In all honesty, I rate this article 78%. Uh-oh. That's bad. If this article was a game, most people would not even be playing it right now. Or reading it. Wait a minute�.what? This metaphor is hurting my head, I think I'll come back to reality.

Percentage points and game scores have for a very long time divided gamers as to their usefulness when it comes to evaluating a game. There are those brainless hordes who believe that any game with less than 95.9% to its name is an utter failure and deserves to bomb like Diddy Kong. Others will quite happily go out and buy games rated 80% and below and consider them worthy of their collection. There are even some who own that a piece of software with less than 70% to its name is not a game at all, but instead an expensive drinks mat. Unfortunately it is the gaming press that has helped to perpetuate this myth and foolishness.

All throughout my childhood I was conditioned by magazines and friends to believe that games scoring highly were the only games worth playing. Games receiving less than 90% were not worthy of my time, according to various media and social outlets. Even a game that scored "only" 90% was subject to intense scrutiny by the reviewer and all potential buyers for the reason why it did not receive 91% or even 92%.

A game receiving 89% was a total failure, missing some special ingredient that would magically boost it past the 90-mark and into the personal collection of gamers the land over. But does a single percentage point make that much difference to the quality of a game? Common sense dictates that there is a difference between 89 and 90, but the difference is so miniscule that it is hardly worth registering. The common way however to single out games for high praise was by awarding games a certain number of percentage points a "Star Game" badge or some such accolade over and above the normal percentage rating �while counter-intuitively sitting alongside it.

Surely anyone must realise that if a game scores highly, then no additional means of promotion within a review are necessary. But no, some bright spark decided to start awarding special prizes to those with higher scores and thus planting a firm doubt over any game that did not receive it.

Any game unlucky enough to score below 80% is a real stinker, at least according to the common perception. However, in my experience and the experience of many other gamers, titles that scores 60-70% can be just as fun and rewarding as that multi-award-winning-95%-instant-classic. My favourite game of all time, Morrowind, received some extremely negative reviews on its release, but still managed to sell more than a million copies and consume over 600 hours of my time.

I guess you could say that as a review is subjective, that any game scoring below a certain percentage is less likely to entertain than a game ranked ten percentage points higher. It may have more flaws, but there is bound to be some enjoyment to be found somewhere in the product. Unless it's Rise of the Robots, or Halo (it's boring; deal with it).

Scores can be really misleading, it is really the review itself that you should look at as this gives the reasons why a game receives a particular rating. Unfortunately a review is still subjective (does anybody pine for a videogaming Borg Collective? Ok, just me�) and therefore only really gives the opinion of one person on a title. Something that may be no issue for the reviewer might prove a deal-breaker for the average gamer. And a large, unresolvable issue with the gameplay/graphics/sound in the head of the reviewer may be a minor inconvenience, if not a nonentity in the mind of the player.

Blindly adhering to scores cannot lead you to the perfect game: there have been too many titles highly-rated by the press as a whole that have proven to be a terrible disappointment for me as an individual. Halo and Halo 2 are two such examples. Hey, I want to like those games, but if I had reviewed them I would have given them 60% maximum, simply because I found no enjoyment whatsoever in them. Conversely, I absolutely loved Red Steel even though so many panned it as unambitious and lazy. It just really "did" it for me, but obviously not for everyone.

A score then is something to be viewed with scepticism, and a review with equal distrust. Pick out the bits that make it sound like you would enjoy it and just go for it, and never rely on the fact that a game has scored 97% will be a fantastic thrill-ride filled with all the things that you love best. Use your own brains (which may require some dusting for many of you) and make your own decisions, just don't expect everyone to agree with you.

Iun Hockley
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