Reviews and ratings
Pursuant to a conversation I had last night with Stephen, I’ve been thinking about review methodology and the way I apply ratings to games. He said he isn’t particularly fond of my rating scheme, and brought up as an example the fact that I gave Professor Layton and the Curious Village a perfect score of 5, while Super Mario Galaxy got only a 4.5. He has similarly criticised me in the past for not rating Portal or Metal Gear Solid as perfect, either.
There are two ways to rate video games. Either you can rate them against each other and try to develop a big ranking of how good various video games are in comparison to one another, or you can treat every game in isolation and just compare it to what it could have been or what it tries to be. I take the latter approach, because, quite frankly, I think the former leads to madness. How can you really definitively state which of Mario Galaxy and Layton is the better game? They’re not particularly similar; it’s the proverbial apples and oranges. I agree wholeheartedly that Mario Galaxy was more daring and took more chances — that it "did more" than Professor Layton — but I’m not convinced that’s a strength in and of itself. Though more to the point, I suppose what I’m not convinced of is that that’s a weakness on Layton’s part. Should Layton be penalised for being straightforward and simple? For being a "small" concept executed perfectly instead of a sweeping masterpiece with flaws?
I don’t know. I’m not being a jerk here — I honestly don’t know. I think that’s the hardest single question in crticism theory, and probably all those people you read who talk about how giving star ratings is a bad thing and should be avoided are probably just ducking that question, whether they realise it or not. I think ratings are important. They provide context for the body of the review and help you put things in perspective when I’m talking about them — is this thing I’m complaining about a minor quibble, or a show-stopper? The rating helps you determine that. It also provides information at a glance, which is convenient, assuming you know what that information means.
When I rate a game, I follow a pretty straightforward process. First, I determine whether or not the game is fun, and, if so, if it’s fun enough to pass the time, or if it’s fun enough to put other shit off so you can play it more. You know, really, really fun. Fun is the most important thing about a video game. If it’s not fun, I don’t give two rats’ asses how good the graphics are or whether or not it has minigames. Final Fantasy VIII had some of the best graphics of any game on the Playstation, but it was goddamn terrible and so it got a zero anyhow. On the other side of the coin, if it’s a whole lot of fun, it’s not going to get a low rating. Once I have a fun level nailed down, I start to nitpick. First I look at the graphics and the sound. I don’t review them the same way as most people, though; I don’t give a good gorram how many polygons you’re pushing or what shader effects you’re using or anything at all involving the word "voxels." I care about the game’s visual style. In the case of Layton, the graphics were simple, but they had style to spare; Mario Galaxy, meanwhile, may be on the humble Wii, but, as I believe I’ve mentioned before, it still looks better than everything else. This is because it has an incredible sense of style. Sound I handle the same way — remember when I panned the music in Dragon Quest VIII because, while very well-made, it didn’t seem to fit in the game? Yeah, that’s right, my method of reviewing sound actually involves more than just complaining that there’s not enough (heaven forfend) voice acting. Unlike, you know, some people’s.
I pick apart details in the controls. In the menu layout. In the game flow. Does it have slow sections? Does it have parts that get really fiddly? Does it have important, insufficiently-documented options you’ll have to look up on the internet? I analyse the game’s difficulty curve. But in all these cases, there’s one common thread: I don’t compare the game to any other game unless it’s really inviting me to do so. I never complain that the game isn’t as graphically demanding as some other game, or has less voice acting than some other game, or is shorter or easier or has less plot depth than some other game. This is because variety is good. I like short games and long games and easy games and hard games and all kinds of games. Bigger isn’t necessarily better.
But this brings us back to square one — is Mario Galaxy more deserving of a perfect 5 than Professor Layton? Mario Galaxy is a masterpiece. I love the shit out of it. But, upon reflection, no — my 4.5 rating stands. Every issue that I called the game out for still applies, and still matters. It still has a bunch of stupid minigames. It still has really weird voice acting. And — most significantly of all — it still has infrequent but meaningful control problems, and that’s a big deal in a platformer. I just played it again not too long ago, and I can confirm that it’s actually an issue in the game’s control and not just a case of me being garbage; the best example I have involves Dreadnought Galaxy. I was upside-down on this moving rectangular solid, and I pressed forward on the stick in an attempt to move deeper in along the z-axis. Instead, I moved outward — the exact opposite of what I wanted. No big deal; I just stopped doing that and pulled back on the stick instead. And promptly began moving outward again; I just pressed two completely opposing directions on the stick, and they both resulted in movement in exactly the same direction. This is not a PEBKAC situation, and it wasn’t an isolated event, either. Minigames and voices were overlookable, but the play control issue was severe enough to cost the game one half-point.
Layton, meanwhile, was a much less ambitious game, but is as near as I can tell entirely free of meaningful flaws (well, okay, I do have an issue with the game’s marketing in one respect, but I’m not going to hold that against the game itself). It is, in essence, perfect; if you know what the game involves, and you’re in to that kind of thing, then I can say with absolute certainty that you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great time for fans of brainteasers. Mario Galaxy, on the other hand, is possibly the greatest platformer of all time, and certainly the best of its generation. I can (and do) recommend it unquestionably to just about everybody. But I can’t shake the conviction that I would be doing my readers a major disservice if I gave it a perfect score when I know perfectly well that it contains flaws that measurably detracted from my enjoyment.
Incidentally, for what it’s worth, if they’d ditched the minigames and tightened up the controls, yes I goddamn would have given it a perfect score. Not only would I have done that, you’d have heard loud and forceful announcements from me about how I’m leaving my wife and marrying this game, because it’s the best game ever made. Fortunately for her, they didn’t.
