Edge 126 scores

[iloveannie]

Its one of the reasons Im giving thought to abandoning our current scoring system here at NTSC-uk, as in actuality a review score on its own means little if people do not read the reasoning behind it.

You have my full support and respect if you go ahead and do this. Must say I never read the score on NTSC anyway. Scores mean **** all when there's 8 or 9 paragraphs of text above them. Perhaps it's the massmarket who haven't the ability to read anything longer than a caption. Best they stick to reviews in FHM or the Star.

[revisedgenocide]

Will be interested to read the Mace Griffin review. Ive been hearing mixed comments about it. Glad to see it score well but il wait till ive read the review before i buy or not. Seems i havnt Played a fps with a great single player for some time.

[marcus]

You have my full support and respect if you go ahead and do this. Must say I never read the score on NTSC anyway. Scores mean **** all when there's 8 or 9 paragraphs of text above them. Perhaps it's the massmarket who haven't the ability to read anything longer than a caption. Best they stick to reviews in FHM or the Star.

This is true, and from a writers perspective there is nothing more frustrating than spending time playing your way through a game to meet a deadline to produce a review, for people to simply dismiss the review as it scores a point less than they think it should of done.

[mid]

Will be interested to read the Mace Griffin review. Ive been hearing mixed comments about it.

Short version would read: Does what it does really well (rather like Starsky and Hutch) but its really linear (which means it must be really good, as this is normally enough for Edge to give an FPS 6 or less), and generally smacks of "seen it all before" - Halo with a splash of Half-Life, basically.

[charlesr]

When the site first started it didn't have review scores. If I remember rightly, it when to a poll for the public to decide if we should have review scores. The vote was pretty much 50:50, so we decided to give it a go with scores.

It's great to hear the people are still reading the reviews even though there is a score attached.

[Max M]

Does anyone who have the magazine know why they gave Naruto 3? Not that it really matters, i'm just interested.

They said the combat was simplistic and it was too easy to complete it.

Yet they loved Dead or Alive 3.

And scores are useful for comparing games in the same genre, but I agree that it's annoying when people don't read the review as well. Interesting story: When IGN started spreading their reviews across three pages they were constantly finding that the 2nd page got far less hits than the others, it was because people were just clicking the link to the story then going straight to page 3 to look at the score.

[Roost]

Does anyone who have the magazine know why they gave Naruto 3? Not that it really matters, i'm just interested.

They said the combat was simplistic and it was too easy to complete it.

Yet they loved Dead or Alive 3.

And scores are useful for comparing games in the same genre, but I agree that it's annoying when people don't read the review as well. Interesting story: When IGN started spreading their reviews across three pages they were constantly finding that the 2nd page got far less hits than the others, it was because people were just clicking the link to the story then going straight to page 3 to look at the score.

Well most of the time there isn't much point in reading the text of a IGN review :P

[Max M]

True.

[recipher]

Does anyone who have the magazine know why they gave Naruto 3? Not that it really matters, i'm just interested.

They said the combat was simplistic and it was too easy to complete it.

Yet they loved Dead or Alive 3.

And scores are useful for comparing games in the same genre, but I agree that it's annoying when people don't read the review as well. Interesting story: When IGN started spreading their reviews across three pages they were constantly finding that the 2nd page got far less hits than the others, it was because people were just clicking the link to the story then going straight to page 3 to look at the score.

And IGN also summarise the review too, which also tempts one to simply skip to the last page.

[bowser123]

Scores matter to people in many ways, yet what I consistantly notice about these threads is that there is little real discussion over the review text itself and the reason why the score is what it is, the focus being mainly on the little number at the end of the review.

Its one of the reasons Im giving thought to abandoning our current scoring system here at NTSC-uk, as in actuality a review score on its own means little if people do not read the reasoning behind it.

That idea get's the thumbs up from me. Why exactly is a score needed when a decent review will tell you infinitely more than a score ever could? I reckon you should keep the pro's/cons bit though as they quickly sum up the game for people who don't want to read the full review.

[Ish]

On the matter of score removal I find myself somewhat split. Personally (and seemingly like many commenting in this thread) I go mainly on the review text and wouldn't lose sleep over not having scores. In that Edge issue I didn't actually notice they were gone until rereading. It just never clicked

But all that said.... why remove something that can be easily ignored or dismissed by those not interested in it but might be missed by those who like it.[/i]

[Fuddle]

you should put the score in a little pop up box, and monitor how many people really care to look at a number, and how many people just say they dont look at it.

[nips]

Scores can be a great way to simply round up your opinion of a game. They can be a great way to round up your review. Great for future reference and a simple way to pick a game. If I'm in a store with two games in my hand and I'm not sure which one to choose, I'm not going to think back to line 6 paragraph 3 of a review. The final score is a simple way to make a snap decision.

If you want a general indication of the quality of a game, a number is great. Let's face it, the first post of this thread isn't going to contain a few thousand words of text containing every review. The scores are a great way to show EDGE's opinion of the games they've reviewed.

But, if you put too much behind you scores such as EDGE do with thier 'MEGA RESPECTED' 10/10, then people will possibly care less about the content of the review...

Whatever you do, you'll not satsify everyone. People will exploit, mis-interpret and mis-use whatever information you give them... it always happens!

[marcus]

Trying to please everyone is the issue here. Whilst many may not be bothered by a score at all, some people are, and by removing scores altogether we risk alienating those that have come to expect this from our reviews. And Ive thought long and hard about this, yet am unable to come up with a better method of scoring a game than a straightforward /10 system. There are many different ways to go about it, yet Ive tried more elaborate methods and plain visual ones and they all boil down to the same thing no matter how you go about it. I said there may a overhaul of the scoring system on this site earlier, yet in view of being unable to think of a better solution I expect that for the immediate future we will carry on as we have in the past, and score games out of 10. Unless someone can come up with a brilliant alternate way of going about it, that we are yet to think of

[lordcookie]

Why not put the score in a spoiler tag? That way it gets more people interested in reading the text before looking at the score.

At the end of the day I dont have a problem with scores. I read the text mainly to get an idea if the game is good or not. I would have issue with a score if it didnt really reflect what the text was saying, but this doesnt occur often on here.