In this post, I explain how I review games and why I review games this way. You can see the rating for each game in the spreadsheet in the right sidebar.

The TGB Review System

There are two types of gamers when it comes to game reviews. 

• Those who want a rating in a review
• Those who don't want a rating in a review

Between these groups, there are many more subgroups as well. There are those who want a 1-5 star system, a 1 to 10 system, or a 1 to 100 system.

I am in the former group and I will explain in this post why I feel that way and how I will try to deliver my thoughts on video games to you on this website.

Review scores are contentious for multiple reasons, however to me, it's not about the scores but about how they are used. 

• Video game sites use ratings as a substitute for a detailed review. Usually, a score itself is sufficient for these sites to be represented on Metacritic / Opencritic
• Companies use review scores for bonuses (e.g.: a bonus is given if a game has an 85+ Metascore)
• Even mediocre games receive 7s or 8s, especially of well-known franchises

There are many more reasons I could list here, but you get the idea.

Instead, let's talk about the reasons for why I like to see scores in reviews, even if a review without one is just as fine. First off, a review itself should always be detailed, should give a good idea on what the game is about and what the reviewer felt when playing the game. The existence or lack of a score should make no difference in that regard. A review should be clear enough to the point where the reader can already get a good idea on what the reviewer thinks about the game without looking at the score. 

When it comes to the score itself, there are multiple positives to them. While a review score itself does not necessarily say much, it can help one compare between games that are similar to each other. A highly rated game (5 stars or a 9 or 10/10) can be filtered out by the score and further reading can be done from there. It quickly can show which games to avoid (1 star, 1 or 2/10). 

So, when it comes to the TGB Review System, it was important to me to combine all of these positives, but also take into account what people look for who don't want to see a rating. As a result, I will structure my reviews in a way that everyone can benefit from in 3 different ways. 

• In the review on the website, no score will be indicated. If you want to read about my thoughts without seeing a score, you can easily do that. I will talk about all criteria that I see as relevant to a game in my review
• The Spreadsheet will include the total rating. If you interested in it, you can easily check it out on there and even sort games by rating
• The Spreadsheet will also include individual ratings for all 10 criteria. These are also sortable, meaning you can look for games that do something well that you are looking for specifically. For example some games are poor in the artistic department, have no story and have little replayability, but the gameplay itself is a lot of fun. This will sometimes result in an overall rating that is average, so looking at the gameplay score individually will allow you to find games that you might enjoy more than someone else, if a specific criteria is more important to you in video games

I'm pretty happy with the system I have come up with, so let's dive a bit deeper into it.

There are 10 criteria that I will give an individual score of 1-10 to. All scores will then be added up to create an overall score from 10-100 (a minimum of '1' will be given for each criteria, the worst possible score). I will go over each criteria in detail and tell you what I'm looking for when rating them:

STORY(TELLING) | 1-10

As I have played more and more games, I have started to realize what I value in games the most. Stories and the way they are told rank high on that list. Give me a game that plays well and I'm going to have a lot of fun. But give me a game that has a memorable story and I remember it for a lifetime.

There are times where I just want to sit down and enjoy myself, killing a few hours in the process. Not a lot of thinking should be involved, I should be able to get straight into the action and once I'm done, I should feel satisfied with how I spent my time, even if it wasn't particularly productive.

Often, however, I want experiences that are meaningful. I want experiences that I can talk about with others, whether it's people online or my friends. Especially with my friends, whenever we do talk about games, we talk about those with a gripping story. One friend and I often go back to one such game: Red Dead Redemption 2. The amount of depth given to the main character, the high quality voice acting, the detailed facial expressions and all the highs and lows, twists and turns that one expects from a good story are all present here, in a way seldom seen in video games, which is a medium that is still growing in storytelling.

Then there are games that I don't talk about with my friends since they haven't played it, but often find myself discussing in online forums, like the Persona series, another series that excels in storytelling, though in a different way than the aforementioned RDR2. What they do share however, is that I hold these experiences very dearly to my heart and whether the experience is a few weeks or years old, I can still recall a lot of the key elements and those moments that got me teary-eyed or feel exhilarated. 

This is why I see story(telling) as an important criteria to judge video games on. A game can be excellent without any story to it, but they usually enhance the experience. 

When judging this criteria, I look at many things. If we want to sum it up: How is the story in this game? But no story works to its ultimate effect without everything else working. That means characters, character development, character relations, pacing, key moments, plot twists/surprises, method of storytelling, environmental storytelling, side stories and ultimately, how it all is tied together. Games that debut now-beloved characters gets a boost in grade here, a la Sonic the Hedgehog for example.

