CAG Game Review Suggestions Thread

One major factor that never seems to be considered is the time/cost factor. How much is someone willing to pay for an hour of play time. If a game costs $60 and you can only get 5-6 hours out of it, is it worth $10/hour? Or if a clearance game can be picked up for $10 and playthrough time is 30 hours, is it worth spending 30 cents an hour for the game?

Zelda:TP is a good example. About 40 hours of time for $50? Sounds like a good play. But, if you don't like that kind of game, you probably wouldn't pick it up at any price.

I recently picked up Magical Starsign (DS) at CC for less than 10 bucks. I spent 30 hours playing through the game. The review scores didn't give it much respect, but the game was fun and getting a huge value for the game is important. I don't want to spend too much money on a game that I won't play much, but if I can get it cheap and try it out, I might consider it.
 
So a review system.
1-10
A-F
Five stars
All three have basically the same flaws, but to be fair... they are problems with every review system. You have an issue of grade inflation (via fanbois), catching yourself in the 7-9/3-5 stars area. That idea of assigning a $ amount is an extremely nice idea and sort of avoids that problem.
A games "worth" is not really determined by the actual monetary value of a game, rather what people would be willing to pay (consumer market). If a game drops to 30$ and you get 1000 reviews averaging 40$, then you definitely get the idea the game is definitely worth the deflated price.

One option you could do is have a review over the specific aspects, but avoid giving grades to prevent people from focusing on a 7-10 range. Then have give some suggestion at the end of each section/review, obviously with better/more eloquent gradations.

Buy it
Buy it Used
Wait for Clearance
Rentable
Unrentable Shovelware
Babies died to bring you this crap

Then also put up a poll-style review for users. This will allow people to see if the reviewer and fans see eye-to-eye. Two sources saying "Buy it" rings that it is a great game, two sources putting it between rentable and clearance ringer... would allow people to see that it's okay. Then people will actually look at the review as to why, rather than say "oh! Another 3! Forget that."

The only problem with not offering a numerical value is that it makes the site incapable of using places like metacritic.com that averages scores for people (for the time challenged). Sadly, in today's world most people are simply looking to get information as fast as possible because of time constraints. At any rate, good luck with whatever you guys decide :)
 
Let's keep it simple like buy, rent or avoid but....you have to add the Cheap Ass Gamer twist to it. How about:

Full Price
On the Cheap
Forget it

My friends and I have discussions like this all the time; "I'd pay full price for that." or "I'd pick that up if it was $20" or "That game sucks".

I like your suggestion of ranking the game based on how CAGs rated it e.g. 80% said "Full Price", 15% said "On the Cheap" & 5% said "Forget it".

The 10 point scale is too detailed and loses it's meaning. I don't like the dollar amount idea because values change over time.
 
I think the best system would be letter grades, along with a suggested price to buy it at. Some people, myself included, don't particularly care what the price of the game is - the important thing is whether it's good or bad. If it's good, I'll buy it at $50 or 60 or whatever it costs. If it's bad, I don't want to see "buy it at $5," I want to see an F because it's qualitatively worthless. The other issue with using prices as a way of rating games is that the significance of the ratings depends on your income. If you're broke as a joke, rating a game as being worth $50 or something could mean that it's like... the most amazing fucking thing out there while the opposite might be true if you use $100 bills for toilet paper.

So basically, I think a letter grade system should be the reviewer's final decision on a game, but there should be a blurb that says "well, it's probably worth this much if you like the genre, but for everyone else, either steal it or don't bother." Or something.
 
The dollar scale can't work. It is an incredibly shortsighted type of rating that won't hold up in the long term.

All 6/10 games are pretty comparable and are always going to be merely mediocre no matter what the price. That 6/10 score won't change.

But game prices do change. An average game at $60 is still average at $30. A great game at $60 is still a great game at $30. When you have the choice, you buy the great game. And that game you said was only worth $30 when it launched suddenly becomes a "Wait till $20 game" and then it becomes a "Wait till $10 game" because the good/great games are dropping in price right alongside it. It isn't as if only crappy games drop in price and every $30 game is going to be average. Great games drop too.

