Sonic Ratings!

[Chaos Control]

If anyone's curious as to why I was gone for this past week, I've been at my day job. (It's called high school!)

Anyway, for no reason I have come up with a table of ratings of recent Sonic games (since 2002) courtesy of Nintendo Power.


Sonic Advance
3.5/5.0

Sonic Adventure 2: Battle
4.0/5.0

Sonic Mega Collection
3.0/5.0

Sonic Advance 2
4.0/5.0

Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut
3.5/5.0

Sonic Pinball Party
4.0/5.0

Sonic Battle
3.5/5.0

Sonic Advance 3
4.0/5.0

Here's what I call the REAL shocker!

Sonic Heroes
4.5/5.0


If anyone wants PSO ratings, I'm working on it!



9/11/04:

I have the PSO ratings (if anyone's interested!).


Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II
4.0/5.0

Phantasy Star Online: Episode III
4.0/5.0

Phantasy Star Online: Episode I & II Plus
3.0/5.0

Here's a little something for interested groups.

Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg
4.5/5.0

There! I'm done. If I'm missing anything, E-mail me or something.

[Brazillian Cara]

It's fair.

[shadowman]

it doesnt seem fair to me

[Brazillian Cara]

Yeah, I guess it's not fair. SA2Battle deserved an 5.0/5.0.

[shadowman]

no, a 4.5 for not choosing the characters stage

[Crazy Penguin]

This isn't Maths. The numbers in enjoyment rating are not a definitive measure in the same way that you measure length in centimetres or what have you.

You set your own boundaries. You can choose that 3 will represent the highest level of enjoyment whilst another person may choose 100 to represent the very same.

SO DO NOT INCLUDE DECIMALS.

By veering outside of the integer values you have proven your own rating system insufficient.

You're rating out of 10, not 5. Do not pretend otherwise.

[Delphine]

Obviously CP's way of doing things is superior to all else, so we should do what he says.

*coughhighhorsecough*

[Segaholic2]

I rate this thread a 4.14802568409234129859999999999910881 on a scale of Hexadecimal -0.E to unsigned binary 1010.

Fo' sheezy.

[WhoopA]

Well, I give Sonic Heroes 6.7/10, because that was EGM's average score.

[CE]

I'm a big fan of three point ratings -- Crap, Okay, Great. Beyond those divisions, I find people's opinnions vary too much.

[Squirrelknight]

I give Sonic Heroes a rating of "MOIST" because trying to convey how crappy it is with a number or a lengthy explanation is impossible.

[chriscaffee]

If I used CP's philosophy then there would be too many numbers to keep track of. It's easier to score the game on the right side of the decimal then to adjust the scale so all the numbers are integers. In that vein why even bother with integers? We could just do letters of the alphabet? or Greek. Sonic Heroes rates a solid omega: it's the last game I would be caught dead playing.

[Zeta]

Sonic Heroes isn't truly horrible. It just a drastic drop in quality from what we usually see from a Sonic game.

Akin to say . . . if Shigeru Miyamoto had designed Wind Waker to be like Starfox Adventures.

Or if the third Lord of the Rings movie had only been as good as "Dungeons and Dragons".

The best real-life comparison I can find is the original Star Wars trilogy compared to the Phantom fucking Menace.

It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't know how good it could be.

It feels like a trusted friend running up to you and kicking you in the balls. It wouldn't have hurt so much emotionally if they had been a stranger.

All I need to know, Sonic-wise, is that these are what I consider to be the best Sonic games - in order from great to just good.

1. Sonic 3 and Knuckles
2. Sonic Adventure
3. Sonic Adventure 2
4. Sonic 2
5. Sonic 1

Anything else is a moot point, as far as I'm concerned. I've never played Sonic CD, though.

[WhoopA]

You're missing out.

[Crazy Penguin]

Well, I give Sonic Heroes 6.7/10, because that was EGM's average score.

Using that rating system, please explain the difference between 6.6, 6.7 and 6.8. There is none.

Numerical rating systems are designed to give a quick, simple and clear final review statement for something (in this case a game).

The simplest of these would be out of 2.

1 = Bad
2 = Good

This could then be expanded to a 3 point rating system.

1 = Bad
2 = Mediocre
3 = Good

Which could be further expanded to a 5 point rating system.

