List of highly tated games?

Notwithstanding our Hall of Fame, or annual recommendations lists, do we have any sort of centralized list of games that were rated/reviewed, say for example as an "A"? Just curious, as when I've looked for a new one or new oldie, to play, I wind up going through the same titles over and over again. Just curious...

The reviews are here. They are not categorized by rating though, just in alphabetical order.

Ana

I wouldn't go by review grades alone. Grades can vary with the reviewers mood or tastes.

But if you want an overview of grades for older games, check the web archives pages for the old justadventure website.
For example ***here*** for 1999 or ***here*** for 2006.
(You may get an old JA popup at the 2nd link if you don't have popups blocked, but it seems to be harmless)

At one time some JA reviewers split and JA lost some reviews, so you may want to check various years in between at the archive.

Adventuregamers used to list stars (or ? out of 5 with 5 being best) next to their review lists.
You can check the web archive of ***their reviews for 2003***.

The old Quandaryland site used stars (1 to 5) at one point.
***Here's the Quandaryland review list*** for 2006.
Their reviews have been mirrored at metzomagic.com, but not the grades in the list of games (as seen ***here***. Originally Quandary did not use grades, and only started adding them so they'd be included at sites like metacritic.

This post is meant for the admins/owners of the GB-Website.

I have a suggestion for the review list, which i think
would be very beneficial for the visitors, especially
new ones looking for new good games to play:

Please include the grade the game got in the review
in brackets behind the game name in the list.
So instead of

Black Island by flotsam

make it

Black Island by flotsam (C-)

Look at it from the perspective of a new visitor looking
for good games to play and not looking for a specific review:
What is he supposed to do with this loooong list?
Should he start with 'A' up to 'Z', click on all reviews,
scroll down and find the grade?
Just to find the good grades one? This is too time-consuming,
just scanning for the 'A' 'A-' in the list and reading these
reviews would be much easier/more convenient.

Of course, a grade is not the only criteria to select
a game, but it is a good first selection filter.

So, please think about it, its not too much work to add this
and there is a reason why other websites do it like that.

If you are not looking for a specific review,
without the grades added, the review list is just a long, worthless list of game names.

The favorites list that we generate every year is designed for that purpose Mike. I think the grade is the least important part, the review is what will let you know if it's something you'd like or not.

@BrownedEyedTigre: Sorry, but you did not get the point.
Of course the grade is not the only important thing,
but it is a good FIRST selection step to find a game you like
and dont have the time to read all hundreds reviews on
GB (The next step is reading the reviews of these A-games of course,
but now the list is much shorter than reading ALL reviews).
What do you think is more likely? Finding a GREAT game among
the A+/A/A- rated games rated by experienced reviewers
or one among the C/C+ rated games? There will always be
exceptions of course, i am talking about the big picture here.

Besides, even if for some reason a grade means nothing
for you, its still a fact that it is an additional information
about the game/review, so why not provide it in an easy
accessible way by putting it behind the game name for those
gamers who think its important.Its not much work to do so.

Last but not least, Murphy started this thread exactly for that
reason. So i am not the only one who would be thankful
to have such a feature.

mike,

Since your post is directed at me; let me think about it.

As Jenny stated - the grade depends on subjective opinions.
Can you volunteer to compile the list's rating from our Boomers reviews?
Maybe adding the grade as we add more reviews?

MaG,

thanks for considering it :-)
i really think this would be a great addition.

Of course, the grade depends on subjective opinions
but first of, this also applies to the review
itself to an extent, so i don't see why this
could be an counter-argument to adding the grade to the game name.
And secondly, everybody who thinks that a grade after the
name is not an additional bonus can just ignore it

Unfortunately, i do not have the time to
examine all the reviews and compile a complete list,
what i could offer is do maybe three letters (A-C) and send you
an excel list with the grades.
We could share this work among the GB regulars here, so
anyone willing to do other letters?

Cheers
Mike

Mike,

Let me discuss this topic with the Staff first.
I understand about you "not have the time". We are all volunteers here at GB.
Thanks.

Marita I'm having problems with Gameboomer email.
If you don't see a message in email, check your PM.

Thanks - Got mail and PM.

Selected staff and reviewers discussed the utility of having a grading system in posted reviews. Opinions about the subjectiveness and usage of grading reviews were considered.

It has been decided that from now on - No grades will be posted on the reviews.

