Average starts at five, not seven

Hi! I'm Chris Carter, the Reviews Director for Destructoid.com. I've been reviewing games professionally for around nine years now. It's my job to give you an informed opinion of various games out on the market, so you can make a decision on what to spend your money on, or how you choose to spend your afternoons.

By nature, reviews are a subjective beast. They are based on our own individual opinions, and that may not reflect your exact feelings on a game. Best rest assured, we strive for accuracy, and we will do our best to convey why a game made us feel a certain way. It is also our policy to review what's in the game, and not promises of what may come. We often may speculate on future features or facets of a game through the course of a review, but it will not affect the score.



Let me stress that although we do speak to PR on occasion to obtain advance review copies for games, we do not collude with them, any sponsors, or advertising agencies on anything regarding reviews or scores. Our review team is completely and utterly isolated from the ad team. I have no idea how they conduct their business, and I'd like to keep it that way.

How we score - the Destructoid scale

Here at Destructoid, we use the entire scale. It does not start at "7." Let me repeat that -- if a game is less than "good," (7) it will be scored as such. Just because a game has obtained a "6" does not mean it's a "bad," game -- far from it, in fact. If you come into this believing that the only games worth buying are 9's or 10's you're not really understanding what we're trying to convey. Please take a closer look:



10 -- Flawless (10s aren't perfect, since nothing is, but they come as close as you could get in a given genre. The new leader to beat in its sector, we're talking pure ecstasy.)



9 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage.)



8 -- Great (8s are impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.)



7 -- Good (7s are solid and definitely have an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)



6 -- Alright (6s may be slightly above average or simply inoffensive. Fans of the genre should enjoy them a bit, but a fair few will be left unfulfilled.)



5 -- Mediocre (5s are an exercise in apathy, neither Solid nor Liquid. Not exactly bad, but not very good either. Just a bit "meh," really.)



4 -- Below Average (4s have some high points, but they soon give way to glaring faults. Not the worst, but difficult to recommend.)



3 -- Poor (3s went wrong somewhere along the line. The original idea might have promise, but in practice it has failed. Threatens to be interesting sometimes, but rarely.)



2 -- Bad (2s are a disaster. Any good they might have had are quickly swallowed up by a plethora of issues. The desperate or the gullible may find a glimmer of fun hidden somewhere in the pit.)



1 -- Failure (1s are the lowest of the low. There is no potential, no depth and no talent. These have nothing to offer the world, and will die lonely and forgotten.)

[Our scores were reverted back to our original system in April 2016, after using altered descriptions for a year.]

Why score games at all, doesn't Destructoid believe that videogames are an art?

In regards to why we use scores at all, our founder Niero set forth these ideas: