Updated 11:22 16 Jul 2024 GMT+1Published 11:17 16 Jul 2024 GMT+1

GAMINGbible’s Review Scores: A simple guide to our numbers

The numbers, Mason, what do they mean?

Ewan Moore

Words: Ewan Moore and Mike Diver

There is no such thing as an objective review. There just isn't. I know it, you know it. And that's fine! Isn't it brilliant that we can all have different responses to things instead of robotically agreeing with one another all the time?

Scoring video games is a tricky business, of course. And here at GAMINGbible what one writer believes to be an 8/10 game could be another writer's 6/10.

So in the interests of keeping things as consistent as possible, and in yet another attempt to explain in writing that nobody really believes 7/10 is a bad score, here is a rundown of GAMINGbible's scoring system and what each number actually means.

I would ask you refer back to this scoring guide next time one of us gives a game a 7/10 and you accuse us of thinking it's bad. Read the words next to the 7/10. Really chew them over and work to divine their meaning.

1/10: Trash

This game loads, but beyond that is so fundamentally broken that it cannot be played in any meaningful way.

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2/10: Very Poor

This game works, sure, but is so offensively bad to us that we'd rather it didn't.

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3/10: Poor

See 2/10 but the game is marginally less offensively bad. Maybe it has nice music or something.

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4/10: Below Average

We're getting somewhere - the game's playable from start to finish and not a total trainwreck, but so blighted by shortcomings, be they by design or bugs/glitches, that it dips below what we consider an average experience.

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5/10: Average

This is it, your average gaming experience. It's fine. It works. You press buttons and things happen. There might be a story to the game that at least makes some sense. What's promised in the pitch actually appears on screen. Some people are going to enjoy it, if the game in question is in their genre of choice. Not irredeemable by any means. Probably worth a rental, if such services exist in 2024.

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6/10: Good

Oh hey, this is a good game. It's often fun, sometimes a bit broken or, y'know, not-so-much-fun. Most of what it does, it does well - but it's also a lot of what we've seen before. There's no real spark of ingenuity here, nothing to really make this game stand apart from many others like it. If there were bold statements made about the game, it could be that they're not backed up by what's actually come out. The disparate pieces don't quite click together as they should. There's a good chance a bunch of people will still have fun with a game like this, but when the credits roll, will they feel satisfied? The answers are a mixed bag.

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7/10: Very Good

Woah, slow down there, video games. You're getting damn decent, now. Here's where extra polish is coming through, where the small details are refined, and the game in question pretty much plays like a dream. Again, it's not the most original thing ever, but it's engrossing, compelling, and when you turn it off at night you're probably still thinking about it the next morning. A 7/10 video game could well be GOTY material in and of the moment, and in the hands of the right person; but when the bigger picture is looked at, it's the kind of title that'll slip down the rankings pretty quickly.

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8/10: Excellent

Okay, so now we're really talking about GOTY contenders. Sure, there are some imperfections here, a few things that bug us. But for the most part? This game is hot, and you need it. It's going to deliver all the bang you could ever want for your buck, and some. And yeah, there might be some generic elements at play, but they're not there to the detriment of the whole. Ergo, this game bangs.

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9/10: Exceptional

This is a rare club. Genre-defining games live here. Games that change how we think about play, how we perceive long-running series, and that lead us down wonderful paths of excitement for what can follow in their wake. These are the trend-setters, not the hype trains. These are the games that don't just get into our head and our hearts, but our blood and guts, too. They're the ones we'll be talking about as essential decades from now. We're talking Breath of the Wild and The Last of Us, Final Fantasy VII and Chrono Trigger, Super Mario 64 and Halo: Combat Evolved. Minecraft, Street Fighter II and The Witcher 3. We can't imagine video games without these video games.

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10/10: Perfect

How does one even begin to declare a game perfect? When we know, we'll let you know. What's very clear, however, is that some games in that 9/10 category could well sit here - it all depends on the reviewer in question. Don't expect to see a 10/10 score appear too often on these pages, though, if ever. (Okay, we have a few, now.)

Take a look at some of our more recent reviews below!