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Post by Toomai on May 13, 2008 14:40:18 GMT -5
You may have seen the old "Toomai's Reviews" thread (which I deleted shortly before making this one to solve redundancy issues) in which I posted a chart with numerical scores of a bunch of games I own. Since the list of games is getting pretty big, I've decided instead to give the game's final score and a short comment on it. You can always ask for a more detailed breakdown. The games are ordered by score, best first. In the rare case of a tie, the games are alphabetical. | Game | Score | Comment | | Super Smash Bros. Melee (GCN) | 95.9% | Takes everything SSB did and improves it substansially. | | Super Smash Bros. Brawl (Wii) | 95.4% | Despite the infinite amount of content, somehow not as good as SSBM. | | Mario Tennis (N64) | 95.2% | Very fun, guarenteed to last a long time. | | Yoshi's Island (GBA) | 94.7% | One of the most creative and inventive 2D platformers ever. | | Banjo-Kazooie (N64) | 94.4% | Better than SM64 in almost every area. | | Meteos (NDS) | 93.7% | Extremely addicting and never grows old. | | Super Smash Bros. (N64) | 93.2% | Technically bland but uncontrollably fun. | | Paper Mario (N64) | 92.7% | Funny and complex with a great deal of nuances. | | Super Mario Galaxy (Wii) | 92.3% | The SMB3 of 3D Mario games, da Shoe notwithstanding. | | Mario Kart Wii (Wii) | 91.8% | A fun game despite being changed for the sake of change. | | TLoZ: Majora's Mask (N64) | 91.8% | The benchmark for any future unique-story Zelda games. | | Banjo-Tooie (N64) | 91.6% | A great deal better than BK, but lacks some of its charm. | | TLoZ: Twilight Princess (Wii) | 91.0% | Lacking in innovation (Spinner aside) yet one of the better Zelda games. | | Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (NDS) | 90.6% | Fixes many previous-generation issues and improves other areas as well. | | Super Paper Mario (Wii) | 90.6% | A fun combo of platforming and RPG, but slow at times. | | Mario Kart DS (NDS) | 89.8% | Nintendo's first online game doesn't disappoint – online or off. | | Mario Party 5 (GCN) | 89.3% | Change to items system produces the best Mario Party so far. | | TLoZ: Ocarina of Time (N64) | 88.8% | Not the best game of all time, but not far off. | | Mario Party 3 (N64) | 88.6% | Triple items and Story Mode the best new additions. | | Diddy Kong Racing (N64) | 88.2% | Does everything better than MK64 except items. | | Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GCN) | 86.7% | Co-op not bad; character-specific items are fun but slightly overpowered. | | Mario Kart 64 (N64) | 85.7% | Plays well with others, but doesn't age well. | | Lego Star Wars II (GCN) | 84.7% | A marked improvement over LSW, fixing most of its faults. | | Kirby: Squeak Squad (NDS) | 84.6% | If it's not broken, don't fix it. A solid (if frustrating) game. | | Mario Party (N64) | 84.3% | Simple novelty makes this a good party. | | Mario Power Tennis (GCN) | 84.0% | An improved MT64, but with worse music and clunkier gameplay. | | Super Mario Strikers (GCN) | 83.0% | Extremely fun yet limited compared to other Mario sports games. | | Yoshi's Island DS (NDS) | 82.7% | Not as good as its predecessor, but far better then YS. | | TLoZ: The Wind Waker (GCN) | 82.6% | A Zelda game with equal parts innovation and recreation. | | Mario Party 2 (N64) | 82.5% | Needless costumes and boring duels but an overall improvement. | | Mario Party 4 (GCN) | 81.8% | Unecessary changes bog down this iteration of the series. | | Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA) | 80.9% | Returns to SMK's roots with MK64 items and does a decent job. | | Wii Sports (Wii) | 80.3% | A decent first effort at motion games. | | Super Mario 64 DS (NDS) | 79.7% | Better than SM64 in every way, yet not mind-blowing. | | Lego Star Wars (GCN) | 78.1% | For all its faults, this is the start of a LEGO mive influx. | | Mario Superstar Baseball (GCN) | 76.5% | Good for a while, but unlockables are underwhelming and tedious. | | Yoshi's Story (N64) | 68.8% | Good for little kids, but no one else – Yoshi wants to forget this one. | | | |
Here's the list of categories I use when reviewing a game: | Category | Value (of overall mark) | Explanation | | Story | 5% | Everything to do with the storyline of the game, including cut-scenes, continuity, plot twists, etc. | | Graphics | 10% | Models, animations, textures, artistic value (aka style). Includes camera angles but not physics (usually). Marked in relation to the console. | | Sound | 10% | Music, sound effects, and voices. Again, marked in relation to the console. | | Controls | 20% | Basically, the easier the game is to control, the higher the mark here is. | | Gameplay | 20% | How does the game play? Is the pacing good? Do the puzzles match your abilities? Are CPU opponents fair? Etc. | | Fun | 7% | You know, fun. Can't really explain it. | | Difficulty | 7% | Things such as difficulty curve, frustration level, save points, and generally "how hard the game is". | | Length | 7% | Does the game overstay its welcome, end before you're ready, or perfectly in the middle? | | Replayability | 7% | For single-player: How much you're willing to replay the game once you've gone through it already. For multiplayer: How long the game will last before you get bored. | | Multiplayer | 7% | Everything related to multiplayer that wouldn't fit under any other category (such as online play). |
A few notes: - The final scores you see here are calculated, not assigned by me. As such, even if I believe that game X is better than game Y, the scores may show the opposite.
