The Perfect Score Myth

As a person who is asked to review games for a publication such as MyGaming I am regularly faced with having to dish out a score for the game. In trying to understand game scores I also make a point to read other reviews of the same games and get a better understanding of how different people experienced said title. The first thing to remember is that review are opinions, you can ask 2 reviewers to review the same title and come up with 2 vastly different review, as is evident in MyGaming's Review of Just Cause 2. In this review our own Dan Parmenter & Taryn Van Der Byl had vastly different experiences with the title.

Lets first explore out of what game scores are built. Most publications use a variation of the following:
• Graphics
• Sound
• Gameplay
• Longlevity
• Inovation
• Fun factor (this is sometimes combined with Gameplay)
• Story

Now a quick count will reveal to you that there are 6 categories, 7 if you count Fun factor but since it is often swaped out with Gameplay we will work with 6. So lets say each of these 6 points receive a score out of 100. That will give you a total score out of 600. A quick conversion to a percentage will reveal the games Overall score. 

This brings me to my point… the perfect score. For a game to receive a perfect score each of the 6 categories has to be perfect. I, as a reviewer, feel there is no game that justifies a perfect score since not only is it practically impossible for any game nails each category perfectly, but no game is perfect, no matter how good it is, even the most loved of titles had their flaws.

There have been a few games in recent memory that received the perfect score, games like Modern Warfare 2, (14 perfect scores According to MetaCritic.com), Halo 3 (20 perfect scores according to Metacritic.com), Mass Effect (11 Perfect scores) & its sequel Mass Effect 2 (With a mind blowing 30 Perfect scores) was by any means perfect in all 5 categories. 

Those who know me know I am a shameless Halo fanboi that does not mean I would give Halo 3 perfect score. After having completed in multiple times and getting waist deep into the Multiplayer I would only rate it somewhere between 92 and 96. The game play is brilliant but the plot could have been better. Sound design wise brilliant and Visually beautiful although a little too bright at times. Longevity also suffers if the player wasn’t into the Multiplayer. (Which they should totally try out if they haven't already )

With Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 I would also have scored it well below 100, 80 to 85 would be my rating. Story was too short by any measure and if the player isn’t into the multiplayer the price is simple day light robbery. There is little to no inovation in the Single Player campaign as the dramatic POV death sequences of COD4 is used to Death, Modern Warfare 2 did bring some new tricks to the tried and tested multiplayer modes. Gameplay also remains largely exactly the same as COD4 but “don’t fix what ain’t broke” could very well apply. 

Mass Effect one would have gotten a 85 – 90 from me. It nailed story, innovation with the brilliant dialog system and did a decent number on action gameplay. The game was marred by boring side quests and annoying texture pop-ins. Its sequel, Mass Effect 2, would be the game I score the highest with at least 95+. It took what Mass Effect had done and improved upon every single aspect. Texture pop-ins are almost completely gone, no more boring side quests (although the mining can become tedious) and much better combat mechanics. It is however not perfect, some texture pop-in did sneak in, the recourse gathering was flat out boring and the world felt smaller, even though it really wasn’t. 

Some other reviewers disagree with this way of thinking as they feel credit should be given where credit is due, so what if the graphics had loading errors the story and gameplay was perfect, why nit-pick? And that is perfectly fine, reviews are after all just one person’s opinion of a specific title. I simply feel that naming a game perfect which isn’t, is not being objective. Also if the perfect game has been made what is the point of making any more games since the panicle has already been reached, every other title that emerges will just be a failure.

-Fenix Out-