I mean, it’s hard to discern the difference between a 7.0 and 7.5 score, but people KNOW the diffeence between 3 stars and 3.5 stars, and the diff between 3.5 and 4, for instance.

Even their new system of breaking it down to 0.5 scores is kind of pushing it, in terms of how accurate you can realistically be about how good a game is. Can you REALLY tell the difference between a 7.5 game and a 7.0?

Game rating should be less about trying to ‘rate’ the game and more about telling you whether it’s worth buying. As such, my favorite rating system is the one used by Games for Windows magazine. Instead of actually trying to rate the game on a score of 1-10, they pick a description of how they feel about the game, then use that to assign a number (just because people seem to insist on numbers in their ratings…) It’s a game that’s OK, but will only appeal to fans of the genre? It’s a 6. Fun enough to appeal outside of the narrow bounds of ‘genre fans’, but not really a blockbuster? It’s an 8. Very nearly a blockbuster game, but with issues that would prevent it from achieving that potential? It’s a 9.