Steve Ramsay's editorial here further explains the decision.

Thanks for alerting us to this topic. It brought a much needed discussion of a GameBoomers protocol.

Thanks, MaG!

Ana

Well, i am disappointed, of course.

I read the linked article.

The author raises a lot of good points,
which perfectly illustrate the weaknesses of a rating
system. Ironically, the author seemingly
does not realize that he mentioned
the perfect reason why grades are still useful
and he does not realize that non of his arguments
weaken that particular usefulness:

'They are a quick guide to the relative merit of a game,
and when accessed through ranking sites give you an instant
and convenient impression of what many reviewers think about a game.'

All his arguments do not weaken this. Of course
grades are no substitute to reading the reviews:
Every gamer with at lease average intelligence is aware
of the flaws of a grading system. This is trivial.
But this still does not change the fact
that if you are looking for a good game and do not have
the time to read 1000 reviews, reading the reviews of the high rated ones
is a good, time-saving starting point to achieve what you
want: Finding the next good game to play. JustAdventure just
provided that: With the help of its grades, i found a lot of great
games that i had never heared of before. I would have never found them
if i just had stared at a list of 1000 reviews with only game
names like it's on Gameboomers: The list would be of equal worthlessness
for my purpose if it did not contain the names of the games, but just list them
as game1, game2, game3 etc.

But you made your decision, so i will have to use other
sites for finding good old games. I still like the GB-site though

That is what the Annual Game List is for.
http://www.gameboomers.com/GameBoomersAnnualGamelist.htm

Think of all the games near the top of that list as being the "A" games.

Since many gamers contribute to the list instead of a single reviewer, it is probably a much better indicator of what games you might enjoy.

None of the current reviewers enjoy giving grades. It can be very difficult to decide, and we feel it may be misleading.

You beat me to it, Jenny! I was just going to say the same thing.

And I liken this whole grading system to the movie reviews the critics give. Often the 1 star reviews are my favorite! I listen to what they say about the movie and if it says Sophomoric humor I know I am probably going to love it, even though the reviewer found it to insult his intelligence.

I think it's a great decision to remove the grading.

Ana

While I definitely see the value of mike_rn's points, I have to agree with the staff decision. I might breeze by a game given a C- by a particular reviewer and have missed something I would really like.

The Annual Games List - which are archived - is a much better gauge from numerous people, all with different gaming tastes.

Well, it seems this has already been settle, but I agree with Mike. I also have felt daunted by the sheer volume of great Reviews posted, as wonderful as they are! It doesn't seem like an onerous request, to add the "Grade" to the Title line. The odds of finding a "good" game would be greater, and the goal achieved with a lot less time, if you don't have to search through all the C- reviews, too. (And I also would not base my purchase solely on the Grade given to a game, but would read the entire Review.)

A reviews is, of course, always appreciated, if only because a person has been willing to invest the time in writing it !!

But I wouldn't normally use one as a guide to purchasing a game because one person's opinion (and grading of a game) might not be the same as mine.

I mainly look at the story line myself and if it appears to be something I would enjoy I tend to "risk all" and BUY

I tend to agree with Mad. I like to read the reviews but don't really use it to decide whether I'm buying a game or not, except if the game sounds too glitchy. Even then, if I'm interested in the game, I still usually get it but I can go in knowing I might have problems.

I'm with Mad and oldbroad in how I decide whether to buy a game or not.

Ok, the list Jenny referred me to is a good alternative.
I will take a look at it.
Apart from that, i have not read a single good argument
against my reasoning. There is simply no good reason not to add the grade
to the game name. All post miss the point, even though its so simple.
Its just an additional information which would be VERY helpful for some
and can be ignored by the rest.

But of course that would be only possible for the already graded games
and will not possible for the new reviews, because there won't be any
grades from now on.

@Reenie: exactly ;-)

"All post miss the point, even though its so simple.
Its just an additional information which would be VERY helpful for some
and can be ignored by the rest."


I don't think the point is being missed - I just don't see how grading solves anything

How many people will ever agree with a grade that's been awarded ??

And how would a person know which grade is one they would agree with ??

Agreed Mad. I do like seeing the grades but ignore them in my decision to buy or not to buy. (With casual games I do look a little more closely because there are so many, many of those.)

Unless you are totally in tune with the reviewer and like or dislike everything the same as the reviewer, the grade shouldn't really come into play.

