Sunday, April 25, 2010

My Game Rankings

Take a look see at what I've been putting together. It started about three years ago and I've been working on it off and on since then. It's still in the beginning stages as I intend to turn it into a catalog of all my games (reviewed or not).

I haven't gotten to my Genesis, Saturn, Dreamcast or NES collections yet, although I have a few of those games reviewed. I've updated the list on the right with scores on games. Again, I've said this before and I'll say it again, a score is just a number. Most reviews or game editorials I like best don't even use a score or a letter or grade or fancy "4 hatchet kills out of 5!" jokes. It is a way of managing my collection. I am a closet collector so I gots to have something. Besides, it's fun for me.

I've developed a Monty Python type of system the keeps me in check. The reason for this has to do with having to deal with enough Six Sigma/Kaisen/SIPOC/Lean at work to drive a man mad. I am straying from my traditional 5 point system a bit too. Handing out up to 10 pts for Historical Significance and xFactor. Both of those, it should be noted, are just for me to separate some of my favorite games from the rest of the pack. I do keep a technical type score that eliminates Package Design, Package Art, and the two things I just mentioned. That is still on a 5 pt scale.

A couple more notes on my list. I have to own the game to review it with the only exception being games I played in an arcade in the past. Those get a well deserved pass.

Here are the categories I use. This is Core Gameplay. 5 pt scale (5 is best):

Story
Objectives
In Game Design
In Game Artwork
Music
Audio
Gameplay
Emotional Impact
Longevity

After that I've added (5 pt scale):

Package Design
Package Art

Finally, my 10 pt scale items are:

Historical Significance
xFactor

Those two are very abstract. Significance is it's place in the overall realm of Video games and what it means to me. xFactor is just, well, is it fun. A good example here may be Tomb Raider Legend. It means pretty much nothing in the cannon of video games or to me, but it was pretty fun.

This gives a game the opportunity to score a maximum of 75 pts. or an average of 5.77 on all cats. For my list on the right it is simply the games point total / 75. I also keep track of a Core Gameplay average which is just the game itself. That eliminates the advantages of some special packaging. In the future I guess core gameplay will be the only score, maybe it is now. But to a collector trying to think about anything but work the packaging is a big part of the experience. Just like a vinyl record compared to a downloaded iTunes song.

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