10: Red Dead Redemption 2
1: Football Manager

GAMEPLAY | 1-20

Since we're talking about video games, the most important part about them is of course the gameplay. Some games can excel without it if everything else works well (e.g.: Visual Novels) but for most gamers, gameplay is the most important element. 

In the TGB review system, this is reflected by the fact that Gameplay scores range from 1-20, so a fifth of the total score.

There are many different games out there, so finding a uniform way of judging as broad a term as gameplay through a single number is of course as inexact a science as it gets. But I'll do my best by judging a game individually based on a variety of points.

The most general way I'm looking at games is by judging the gameplay that an individual game offers and focuses on the most. If I'm playing Dark Souls, I'm going to judge the combat the most. If I'm playing The Witness, I'm going to judge the puzzles and how the interaction with them works.

To talk about it in a bit more detail, I will be looking at pretty much every moment that a gamer controls himself. This includes, for most games, combat, but also how a game controls, the UI, QoL features like the saving/checkpoint system, progression systems like skill trees and how (and how often) new gameplay elements are introduced. Mini games are included here as well.

To be a bit more specific, let's take the example of a Point & Click Advenute. Here, gameplay is very different to a Third-person Action game. Here, I'd of course be looking at the UI, but also at puzzles and their difficulty, how intuitive they are, how they work in tandem with the story the game is trying to tell and more.

Some smaller points will be looked at more specifically in the "Level/Mission Design" criteria.

20: Hades
2: Visual novel with no gameplay aside from making decisions from time to time
1: ? (imagine a game with 3 FPS and barely functioning gameplay)

ATMOSPHERE | 1-10

A criteria that will further enhance a gaming experience, and potentially significantly so, is its atmosphere. Atmosphere is a very broad term, and there are two further criteria that will be looked at later that will also impact the 'Atmosphere' score, but here is what I will be looking at.

To me, whether a game is atmospheric or not is a sum of its other parts. A game can have great music, it can look great and be colorful but it ultimately has to make sense with what the game is about, what story it is trying to tell and/or what message it is trying to bring across. 

A good example to give are horror games. A good horror game is scary simply due to the position it puts you in. Who is your protagonist? What ails the protagonist? How miserable is the world around the protagonist? Does the music fit that? How do the graphics support that (think about the fog in Silent Hill)? 

If everything works well together, even the individual sounds in a game can manage to get under your skin. The game manages to draw you in, to immerse you and to pretty much put you in the shoes of the protagonist in a world that feels real and feels lived in.

10: Red Dead Redemption 2
1: ? (any asset flip with no cohesion, games that I'm unlikely to play in this challenge anyway)

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 1-10

This criteria is about how the auditory senses are satisfied.

Music can both add to the atmosphere of a game and simply be 'good' / nice to listen to / catchy individually. In addition, some games offer very few tracks while some offer a few dozen. Here, it's not just about quantity but especially about the quality of the tracks on offer. Plus, does the music do a good job in setting a specific mood? Naturally, the same catchy track playing through a sad scene would kill immersion and be inappropriate. Music can also be specifically composed for a game or licensed, both of which are fair ways to do it, but especially with licensed tracks, I will be more critical of the way they are used and why.

I will look at a game's sound design in a similar way. How is the auditory quality of the sound? How is the variety and detail? And of course, does it suit the main theme of the game?

Finally, I will look at voice acting. While not a total deal-breaker, I always find it surprising how poor voice acting can be bothersome or even ruin immersion at worst. I'm sure we've all noticed at least once when a voice actor over-emphasizes the wrong word because they are ultimately reading off a script and probably gotten poor voice direction. Or the infamous Oblivion line-repeats that were kept in the full game. Even worse, sometimes it can sound like voice actors are just running through their lines without adding any personality to the character they voice. Even overacting can happen sometimes, where emotion is put into every line that is spoken. 

That's the bad side. The good side on the other hand can add a lot of value to a game. Whether it's adding just the right amount of emotion and oomph to the voice at the right moments, whether it's giving a character a fresh and unique 'sound' or whether it's through humorous delivery, voice acting can absolutely steal the show at times. Look no further than the Yakuza series, games that have casts that can make you hear the pain the characters are suffering through. 

A game with no voice acting, especially back in the day, is more than fine, and poor voice acting can do more harm than good, but often voice acting does add to the enjoyment of a story and is something that can help us connect with characters easier and more deeply.

10: The Witcher 3 - The Wild Hunt

1: Duke Nukem (1991) (any game with no music, no voice acting and terrible sound)

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 1-10

I am not very good at putting my thoughts on a game's visual design into words, so I will usually keep myself short in this criteria until I feel more comfortable.

