How We Actually Decide on a Rating

People ask why one game got a 4.6 and another a 4.1, as if there's a formula. There isn't, really, and I'd be suspicious of anyone who claims there is. Our ratings are the honest gut feeling of whoever played the thing, sharpened by discussion.

We do have rough anchors. Below 4.0 means a game has real problems you'd notice fast. Around 4.5 means it's something we'd actively recommend to a friend. Above 4.7 is reserved for the handful of games that genuinely surprised us.

Genre matters too. We'd never score a tiny arcade game against a sprawling RPG on the same scale of ambition. We ask whether a game does what it set out to do, and does it well, rather than whether it's bigger than everything else.

When a reviewer finishes a piece, at least one other editor reads it and pokes at the number. If the words and the score disagree, we fix the score, not the words.

So take the number as shorthand. The review itself is where the real opinion lives.