Games rated 6/10 are generally of comparable quality. Games priced at $30 are absolutely not all of comparable quality.
 
I think that value $ / retail price makes the most sense for CAG to use as a review scale. I also think that it should be supplemented by some sort of numerical/grade rental scale. For instance, a game like Army of 2 would probably net a buy score of $30 out of $60 and a rental score of 4/5.

These are the kind of deicisons we make all the time. Dark Sector at $60? No thanks, but is it worth it at $40 on the Amazon Dotd or as a rental? Culdcept Saga for $40, um no. It doesn't really work as a rental. Hmmm.... Amazon Dotd for $26, very tempting... PGR4 for $60 when there are 20 other racing titles for the 360? Not happening. PGR4 for $15 on clearance at Target? I'm thinking really hard about it.

You'll end up with a large number of games getting similar scores, but I think that is fine. Who the fuck cares if CoD 4 is better than Halo3 or Orange Box? It also solves the problem of the mediocre scores. Crappy games are going to get values in the $0-$10 range out of a normal retail of $50-$60 in most cases. There are going to be a TON of games that get scores below 50% if you try to convert the scale to a number ranking.
 
[quote name='jkanownik']Who the fuck cares if CoD 4 is better than Halo3 or Orange Box?[/QUOTE]

Errr.... people trying to make a decision?
 
since when did CaGcast give games a rating anyhow?
seems like you're putting too much thought into this.
 
[quote name='Chacrana']Errr.... people trying to make a decision?[/quote]

The distinction between those three games is entirely subjective, so using a review score to differentiate the three is retarded. They all achieve the highest level of quality that you can expect from a console title and anyone interested in the game is not going to be disappointed paying full price. If you can only afford to get one of the titles and you are using a review to pick one to purchase, your decision should be based on the content contained within the full review, not the score.
 
I don't like the buy, rent, pass system because most games classification will differ on the type of gamer you are. For example if you like horror games or slow-paced atmospheric FPS's and also don't place a high value on multiplayer then Condemned 2 is a buy but if you are one of those Halo 3/Call of Duty 4/Team Fortress nut who loves online fragfest then Condemned 2 is a rent.
 
Cheapy check this out:

Why not have the 3 basic review labels of something like buy it, rent it, or avoid it and have numbers assigned to that. Such as a 5/5 buy-it rating, would mean you NEED to buy this game. Or a 3/5 rent-it would mean "Check it out sometime when you're in-between the really good games". Avoid it wouldn't really need a rating on that category, but you see what I'm sayin here?

Would give a general opinion AND avoid the whole 70% average thing (I think) with just how strong everyone feels with the game on a we-need-this-now or I'll-get-it-later.

(If this idea's been posted already, my bad)

I also like the dollar-value given by cags. That's not too bad either.
 
I'll move my post over here:

I'm going to go ahead and go with the 5 point scale. I say either 3 or 5. anything more than a 5 point scale is pointless. It detracts from the purpose of the scale. With a 100 point scale reviewers complain that no one reads the article but with 100 points I shouldn't have to. With a 5 point scale it's ideal. You have a review scale that tells me which way the article leans. 3 is average. 4 is good. 5 is highly recommend/must buy (not necessarily perfect b/c nothing is perfect). 2 and 1 will hardly be used but that's a small issue because noone cares if the latest Petz game is unplayable or merely bad. The benefit of the 5 point scale is that most games hopefully fall within the 3-4 range and what makes that difference b/w average and good.. read the article. The 5 of course denotes a game that will generally be used for 'must buys'. This way we end up using the entire scale instead of having that impossible 10.

[quote name='Phryo88']You could always go with a 1-5 system
1- So bad I'd rather play the Aquaman game.
2- Hardcore fans of genre/IP only.
3- 100% average.
4- Very good, near perfect.
5- Portal good.[/quote]
 
I agree that there shouldn't be numbers because then it will become a victim of metacritic and most of the readers won't even read the text.