- Multiplayer games without a story get a 10 in the category. The same goes for single-player games without multiplayer components (they get 10 in multiplayer). The reasoning is that the developers didn't try to include an element that wasn't necessary. If the element is included anyway, then it gets marked normally.
Here's a list of the unreviewed games I own, have played, or aren't out yet as well as a mini-review/preview. I may do up a full review (as per above) for these games later. | Game | Predicted Score (out of 10) | Comment | | Mario Strikers Charged (Wii) | 9 | Insanely fun yet mindblowingly difficult. | | Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (GCN) | 9 | Superb sense of humour and great battle system with no obvious flaws. | | Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (X360/PC?) | 8 | It's a B-K game, all right, but from here it looks supect. | | Kirby: Canvas Curse (NDS) | 8 | A truly innovative DS game, but inanely difficult at times. | | Rayman: Raving Rabbids (Wii) | 7 | It doesn't hold up for long but really delivers in that time. |
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Post by thedude3445 on May 17, 2008 19:29:01 GMT -5
Besides the fact that You accidentally switched Brawl and Melee's spots, What do you mean by Tooie has lost BK's charm? It feels the same except a bit darker in Tooie.
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Post by Toomai on May 17, 2008 20:59:02 GMT -5
I think the biggest problem with BT (aside form the canary races) was the Breegull Blaster. Sure, it's fun, but it gets old quickly, and having it take up half the final boss fight is a bummer. Plus Grunty didn't rhyme.
As for SSBM vs. SSBB, I was also surprised that the Cube version beat the Wii version by 0.5%. I think it may have been the fact that there were so many plot holes in the Subspace Emissary (and it doesn't matter that they got filled in at smashbros.com), whereas SSBM got a 10 for story because it didn't have or need one.
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Post by shadowgoomba on May 17, 2008 22:18:59 GMT -5
I don't think it's fair to give something a good score for not including something. Even if the thing it includes isn't that great, it at least amuses you for a second and even if it doesn't, you don't have to play those features. I think you should just not factor in that category.
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Post by Toomai on May 18, 2008 9:40:21 GMT -5
The problem with not counting a category is that I don't know a mathematically feasible way to do it - especially since story (which most multiplayer games lack) is worth 5% and multiplayer (which most single-player games lack) is worth 7%. There'd be roundoff errors all over the place. And I can't integrate them into a single category because some games actually have both.
The only way I could not factor in a category is to re-calibrate the system so that story and multiplayer are worth the same amount - but even then, games that have both will be marked differently (since ignoring a category increases the weight of every other category).
I thought that the current system - giving not-present categories a 10 under the impression that the developers made the right choice to not shoehorn in an unecessary component - had the least complications. Of course, if I think that there was a missed opportunity, then it's not an automatic 10. But that hasn't happened.
By the way, I just ran through a quick calculation of SSBB vs. SSBM: Brawl getting a 10 instead of a 9 for story would have tied it with SSBM at 95.9%. However, a working online mode would bump the multiplayer mark from 9 to 10 and beat SSBM with 96.1%.
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Post by shadowgoomba on May 18, 2008 10:18:46 GMT -5
I know, but as it stands, even if a single-player game was the best ever and included some sub-par minigames, it's still the best game ever in the single player aspect. I'm surprised this didn't bump down Yoshi's Island and Wind Waker, which fit the description above. My suggestion is to have a different rating system for primarily single player and one for multiplayer, and your current one for games in-between like Brawl. Maybe you could award bonus percentages right there if a single-player game had particularily amusing multiplayer, like DK64 had. But multiplayer isn't a percentage in itself.
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Post by thedude3445 on May 19, 2008 7:47:45 GMT -5
Good idea, Shadow.
O.o This math hurts my brain...
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