps it from being a 1...

• 1/10

  - Maybe the company hates me, or something... I mean, that's the only reason they would EVER release a pathetic game like this. Titles like these are the reason that people contemplate suicide.

• 0/10

  - A game this bad should warrant the death penalty under the UN charter. Not only does one want to burn it and destroy it, but also to release the harmful chemicals within its chitinous plastic body, thereby weakening the ozone and contributing, however slightly, to the eventual cataclysmic destruction of the society that spawned it.

Note: Something else that we do in our reviews, is use a decimal system. Sometimes, a game's score lies between integers. Maybe the reviewer doesn't know whether to give it a 7 or 8. In this case, the reviewer could give the game a 7.5/10.

Note II: The 0/10 rating was modified on 8 Dec 2003 by Quantum Human to truly convey the hellborn power of the abomination that is Atari's "E.T. the Extraterrestrial."