1 = Very bad
2 = Bad
3 = Mediocre
4 = Good
5 = Very good

These all do their jobs as quick, clear assessments. Some people may even up the rating to 10, which sometimes works. Some people choose 11 by having a zero score. Both are pushing it as there are only so many boundaries you can define before these things become overly complex (and usually more randomly awarded on the part of the reviewer) and thus defeating their very purpose whilst at the same time giving the false impression of a higher accuracy to the naive or stupid.

I remember the days when most video game magazines would rate out of 100 (which all reviews rating out of "10" and rounding to the first decimal place rather than the integer are still doing).

Look at the above examples of the 2, 3 and 5 point rating system. Each number has a simple and clear statement behind this. Can you do this with 100? And furthermore would any reviewer be able to stick to this complex system? And would it make a difference to the reader if something got 86 rather than 88?

The gaming magazines of old would also assure the readers that these scores are infact a percentage. A percentage of what exactly? What is Mario 64 98% of? I'll be damned if I know. And one would assume that with this rating system an average game would get a score of "50%". Not so. Generally these magazines would give average games ratings of around "80%" whilst anything below "60%" would be complete dreck, ranging from E.T. to G Sonic.

Another flawed rating system is where categories are rated individually (gameplay, graphics, sound, longevity), which is fair enough really, but the final assessment is the total or mean figure of the individual categories. The vital flaw with this is that this way of rating suggests that each category is on equal footing. So let us say that one game got a score of 9, 9, 9, 1 in which the "1" was gameplay, making for a total of 28 whilst another game for a score of 5, 6, 6, 10 in which "10" was the gameplay, making a total score of 27 - by this rating system the first game is shown to be the superior product, even if the reviewer does not feel this way.

Complex numerical rating systems are not more accurate, they're inherently flawed. The whole rating system is invalid if each rating does not have its own distinct and easy to follow meaning.

[big_smile]

I personally think that games produce an experience that is too complex to be expressed in numerical terms. Take Sonic Heroes – the use of bottomless pits, cumbersome control system and weak story prevents the game from deserving more than 4/10 (or 2/5).

However, if you spend time memorizing the stage layouts, it is possible to have lots of fun. In terms of fun, the game deserves at least a 7/10 (or 4/5). But this score hides the fact that game very badly and lazily designed. Taking the middle ground of 5 or 6 out of 10 (or 3/5) isn’t really helpful as it overstates the game’s quality but understates its fun factor. It also obscures that fact that any pleasure that the game offers isn’t a fair and proportionate reward for the player's effort.

Sonic Adventure DX is even more complex. The Sonic sections of the game are worth at least 9/10 (or 4 or 5/5). However, the other sections are considerably weaker and are probably only worth 6/10. The game itself is just a quick port that is devoid of any imagination and at best only deserves 4/10 (or 2/5). It would be impossible to create a single rating that could quickly and clearly summaries all these qualities.

People also attach their own individual values to numbers. An issue of the Official Dreamcast Magazine received lots of complaints for awarding one of the Marvel vs Capcom games seven out of ten, as the readers regarded it as an ‘above average title’. The magazine agreed with this judgement and believed that the score reflected this. The complaining readers, however, felt that eight or nine would be a more appropriate rating.

A summarising sentence is probably the clearest way to quickly reflect the experience and quality of a game.

[Crazy Penguin]

I think that reviews can work perfectly well with no kind of rating system at all, and this usually makes for a better effort on the reviewer's part.

Ideally the rating system should just be used for an "at a glance" matter. Some magazines and websites (not just for games, but also film and music) have alphabetical "databases" of all of their reviewed games, with simple information such as console, publisher, release date, genre along with their review rating. On websites these databases usually include links to their reviews when clicking upon the title.

These can be of great use, for example if you wanted to find a good platform game you would be spared from reading 20 lengthy reviews with no rating system, and instead refer to the database and see which games got the highest ratings. You would then only need to read the written reviews for those few games.

Again, this works with movies, music, anything.

[CE]

I agree, games are just too complex to distill down to a set of numbers. Look at Wario Ware. The game's pretty cool to play once or twice, but you can easily see everything in just a few hours. So now it depends on how endaging you find the minigame concepts. I personally found the mini games way too simplistic, so I recomend Wario Ware as a rental, not a buy. A neat game, there's little incentive (to me) to continue playing.

Now look at the ratings Wario Ware got. According to metacritic, Wario Ware is averaging an 88. Compare this with a game that I think is more fun to play, Bangai-O, which is getting an 87. Bangai-O is very similar to Wario Ware in that the game is extremely simple, but unlike Wario Ware, the game doesn't feel gimicky. I attribute this to Bangai-O's focus on its primary mechanics. But by looking only at the numbers, I should enjoy Bangai-O (very slightly) less instead of a whole lot more.

