The rating system for some is the bane of gaming journalism. A system wherein if a game isn’t 9–10, you’re basically gambling on whether it will be good. And of course, this subjective number doesn’t tell you anything about WHICH qualities are good. The number exists for a reason — a quick and easy way to indicate quality. But it isn’t quick or easy when the number is mostly useless and you have to read the reviews to actually get a sense of what the game is.

This solution is two-fold: one is introduce another aspect which breaks down WHAT is good about the game. I called it ColoRate, because I am an incredibly imaginative person. The concept is that a game would be reviewed based on five aspects: Story (not just the actual narrative but the characters, background, lore, etc.), Graphics, Mechanics, Content, and Enjoyability. The idea is that just because a game is lacking in original mechanics or the graphics are eh doesn’t mean it isn’t still fun because there’s a ton of content and the story is awesome. As well, let’s be honest — there are some games that are absolute crap but you still find yourself recommending them to everyone because somewhere in all the horribleness it is just an insane amount of stupid fun (your Tommy Wiseau games). Each aspect would have a color assigned to it, and then when rating a game, you would get not only a number, but a color based on the strongest aspects of the game. So say a game with a 7 has a strong story (represented by the color blue). It would be giving a blue label. Games with two strong aspects (say story and content, which is green) would be given a label mixing the two colors. Games with more than three strong aspects would get a rainbow sticker, more preserved for especially excellent games. Games with absolutely nothing going for it, a black sticker.

The other portion of this is standardizing the numeric rating system. Right now it seems to be completely up to the reviewer what these numbers mean. That’s ridiculous. Instead it would be a straightforward rubric: 1–3 are games with few or no redeeming qualities, absolute don’t buys, mostly black stickers; 4–6 are games with some decent qualities, potentially strong aspects, perhaps overpriced, only to be bought if you’re interested in its strongest aspect; 7–9 is for games which are generally excellent and worth the price but have problems which some may not enjoy, or may not be for people who don’t enjoy their strong aspects; 10 is only for the most perfect of the perfect games with multiple strong aspects, well worth the price. It would be more detailed than that, but that’s the gist of it.