Index ⇒ Site Suggestions ⇒ How about doing game ratings?

[Trey]

I was thinking as I looked through 3dsl, why don't we add ratings to the game discriptions? I know, I know. It would be a pain, but I think people would find it useful. The group here is definatly knowledgeable about the games listed on the site, not to mention opinionated. The current discriptions are brief and sometimes vauge, they sometimes give a bit of an opinion on the quality of the game, but usually not. A 1-5, or 1-10 rating system might be helpful. You could probably do it just by taking polls on the forum.

[hfric]

the same was with my idea about gaming OS : Dos , win3.11 , win98 , win95 , winxp sp1 , win xp sp2 , Vista

[InsaneFury]

I personally had a site once, where we used to give games ratings. However then it occurred to me that ratings are pretty shallow: if you have 2 games that're each worth a 7/10, does that mean the games are comparable in terms of quality or gameplay? A number doesn't really say much about a game IMO, and even though I might not like a game, there may be others who like it a lot (The Sims:P).

I'd think an alternative would be tracking people's interest (download) for all games, then using that as a populatiry measure. But since the site's listing itself is a big list, there's not much we can do about tracking the popularity of single games.

[freakboy]

How about admin only ratings:
Good Mediocre Bad.
***

[Trey]

the same was with my idea about gaming OS : Dos , win3.11 , win98 , win95 , winxp sp1 , win xp sp2 , Vista

Well, you can sort of guess at the OS by the release date.

[Trey]

I personally had a site once, where we used to give games ratings. However then it occurred to me that ratings are pretty shallow: if you have 2 games that're each worth a 7/10, does that mean the games are comparable in terms of quality or gameplay? A number doesn't really say much about a game IMO, and even though I might not like a game, there may be others who like it a lot (The Sims:P).

I'd think an alternative would be tracking people's interest (download) for all games, then using that as a populatiry measure. But since the site's listing itself is a big list, there's not much we can do about tracking the popularity of single games.

It's true that ratings can be subjective, but it's better than nothing. There's a downloadable version of nearly every game on here from 1995 - 2005, whether it's a RIP or Trymedia or an ISO. There's such a large number of games to choose from, where do you start? Sure there are things everybody has played and likes (Half-Life, Doom, etc), but then there are things almost nobody has heard of, or played (Ominus Horizons, Codename Outbreak, Legends of Might and Magic, etc), these games don't always suck, sometimes they're just overshadow by a better more popular releases and forgotten. Some type of rating system could draw attention to older games that are fun and deserve attention that they never got (think 'Home Of The Underdogs'). Right now alot of the games on here are overlooked because nobody has heard of them (except for a few of you, and you know who you are...), so those uploads are of interest only to collectors, when they could be brought to the attention of a wider audience.

[zobraks]

I'm against any kind of rating system, specially when talking about adventures. Eight years ago I didn't know a squat about them (didn't even know what the games of the type I was looking for are called) and started digging through game magazines. I've played Monkey Island Serial, DotT, Sam & Max first, and worked my way through to more obscure ones (like Bad Mojo, Morpheus, Duckman, Starship Titanic, and so on). Most of these games got (deservedly) high grades at the specialised adventure gaming sites, but were treated rough at popular gaming sites and magazines (PC Gamer comes to mind). So, what I'm trying to tell is that every critic is only a man and very biased as such. Find some adrenalin-filled kid "reviewer", give him an adventure and he'll naturally say that the game is slow, boring, nonlinear, hard, pixel-hunting-riddled - that it sucks. In the world of over-hyped shitty action games with beautiful graphics there's no interest for adventures when an average human person is concerned.

Rating systems are very personal and nonobjective, and may baffle you more than help you find the right game for you.

They can only be used as the guiding lights and only if you really know what the person who judges prefers.

[Narfous]

the same was with my idea about gaming OS : Dos , win3.11 , win98 , win95 , winxp sp1 , win xp sp2 , Vista

Well, you can sort of guess at the OS by the release date.

Not everyone knows that however

[MasteromaN]

Not everyone knows that however

Well, we try to sort games by their release date...
About ratings, I'm absolutely against them. It's all about the preference of a few persons. We can easily see different opinions here (look some of the otiscrusher's posts). So, if we put ratings, there will be members to complain because it's not what they've in mind.
They're "professionals" paid to rate games ; just find their site. Then download the games with marks between 5 and 15/20. You could find some interesting things.

[Doomed_Space_Marine]

MasteromaN wrote:

About ratings, I'm absolutely against them. It's all about the preference of a few persons. We can easily see different opinions here (look some of the otiscrusher's posts). So, if we put ratings, there will be members to complain because it's not what they've in mind.
They're "professionals" paid to rate games ; just find their site. Then download the games with marks between 5 and 15/20. You could find some interesting things.

I agree. Ratings are really opinions expressed as a number. I personally play any game I am interested in, a lot of the time I don’t bother with reviews. Though, with exceptionally large downloads, I will read a few pro & amateur reviews to help decide whether it is worth the effort. There is so often a lot of negativity about for example some Russian and Eastern European shooters, many of which I have very much enjoyed, but these would get pasted in reviews by someone who holds everything against Half-Life.

[Narfous]

Rarity rating could be cool though, to bring attention to collectors to maintain rares more

[dead-meat]

the same was with my idea about gaming OS : Dos , win3.11 , win98 , win95 , winxp sp1 , win xp sp2 , Vista

Well, you can sort of guess at the OS by the release date.

Not everyone knows that however

Info like: Game X will most likely not run on most WinXP machines without additional software, referring to DosBox and alike could be useful here.

[Trey]

the same was with my idea about gaming OS : Dos , win3.11 , win98 , win95 , winxp sp1 , win xp sp2 , Vista

Well, you can sort of guess at the OS by the release date.

Not everyone knows that however

Info like: Game X will most likely not run on most WinXP machines without additional software, referring to DosBox and alike could be useful here.

Sort of a 'Tricks to running on Xp/Vista', I could see that. And then there are games that are almost unplayable without a certain update, or fan made patch.