What I have found is that the popular site's game reviews are, quite frankly, useless. Currently my favorite site is GameCritics, though they tend to empasize setting a bit too much for my tastes. It's still much better reading than IGN, GameSpot, or 1Up.

[Brazillian Cara]

I agree with you, smiley. For example, SA2B is still my favorite Sonic game until now, but I simply HATED Final Rush the first time I've played it. But, lots of practice later, it is a breeze that does'nt affect the fun factor anymore, and the same thing happend in SADX with the Lost World (I can almost remember: "Who was the f*cking bastard that put this snake puzzle??!"). I'm sure the same thing will happen when I get Sonic Heroes- hate a few stages and then forget how much I hated them. And I don't care TOO much about the story, but it's addimitible that Sonic had better ones. The only thing I may really hate in this game is Team Chaotix's english cast voice.

[Esrever]

People also attach their own individual values to numbers. An issue of the Official Dreamcast Magazine received lots of complaints for awarding one of the Marvel vs Capcom games seven out of ten, as the readers regarded it as an ‘above average title’. The magazine agreed with this judgement and believed that the score reflected this. The complaining readers, however, felt that eight or nine would be a more appropriate rating.

This is related to a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of rating a game out of ten when even the worst games get fives?

[plasticwingsband]

This is related to a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of rating a game out of ten when even the worst games get fives?

Mortal Kombat Advance recieved scores of 0.0, 0.5, & 1.5 out of 10 from EGM, making it their lowest scored game ever.

[Crazy Penguin]

This is related to a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of rating a game out of ten when even the worst games get fives?

Mortal Kombat Advance recieved scores of 1, 2, & 4 out of 21 from EGM, making it their lowest scored game ever.

Fixed. This just shows how silly EGM's rating system is. Who needs 21 levels in an at-a-glance rating system?

[WhoopA]

Who has the time to figure 1/21, 2/21 and 4/21 though? 0, 0.5 and 1.5 out of 10 click faster.

Personally I think EGM's right on the money with their review system; three reviewers with different tastes review one game (and there are about 12 reviewers just for EGM; they also have OPM and XBN staff score games), each one giving a score independent from the others. No scores for technical details either; just the reviewer's opinion (even though technical details like pop-up, piss-poor AI or dodgy controls can affect this).

The only time averages come into play in EGM is for awards and Game of the Month; 8.0 average for silver, 9.0 for gold and 10 for platinum, with the highest-scoring game earning Game of the Month.

[Crazy Penguin]

Who has the time to figure 1/21, 2/21 and 4/21 though? 0, 0.5 and 1.5 out of 10 click faster.

But they're still rating out of 21, just in a disguised way, and I don't see how a 21 point rating system is in any way justified unless they have a chart explaining the intricacies of each rating - which they don't, because there aren't any, because they just choose a range and pick a number at random, and mediocre games still get 7s.

Multiple reviewers is a great idea, but it calls for them to be even more consistent with their rating system. What if one person considers mediocre to be 5 (as it should be) and another considers mediocre to be 7? What if one person thinks that 10s should be reserved for those once in a while greats like Mario 64 whilst another doesn't?

The ground rules for each and every possible rating needs to be laid down in front of both the reviewers and the readers. If you're going to use a 21 point rating system (which EGM are doing, just cleverly disguised) then explain what each of the 21 points represents. If that cannot be done, then they should ask themselves why they are using such a meaningless rating system, scrap it altogether and form a new one.

[WhoopA]

Short description from EGM: "Only games that have been deemed final and reviewable by their publishers are reviewed. (If a game is on store shelves, this certifies as "final.") Three editors review each game independently and the whole scale is used. 5.0 IS AVERAGE."

Longer description from an older issue: "EGM rates games based on how they compare with other titles on the same system. The highest score we'll give a game is 10. When a game receives a 10, you can rest assured it's one of the best games ever made - a revolutionary title that truly stands above everything else in its genre for its time. At the other end of the spectrum sits the lowest score a game can recieve: 0.0. This is the kind of game you want to avoid at all costs. It's pure crap. In the middle lies the average grade, 5.0. We repeat: 5.0 IS AVERAGE. Simple, ain't it?" (Emphasis added.)

For the record, Sonic Heroes was 8.0 / 6.0 / 6.0, making it slightly above average.