30 Over 30%: The 30 Fractions We’re Comfortable With Using In Game Reviews
Here at Point & Clickbait, we’re not afraid to rock the boat a little bit with our reviews. While other sites stick to handing out scores between 7 and 9 out of 10, we–the true tellers of truth, and the only critics willing to get their hands dirty-aren’t afraid to use the full breadth of our unique 30-point scale. Those 30 points are as follows:
1. 7/10
You love to see it–that imperfect range that all the most interesting games fall into. We’re not afraid to say that we love these games. We would die for them. We would crush the discs up and snort their imperfections until they lacerated our sinuses.
2. 70/100
These games are real fucking pieces of shit.
3. 75/100
You love to see it–that imperfect range that all the most interesting games fall into. We’re not afraid to say that we love these games. We would die for them. We would crush the discs up and snort their imperfections until they lacerated our sinuses.
4. 72%
Sometimes you only get to play the game for an hour, but it seems fine.
5. B+, as long as it works out to, like, 8/100
The academic scoring system is just a great way to rate things out of 11-or-so.
6. 9/10
We truly believe that this rating should be saved for the cream of the crop, like a AAA game that clearly had a huge budget, or an indie game that already has a Metacritic rating of 92 or higher. Unlike other websites, we won’t apologise for standing by our beliefs.
7. No score given, which also means 7/10
Games! We just love these fucking things! They’re so fucking great! Fuck us!! What a fucking treasure, beyond even our wildest dreams, it is to review them. Fuck!!!
8. 9.5/10
Wow!!! This is the big time, and a score of 9.5/10 means that we absolutely LOVE the game! In the thin slice of our Christmas period we had to play this absolute monster of an experience, we really enjoyed the handful of things that we already knew, from the marketing, we were meant to interpret as “good”. The hype train on this one was so successful, and we knew that the comments would be so wretched if we went any lower, that we couldn’t help but give this game an incredible score. We can’t wait to see our use of the word “orgasmic” appear on the back of the Game of the Year edition!
9. 82%
Here at Point & Clickbait, we’re not afraid to admit it when a game is an enormous, crushing disappointment. When you’re expecting a 9/10 and instead you end up with a horrific, racist, misogynistic, unplayable, profoundly broken and openly hateful game, there’s only one way to communicate how deeply you hate it–by awarding it just the 19th highest possible score, out of 100 potential scores. Pathetic.
10. 77%
This means that the game is good.
11-20: 90-99%
The really important thing is that we NEVER, EVER, EVER hand out a 100%, because NO GAME CAN EVER BE PERFECT. The mere thought of such a game existing sends us into the throes of despair. We retch and spit and convulse with existential terror, causing dogs to hide behind couches and milk to turn sour. One reader once asked us if that didn’t mean, essentially, that 99 was the top score, therefore actually a perfect score. We called the police on this freak, and the matter was swiftly dealt with.
21-25: 4/10, 44%, 49%, 5.5/10, C-, ⅖
The absolute worst games, the ones we wouldn’t wish upon our worst enemies. The scum from Hell. The blights, the curses, the vile, disgraceful, amoral games. Reserved only for indie games that aren’t very good and obscure European RPGs published by companies that aren’t well established enough to stop inviting us to events.
26-29: 26/30, 27/30, 28/30, 29/30
When Tim first approached me about reviewing games out of 30, “just for something different,” I came at him with everything I had. I reached for the wooden stake I’d snuck in on the first day and forced it, with all my might, in the direction of his heart. But the wily Tim had planned countermeasures for this reaction, dodging my assault with ease and hurling an unknown powder into my face. As I tried to scratch away the burning sensation that was overloading my senses, Tim loaded up a copy of Pontius Pilate Adventures onto the office PlayStation 4 and declared that I could only have the antidote to the poison that was now rotting me from the inside once I had played and reviewed it “for at least an hour”. I cursed his foul form and set to work. But now, honestly, I’m not so sure what drove me to such despair. Pontius Pilate Adventures is, to my mind, the quintessential 26/30. Once I pass probation I will be allowed to have my wooden stake back.
30: 69%
Honestly? Nice.