The game Forever Worlds has a D rating here on Gameboomers which some people would maybe never buy the game based on that (or look at it). I liked the game! The Rockin Dead has a C rating here on Gameboomers. I liked the game! There are many others like that I'm sure.

Anyone who thinks adding grades to the list would be easy ...

Download the ***Reviews List Webpage*** to your hard drive. Then use Seamonkey Composer or Front Page (or your webpage editing software of choice) and start adding the grades to the webpage yourself. You'll probably decide it's too much work before you get very far -- assuming you start at all. But this is exactly what you're asking someone on Gameboomers staff to do.

We can't just press a button and have the grades magically appear in the review list. Someone would have to go in and edit the webpage manually for each and every single game on that list. And that is a LOT of work for something so few people have any use for.

Thanks, Jenny.

We didn't miss the point - we took it a step or two forward. We discussed the necessity of it.

@Mad, oldbroad: i don't want to come across arrogant, but your posts
miss the point again. Its not about agreeing or disagreeing with
a grade. Its not about your thought-process reagrding grades/reviews etc.
Its just [blip] more likely, easier and faster to find 4-5 great games
you will really like by concentrating on a set of 30 A/A- graded games
(AND reading their reviews) rather than
staring at a list of 400 game names, starting to read with letter 'A'.
Yes, you will miss certain good games. And yes, you will not agree with every grade.
And yes, grades have a lot of flaws. So what? That is not the point.

@Jenny: Ok, if its too much work, i understand that.

Ok, the matter is settled, i will not post about it anymore.
At least there is this other annual game list to look at.

Well, if the point was that it is an easy thing to do, I guess Jenny100 took care of that.

Also, you make it sound like any grade less than A- is not worth bothering to look at.

This horse is dead, and I don't want to beat it myself. It is easy to see how time-consuming it would be to retroactively insert a "Grade" to the review titles already existing. And the hope that anyone would agree to start including a Grade in the title when posting of new reviews has been squelched as well by the decision that future game reviews will no longer include a Grade within the text of the review itself. So that, as they say, is that.

Still, you can't help noting that most web sites dealing with game reviews (GameSpot, PC Gamer, etc) do "Grade" the games they review, usually on a scale of 1 to 10 or 1 to 100, or some other measure of comparability. Although a Grade is not the only input I would seek (I read the full review), ranking is a useful tool in the coarse sense of sorting out the good ones from the chaff.

Game Boomers has always been different from other sites and it's what makes it charming and unique. If you want main stream, there are other choices available. We aren't trying to be like the others and it's not a competition.

And please note that we are not missing the point. We are an educated bunch here with lots of talents and we are fully capable of understanding what is being said. We just decided it wasn't what we saw fit for our website. Period. End of story. Have a happy day!

Here !! Here !!

I too like the fact that Gameboomers does its own thing.

I find the lists very helpful, particularly when someone whose taste is similar rates a game highly. It is a good starting point as i suppose the grades might be.

However, it is surprising how much our tastes diverge. There's one game I thought was dreadful in almost every respect but it has almost universal acclaim and earned an A+ from our reviewer. Can you guess what it is?

Thank you, Ana!

There aren't many games that got an A+ grade.
So far I've found these:

The Longest Journey
Syberia 1
Syberia 2
Myst III: Exile
Riven

I would guess the game you thought was "dreadful" was one of the Syberia games. I know some players don't enjoy first person puzzlers, but you did say "almost universal acclaim" so that suggests either The Longest Journey or Syberia.

Scratches got an A+ too.

Oh. I didn't realise the grading narrowed it down that much. Yes Jenny 100, it was The Longest Journey.

Games reviewing is a subjective art. No matter what the "professionals" say about their objectivity, their experience, their personal and cultural biases always have an impact upon the games they like or dislike.

The only almost objective measure of a game is the sales. But then, without the right promotion, to the right market, the greatest gem of a game won't get seen by the right people, and so the sales won't match either.

So, this is just a long way of saying, I'm not surprised some people loved The Longest Journey (I am one of them), and likewise I'm not surprised some people loathed it, and still further people were left entirely without a strong reaction either way. It is a fine example of it's genre of story-heavy, dialog-heavy, fantasy adventure, but it's not for everyone. But then, Pandora's Box is a fine example of it's genre of story-light (but not absent), (mostly) short puzzle games in a polished wrapper, but it's not for everyone either.