I love video games. I love console games, I love computer games, and I really love Nintendo games. I don’t love all games, and I love some more than others. For something like 20 years I have been compiling a list of of my favorite games of all time, with a dream of one day organizing this inner chaos into an orderly ranking on paper, or rather, on screen. This is the GGoat Project; the Greatest Games Of All Time Project. I want to create system of rating games that is personal to me while at the same time as unbiased and comprehensive as possible. Many sites, such as IGN, do this same work, but most come with many problems.
The video game reviews of most sites are heavily warped by commercial influence, loose or vague ratings, and haste. Most sites attempt to review any and all video games, which often leads to rushed and lackluster reviews that are written after an insufficient amount of playtime. I will only be reviewing games that I have either played to completion, or played at least 100 hours. For this reason, most games that I review will be among my favorites. They will at least be games that I liked enough to play extensively. Otherwise, where’s the joy in writing or reading about it?
Thus, the GGoat project will be a place for the celebration of games and appreciation of greatness. For this purpose I have developed what I call the “greatness scale”. The greatness scale has ten categories that I believe to be the determinants of a game’s greatness. Each category is weighted by a maximum amount of points possible according to the category’s importance. Each game will be evaluated by adding the points gained from each sub-category for a total “greatness score” out of 100:
- Fun 20
- Stimulation/Engagement 15
- Innovation/Ingenuity 15
- Storytelling/Writing 10
- Immersion/World Building 10
- Control/Systems 10
- Graphics/Presentation 5
- Art Style 5
- Sound Design 5
- Score 5
- Fun: It is very unlikely that I will review a game that I did not find at least really fun, so most scores will be at least 10 out of 20.
- Stimulation/Engagement: Is there enough content to keep me engaged, is the content stimulating and engaging in a way where I feel like there’s a point to playing it and playing a lot, or do I get bored easily. Does it make me enthusiastic about playing it extensively or getting good at the game?
- Innovation/Ingenuity: Is the game important to gaming, to its genre, or to its series? How much does it improve or move these things forward?
- Storytelling/Writing: Is the story profound or gripping? Is the writing real or half-assed? Is it cinematic, theatrical, or dull?
- Immersion/World Building: Is the world of the game well developed, fleshed out, or funky and disjointed? Does it feel real, am I immersed in it? Is it seamless or does it feel clumped together?
- Control/Systems: How well does the game control? Do i feel like I really am that character when I’m playing or do I feel like I’m just pressing buttons while the computer puts stuff on the screen? Is it smooth or clunky? Do the control systems work to enhance the experience or create headaches? Are the menu systems intuitive and helpful or annoying and confusing?
- Graphics/Presentation: Must be rated “for their time” and according to the platform. Were these graphics as good as they could have been for the time and the console or platform the game was on?
- Art Style: Highly subjective, but, is it beautiful?
- Sound Design: Sound effects, atmospheric sounds, timing and effect on experience. Related to immersion.
- Score: Music made for the game; is it good? Does it enhance the experience or distract too much? Is it fitting and original?
I will give each new game that I play sufficiently a score as well as write a review explaining the game’s rating in each category. Past games will get ratings for reference, but it will be seldom that I write a full review for old games; there are typically many reviews already in existence and, I mean, who needs that at this point? An additional category, “Online Capability/Multiplayer” will be added for games where this is important, and scored out of 10. In this case, the scores will be added up and divided by 110 for average that can still be compared to games scored out of 100.
For example,
Fortnite: Battle Royale Review
- Fun: 18/20
- Stimulation/Engagement: 14/15
- Innovation/Ingenuity: 14/15
- Storytelling/Writing: 10/15
- Immersion/world building: 9/10
- Control/Systems: 7/10
- Graphics/Presentation: 5/5
- Art Style: 4.5/5
- Sound Design: 4.5/5
- Score: 2/5
- Online Capabilities/Multiplayer: 9/10
Total: 97/110
Greatness: 88.2
This is an example of a very good score, and I look forward to reviewing more great games. Expect many reviews of older games to look like this and more extensive reviews of new games to appear as they come into my life and consume me.
Long live games, long live gamers, and long live the GGoat Project,
-Tim
The Pineapple Couch 