Review Scoring

Reviews are the best way for us at GINX TV to provide our readers with honest and informative opinions on the latest video games. Through critique and analysis, our aim is to provide the tools to help you ultimately decide whether or not a game is for you. 

We review everything from AAA games to fresh indies and form our opinions on them appropriately, and relatively — we wouldn’t look at Spider-Man 2 as we would Moonstone Island, for example. They’re different games striving for different things and we’ll explore them as such. At their core, our reviews look at where a game succeeds, where it might fall short and, most importantly, is it worth your time?

Our Review Scale

GINX TV’s reviews operate on a 20-point scale: 1-10 with .5 increments. We believe this affords us the most flexibility when it comes to scoring games without getting hung up on too many numbers, or squeezing games into ill-fitting boxes. 

10 - Masterpiece

• The highest praise we can give. This is a flawless game, or one with negligible issues that can’t possibly detract from the overall experience. A must-play on all counts, and one that will stay with you long after the credits have rolled. Game of the Year-worthy. 

9 - Exemplary

• A near-perfect game. One or two very minor but discernible shortcomings are present, but what it offers as a whole far outweighs them. Ambitious and bold — this game is highly recommended. 

8 - Great

• A delightful experience only held back by a few technical or conceptual flaws that are easy to overlook. This game is well worth your time with enjoyable and noteworthy ideas. 

7 - Good

• A fun game, but one with more limited appeal. Fans of the genre might find more to love than the average player, or it might be heavily bogged down by some glaring flaws in narrative, gameplay, or other. There’s a lot of potential here, though.

6 - Adequate

• Has slightly more merit than just a functional game. An interesting approach but the execution isn’t quite up to scratch. Fine overall, but hard to recommend to anyone who isn’t an enthusiast for the genre or game series. 

5 - Average

• This is a competent game, but one that struggles to offer anything remarkable. It won’t leave you with any lasting thoughts, and even fans of the genre might consider it bland. 

4 - Poor

• This game falls short of expectations and has few redeeming qualities. Maybe there are some good ideas here, but we’re squinting to see them. There are worse ways to spend your time, but you should still consider doing anything else.

3 - Bad

• Riddled with too many problems, be it performance, lack of originality, or just messy concepts all round. This game is an uphill battle to play and not in a fun way. Best to leave this one alone.

2 - Unplayable

• On top of being “Bad”, this game is completely broken and unplayable. We’re writing this review as a warning: Stay away. 

1 - Diabolical

• There is nothing to be gained here. Avoid at all costs. 

Unscored

• From time to time, we'll publish a review that we've been unable to assign a score to. This could be a review-in-progress, a preview, or other. 

How Do We Determine Review Scores?

Game review scores will always be a subjective matter, but we approach them from the most objective positions that we can: what does a game offer its players, and how well does it do this? We take into consideration everything that makes up a game, from story and characters to systems and mechanics. 

In certain cases, some aspects deserve more attention than others. For example, does this game have glaring performance issues? Is this mechanic something novel or impressive? We leave it up to the critic to determine what is noteworthy and relevant based on their experience with a title. 

Our overall goal is to provide information and impressions that allows you to forge your own judgements on whether a game is right for you. 

How Do We Decide Who Writes A Review? 

We assign reviews to our writers who we feel are best suited to scoring a particular game to ensure that each one is given its best shot at a fair critique. We take into account our writers’ knowledge and understanding of a genre or game as well as their overall enthusiasm for that title. 

We empower our writers to assign a review score based on their own knowledge, experience and, of course, their opinion — It’s worth remembering that review scores are just that.