To give you the quick rundown, I do not look for realistic graphics in video games. The ever-growing focus on graphical fidelity I find is actually to the detriment of games at a certain point even. It increases development cost, it increases performance requirements, it can look bad if facial expressions don't fit with the otherwise detailed characters and ultimately, it often doesn't add much to the experience if the rest of the game is not fun, which is not rarely the case. However, if a game looks realistic and good, I will obviously rate that positively.

On the other hand, an 8-bit or 16-bit game that is graphically better than its contemporaries will also get high scores from me. 

Plus, the art design will play a big part in this rating. The graphics may not look great, but is the artistic theme consistent with the atmosphere that the game is trying to create? 

I will also look at variety and uniqueness in the design of worlds and locations. 

10: Cuphead

2: The Amazing Spider-Man (1990, Amiga) 
1: ? (Game with no artistic direction & stick-man-like graphics)

CONTENT | 1-10

Some games only take 4 hours, but those 4 hours are of high quality. Some games take 100 hours, but the vast majority of the time you make your way through repetitive, boring gameplay segments to be rewarded with short story intermissions.

The 'Content' criteria looks at what is on offer in a game. 'Value' will also be judged here, but since most games I will play will not be available anymore or for a few bucks at most, it will play a tiny or no role here.

Instead, content will of course look at overall playtime that is available, but also at how high those hours are in quality.

10: Yakuza 0

1: ? (asset flip with nothing to do)

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 1-10

In this criteria, I basically judge two main points. First, what is the core design of levels/missions looking like? Second, how much variety is there?

The first level of a platformer might be a lot of fun in the way it is designed through the platforms and the enemy variety / quantity or through the placement of power-ups. If most levels are the same however, it can get boring quite fast.

Levels/Missions may also have different goals. If the game is simply filled with fetch quests, that's not very motivating. Some also vary in length. If a mission is 20 minutes long and includes many of the same tasks, that's only fun to a point. If the checkpoint / auto save system is also flawed, that can be frustrating. 

In addition, how much thought was put into the way each player might tackle a level/mission in different ways or tackle a specific level/mission in a different order? 

Finally, how much grinding is involved and is the process fun? The fun part will mostly be judged in the "Gameplay" criteria but it's also important to look at how much grinding is required, at which points of the game and for what reason. For example, the NES game Crystalis requires the player to reach a specific level in order to damage bosses and these levels cannot be achieved naturally without hours of grinding in total.

10: Cuphead
2: The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout
1: ? (asset flip with no actual cohesion. Anything above that will already get a 2)

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 1-10

Often, games that are looked back on most fondly are those that did things that no other game did before. Or games that have taken on ideas by others and 'perfected' them. Or simply the first game you played that included a specific feature. The first Ubisoft open world game for example may be fun, but by the fifth one, you may feel differently about it's checklist nature.

However this criteria looks at games that did things differently, that added on features that were there, that created features that weren't, that created whole genres of games and whether the unique concepts and innovations are unique in a positive or negative way. 

10: Grand Theft Auto III
2: The Bugs Bunny Crazy Castle 2

1: ? (asset flip with no actual cohesion. Anything above that will already get a 2)

REPLAYABILITY | 1-5

Different to the "Content" criteria, "Replayability" judges how much value and motivation there is to play through a game more than once. Are there different decisions that can be made that notably alters the experience? Is there New Game+, a new difficulty or a new game mode that unlocks after the first playthrough? Is the game a never ending one that simply has an incredibly satisfying gameplay loop? 

"Replayability" judges how likely you are to pick up your controller or grab your mouse and keyboard and play through similar parts of a game multiple times over and enjoy yourself.

5: Hades

1: LA Noire

PLAYABILITY | 1-5

Finally, this criteria gives points based on how playable a game is. It is there to differentiate those games that are bad but playable and those that are bad because, among other reasons, they are unplayable or barely playable. 

Most games I will play will function well and as intended and you will rarely see a score other than 4 or 5 here. 

5: Hades (95% of video games fit here I'd guess)
1: ? (game crashes frequently, barely runs for a few minutes at a time)

And that's that. I hope I was able to describe in enough detail why I will judge games the way I will and how I hope to offer you value through three different ways that I described above. To me, more importantly than just giving you numbers will be describing why I felt positive or negatively about something in a game in order to help you imagine how you would feel about them without having to start the game yourself. 

The most important part of reviewing and scoring games to me however is to hopefully assist you in unearthing those underappreciated gems of old that might become one of your favorite video games of all time. That and hopefully giving you a new enjoyable blog to read through are my main motivations with this website.

If you have any questions or thoughts regarding the TGB Review System, feel more than free to leave a comment and I'll take a look.