How We Judge

Every judgment is an opinion.

There is no completely objective way to decide whether a game is good. Games affect people differently, and every reviewer brings their own tastes, preferences, experiences, and biases to what they play.

Our scores are opinions, not facts. What makes an opinion trustworthy isn't pretending it is unbiased. It's being honest about where it came from.

Based on what we actually played.

A judgment should come from the experience, not the hype surrounding it. We play the game, consider what it is trying to accomplish, and decide how well it delivers that experience.

Our reviewers can have different tastes. They can disagree with each other. They can love a game that someone else doesn't. That's part of honest criticism.

We aren't easily swayed.

Developers, publishers, advertisers, popularity, and fear of backlash do not get to decide our scores. We don't raise a score to maintain a relationship, and we don't lower one just to be controversial.

We judge games for what they are trying to be.

A game shouldn't be punished for failing to be something it never intended to be. A fighting game doesn't need a great story. A puzzle game doesn't need an open world. A short game doesn't need to compete with a 100-hour RPG on content alone.

We ask a simpler question: How well does this game accomplish what it set out to do?

The number isn't the whole judgment.

A 9.2 isn't objectively better than an 8.7. The score is a shorthand for where the reviewer ultimately landed on the experience.

The number tells you where the game landed. The judgment tells you why.

Our Honor tiers

The score maps to an Honor tier so you can understand the overall judgment at a glance.