The significance of a hundred

With regards to the scoring system of games in reviews, what exactly does a perfect score mean – be it 100%, 10/10 or even 5/5? Perfect. Without any flaw. That’s the meaning of the word, but what does it mean for a reviewer to give out such a revered award to a game? Does it really mean that the game is without any flaws, or is it just an arbitrary value with which to compare relatively to other games as a sort of ranking system? This would mean that the game is at the top of the heap; when a gamer has to choose between any other game and the perfect score achiever it is assumed that they pick the perfect scorer.

For me, it’s somewhat difficult to stomach a perfect score. I think of it as a sort of value that measures the pros and cons of the game in question, the percentile value representing how many pros there are in comparison to the amount of cons. For this reason I tend to feel that games that score anything above a 65% are at the very least worthy of consideration if at a good price, something I like to call the “absolute” score because I expect the reviewer to maintain an objective view on the game. But when someone gives me a literally perfect score, I get a little suspicious. Even if you had to use the “relative” scoring argument things still remain a little fishy to me. I’m afraid to tread on what is hallowed grounds with this example but it’s the most familiar to most gamers at the moment – Bioshock. It has received perfect scores from various review sites and even with both the absolute and relative scoring it just doesn’t seem like the scores it received were all that deserved.

Before I go on let it just be said at this point that I preordered the game, then proceeded to beat it twice in quick succession, so clearly – I did like the game a lot. It’s just the use of the word “perfect” to describe the game that gets me riled up because personally, I feel that Bioshock isn’t. It has flaws – painfully evident ones at that too – but instead of prattling on about them I’ll let someone far more experienced at it than myself take care of that. The relative scoring argument is a little more frustrating to me. A quick glance over at gamerankings.com reveals that although the difference is rather small, Bioshock received a higher average score than System Shock 2, its predecessor. Now I’m not saying that it goes against some intrinsic law that sequels must always be lesser in quality than the prequels, but as the charismatic Yahtzee said in the previously linked video, “Bioshock isn’t like System Shock 2 – it is System Shock 2,” and later, “Which is not to say that it copies the gameplay of System Shock 2 exactly – Quite a few elements have been removed.” And I tend to agree. Removing elements from a game only to leave many of the frustrating parts of the game clearly indicates that at least some good parts were removed. In other words, Bioshock is of lesser quality than its predecessor and I have to agree. Sure, it looks fantastic and all that but for the time, System Shock 2’s visuals were just as effective at creating atmosphere.

Now, to be perfectly fair, SS2 has apparently received quite a few more perfect scores than its successor, although the lower average stems from the greater number of “lower recommendations” given to it than to Bioshock. Though, this only means that what I’m using as an argument against my chosen example also suffers from the problem I’m complaining about, that being that it received a perfect score when it does have its faults, just as pointed out by Yahtzee.

What is it exactly that drives a reviewer to give a game a perfect score? Is it really personal preference or just peer pressure from all the hype and expected high scores? Clearly reviewers show a good amount of professionalism in the sense that they are able to give a standard or lower score to a hyped game that just doesn’t deserve it. Because of this selectiveness, it’s likely safe to assume that instead of literally meaning to state that they’re “perfect”, they use the award as an exceptionally strong symbol of recommendation and games with perfect scores are at least deserving of such an accolade.