Thursday, April 14, 2011

I rate thee ...

How do you rate games? How can you express your own personal opinion and yet , retain the objectivism?
Well for me, the answer is obvious, I isolate myself from the collective hive of gamers and make my own judgement. I don't really care about other reviews and though I still read them for informative reasons, I always make an effort for them not to influence my decission.

Anyways, I started this post with a different but yet related point in mind.
I've noticed that when I play games I get bored by them. Yeah, "Thanks Cpt. Obvious" you'd say, but wait. How does that relate to grading a specific game title? Let's take a look at this graph.



For me it's the classic scenario. As I play I become more and more interested, till I reach some climax point and then I gradually become bored of the game. That's fine and it's pretty normal, because only unintelegent creatures laugh many times at the same joke and get excited by the same gameplay. Yeah , them and shooter-lovers (or they are the same ?!) :). Anyway, I look at the graph i ask myself :

WHEN do i form an opinion of the game ?
If the game is extremely enjoyable the first half , and then I become extremely bored, do I rate only the fun part or do I make some kind of median of all the fun I had ?
How exactly does the boring part influence my final judgement ?


As I grow older, It's only natural to raise my interest threshold, so basically this graph answers my question of "Why i don't finish my games, anymore?". :) When I rate a game, I always take the "boring part" into consideration to a .. let's say 2 point extent. So basically that means if a 10.0 title gets repetitive and boring after 50% of the game progress, I'd rate it 8.0 cause it still delivers a blast just not during the entire game. So, this means that that same game, will get the same treatment as the one who offers an 8.0 experience throughout it's entire walkthrough. 2 Points for consistence, that's not perfect, but that's how I roll. :)

Also , this poses another question :
What's the ideal duration of a game ?
How long do the game need to last , to keep you interested and make you enjoy youreself?


Well I can't answer myself that question, since I guess it's pretty subjective and in deep corelation with the reason I started to play. Sometimes it's a quickie, sometimes it's a desire for long and immersive experience (OMG , the double meanings :). Just as long as they're a perfect match, my want and the game's give.


What about you ?
How do you rate games in terms of the fun you had ?

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