But let's explain, once and for all, the problem with the percentile and decimal rating scales. Let's first of all note that scales out of ten with decimal points (i.e. 7.5/10 and the like) are still percentile scales, and scales out of four or five stars which include half stars (used mostly by film reviewers and film reviewer wannabes) are still decimal scales -- these are just silly tricks to fool the feebleminded. The only tenable rating scheme is the one out of three (favorable/ambivalent/unfavorable) I mentioned in the beginning, which is the only one that occurs to man by nature. That's how people respond when asked their opinion on pretty much anything -- no one goes "hmmm, 76,379 out of 100,000" when asked whether they liked a certain film. At most one could expand the scale by adding two more gradations: "highly favorable" and "highly unfavorable" -- but no more than that. Adding any more will always be humbug, because a person is not able to quantify his sentiments to a greater degree: we are human beings after all, not machines -- our value judgements are diffuse, uncertain, fluctuating. What is the difference between a 7 and an 8 game? Can anyone spell it out in human words? Let alone between a 72 and a 73!
The greatest drawback of these retarded rating schemes, however, is that they induce in the reviewer the delusion that what he is rating against is perfection. In the natural rating scales out of 3 or 5, nobody would suppose that the highest mark is reserved for "perfect" works, but the moment you move to a decimal or percentile scale people begin hallucinating about "perfect 10s" and "perfect 100s". You only have to observe the reaction of, say, the British gaming scene (rllmuk, NTSC-uk and the like) whenever Edge magazine gives out a "perfect 10" to realize the negative consequences of this inane delusion. There's no difference between a 9 and a 10 you fuckin' imbeciles! All those 9s the Edge morons give out are also "perfect 9s", if not in fact MORE perfect than the 10s. The 9s (and the 8s, and the 7s -- not to mention the 6s, which I will shortly mention!) are usually the more ambitious, more innovative games, which might perhaps have one or two (easily disregarded) minor problems that in the eyes of the Edge pedants keep them from "perfection", while the 10s may be less ambitious games which are however more polished, lacking these "imperfections". And since, as long as you are pedantic enough, ALL games have "imperfections", you end up randomly giving out 10s and 100s once every few years just so that no one can accuse you of... pedantry. This leads to some hilarious results, one of the most notable of which being that Edge magazine, the world's most respected, pseudo-high-brow videogame publication, gave the original Grand Theft Auto III a 6 on release, essentially advising readers to not bother with it. NOT PERFECT ENOUGH FOR THEM I GUESS LOL! LONG LIVE CONKER'S BAD FUR DAY!
To recap: Perfection is an empty concept -- a mere word, because there will always be the chance that a "more perfect" work may be produced at some future time (not to mention discovered in the past!) -- and where will your "original perfect" work be then, eh? So a rating of 3/3 or 5/5 implies no claims of perfection; such ratings merely signify that -- as things stand at this point in time, and given his gaming background -- the reviewer is strongly recommending the work in question. Who knows how things will stand in a thousand year's time? To require that a rating should be valid until the end of the universe (which is what the term "perfect" implies) is unfathomably id***ic -- so let's leave it to the id***s then.
Oh and, by the way, for reference, here are the rating guidelines I give to Insomnia's contributing reviewers:
***** Highly recommended
**** Recommended
*** Good, but has been done before, and much better
** Playable, but without much merit
* LOL