A Buy it, Rent it, and Avoid it system would work great because it gives you an overall idea of the quality of the game and ideally it encourages the readers to read the text of the review.
 
buying and renting games are such a varied dynamic that I don't think it works as a rating system. The BRP (Buy,Rent,Pass) system works more in real life where I could ask my friend who knows me how I should approach a game. As a formal rating system it can't hold up games you buy and games you rent are not exclusive enough categories to making it work for CAG. Something as simple as an okay RPG breaks the system. The game is mediocre. Not good enough to be a must buy but it's too long of a game to rent.

as much as I don't have a problem with Wombat and CheapyD making judgment on a BRP system it's far too informal for the site.

The problem with the rating system is not metacritic. Metacritic shouldn't be a factor in this at all because no matter what scale/system you use they're going to plot it on their 100point scale. X-Play rates games on a 10 point scale (1-5 with .5 increments) but metacritic still scales it up to 100. They do/would do the same with 3 and 5 point scales. Which is why Metacritic scores are inane and don't have half the value they claim.
 
[quote name='MSUHitman']How about a 5-level scale like the following:

Buy It Full ($60)
Buy It Used/Sale ($25-$50)
Buy It Clearance ($9-$20)
Rent It
Avoid It
[/quote]

In general, I don't really like rating systems because they are opinion based and are subject to debate on an individual's taste. I totally agree with EGM's thoughts on the 10 point number scale; it doesn't work. If you feel that you must use a ratings system, then I agree with this type of system because it's basic with a value scale which is logical for CAGers. Also, a displayed percentage from fellow voters would help make buying decisions easier.

For example, if I can see that a large percentage of CAGers vote to wait until it's a "greatest hit", then that would help with my buying decision.

Whatever you decide, keep it simple and realistic for us cheap asses. Incorporate the CAG community and you will have success!

 
Don't forget about downloadable content. If you use a dollar amount, this would fuck up the scale.
A simple download it , wait for a discount, or don't download it would have to be implemented.

Wow Cheapy, this looks like this is becoming a huge pain in the ass for you.
 
With the increasingly lowering quality of reviews all around (imo) I'd really like to see the CAG 2.0 reviews succeed. Here's my thoughts:

1. The basic review scale, as long as its clearly explained, It doens't necisarily matter what style is used, as long as its more than just buy it, rent it or avoid it. That opinion of the reviewer should be expressed within a review, but should not be the entire scale. I am partial to the old EGM number system and they dumped it, so it’s ripe for stealing. Of course any letter, number or ect that can clearly classify games from superb to average to crap and everything in btwn will work equally well as long as the review backs its up and explains.

2. The CAG $$$ rating - This one could be approached several ways, but perhaps a % of msrp would be best, that way, different priced games across different platforms would be directly comparable. Additionally note some games, being shit, are worth no money and should receive a zero.

3. I would also suggest a third rating: a time factor rating. Many CAGs have huge backlogs, just not enough time to play all the games out there. This rating would reflect if the game fully deserves the time required to put into it. For example blue dragon is a long, average rpg. It would get a low time value rating, because time can be better used player other games. Portal is short and amazing - it’s easy to have time to play and the experience is incredible, so it would receive a high time rating. Don't misunderstand, some long games are incredible all the way though, but it’s not the norm. My time to game is just too short to spend it on average games, if I'm going to play a long game; it needs to remain a fun, refreshing experience throughout.

Yes, I'm suggesting a 3 rating system. Even though a $$$ rating is new, it’s still fairly often referred to in reviews, so not entirely unique. A time rating is rarely hinted at in reviews, and yet I find it very important factor in determining what game to play, and others would find it important as well.
 
Regarding the money scale. There are so many ways this scale can get too complex I suggest as a means of simplifying just you a few values. For instance a game could be rated as: I'd buy this game at $60+; $40-50; $20-30; $20-. Maybe you 'd want more groupings but an idea like that rather than (as I interpreted it) people simply entering a price value they think is worthy.


[quote name='legendoffanboy']3. I would also suggest a third rating: a time factor rating. [/quote]first I would say this 'time factor' rating could simply be called 'value'. It could be argued that this is the primary factor in measuring the value of a game. That said I don't think that should be seperated from a primary review score. If you want to rate game and then break down the ratings (into Value, Graphics, Sound, etc...) that's one thing but value isn't such an esoteric concept as ot require a separate scale.
 
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