How We Score Games

The heart of NowGamer.com is its database of thousands of game reviews stretching back to 1995 on all formats. Here is a the complete guide to the scoring system and what each rating means.

Guide to split scores

Graphics

How good does the game look? More importantly, how good does it look compared to other similar games on the same format?

Sound

Does it blip and blop like a ZX Spectrum loading screen? Or are angels pouring warm milk and honey in your ears?

Gameplay

The most important score of them all, this measures the fun – the indefinable feeling of actually playing the game. The feel. The x-factor. The one overarching dynamic that can not only wobble the overall score needle, but reset it altogether. Gameplay will make or break a NowGamer review.

Longevity

How long does it last? Longevity scores are always applied within context of what the game actually is. Of its genre. Sprawling JRPGs will not necessarily score higher than throwaway party games. It’s all relative.

Multiplayer

How fun is the game when more than one person it playing? How well does it work online? How extensive are its features? Obviously, these games need to be among the general populous before we can test them online. Many reviews therefore, at the outset, will show TBA, but will then be updated once we have had a chance to test them properly.

Overall Score

Ah, the source of all furore and controversy in the world today. Our overall scores are not an aggregate of the others combined. Other factors may influence them, such as innovation. The overall score is heavily weighted by gameplay. A perfect 10 overall may reflect flawless, revolutionary, or inventive gameplay in spite of average visuals, for example.

Guide to the overall ratings

10

A perfect 10 does not mean a perfect game. There is no such thing. A perfect ten represents a sizeable leap forward in the art of gameplay, an almost euphoric experience, a level of finesse that surpasses everything that has gone before it, or all of the above. A game that is more than the sum of its parts.

9.0 to 9.9

These are some of the best games ever made. Titles that are so good, they almost transcend personal taste. Massively rewarding and almost completely unmissable.

8.0 to 8.9

These games are hugely enjoyable to almost all concerned. Almost all because if you don’t like survival horror, or sandbox, or pony-rearing, you probably still won’t like it. Otherwise, bet on this to be damn good.

7.0 to 7.9

These are good games. No arguments. A score of seven from NowGamer does not make it average, it puts it firmly in the zone that makes it well worth your time. It is, however, flawed in some way. Like a supermodel with one eye.

6.0 to 6.9

There’s a lot of games that fall right here. Most of them in fact. Not bad enough to be damned, nor good enough to be lauded. Games in this zone, will be loved by as many that loathe them, while garnering well-deserved indifference from the rest of us.

5.0 to 5.9

Better than average for the genre, but lacking in some very key areas that while not spoiling the experience completely, hamper it. Like a racing horse in wellies.

4.0 to 4.9

While not actually offensive, it’s likely to bore you into taking up other hobbies. Perhaps macramé or decoupage?

3.0 to 3.9

Distinctly sub par, a game with this score should be pitied. Its existence on the shelves is like a corpse arriving at a dinner party. With no booze.

2.0 to 2.9

A waste of everyone’s time, from developer all the way through to you, the hapless, out-of-pocket, gamer.

1.0 to 1.9

Not only is it acutely awful, it’s also broken. You may never again buy another game as a result of having bought this one. Once bitten…

0.0 to 0.9

Someone’s taken a dump in your games machine.