How our Review Scores Work
Heyo, and welcome to RedSpy's review system! We decided to go with the original 5-star rating system of GameSpy to keep things simple. Our system does have certain tweaks to it but other than that, it's relatively the same.
Editors' Choice Award
RedSpy has an Editors' Choice award, which is automatically bestowed on all 4.5-star and 5-star reviews.
What makes a game worthy of such an award? Simple. These are for games that impact us greatly in some way, be it through their storytelling, worlds or otherwise. These are often going to be the types of games that clickbait journo sites on a slow news day would scream for you to play before you die. The kinds of games that speak to the player in some way and leave them with an unforgettable experience that may even change the very way they think.
RedSpy Seal of Disapproval
...On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's the "RedSpy Seal of Disapproval."
This prestigious award is reserved for particularly bad games. We're talking games that genuinely should not exist for any reason yet they still managed to crawl into our reality somehow. If a game gets this award, it's typically accompanied by a 0 or 0.5-star rating. Only play these titles if you want to lose your will to live.
What the Stars Mean
5 Stars: Outstanding! These are likely gonna be rare, but these are the kinds of games that deserve your attention (same for 4 and 4.5 stars really). Titles that stand out among the rest as being once in a lifetime experiences or otherwise downright amazing games that we feel need to be shared. Game of The Year quality stuff.
4 to 4.5 Stars: Great! A memorable experience all around. These games are highly recommended and still worth it regardless of minor problems that may exist.
3.5 Stars: Good. This game is enjoyable, engaging, interesting. Ticks all the right boxes, etc. There may be some issues here and there but
these titles are pretty solid and worth a look.
2 to 3 Stars: Fair. There's a lot to like or even love about these games, but there's a few glaring flaws that get in the way of them being able to truly shine. With enough care and polish, these games could be something special. This isn't to say that these are bad because sometimes regardless of the flaws in the final product, the experience is still enjoyable and engaging.
0.5 to 1.5 Star: Poor. While we intend for 1.5 stars to be applied to games that we feel are missed potential or otherwise just mediocre, it's when you hit 0.5 that you should run for the hills. While there may be some fun in finding bugs or exploits in the game or something to that effect, there's really nothing here. Consider this our way of saying "this is no place of honor, nothing is valued here."
Multiplayer Scores
Our scoring for multiplayer modes are pretty much what they say on the tin. These scores can also apply towards MMOs and similarly multiplayer-centric games. Look for the following:
RedSpy Green: Great! Regardless of this game's rating, the multiplayer here is outstanding. These are the kinds of multiplayer experiences you'll end up sinking tons of hours into with your friends. In some cases, this may even end up being better than the actual game itself!
Green: Good. The multiplayer here is generally pretty solid across the board. Still a lot of fun to be had here.
Yellow: Fair. Playing multiplayer or coop here is enjoyable but it's nothing to write home about.
Red: Don't Bother. This means either the multiplayer is extremely awful, poorly implemented and/or it's borderline unplayable for some reason. Best to avoid the multiplayer here unless you enjoy suffering or want to spread suffering to those around you.
Grey: Not Applicable. This applies mostly towards single-player games, but it also applies towards games where there's no form of multiplayer or it's otherwise unplayable due to outside factors such as the servers being shutdown.
What Are We Looking for When We Review Games?
We're not afraid to speak our minds. At no point will reviews on RedSpy ever be swayed or influenced by corpos, publishers, developers or other outside factors. If a game's a complete dumpster fire, we'll call it out as such. Vice versa for if we end up finding an amazing game that we personally believe is worthy of 5 stars or an Editor's Choice award. Additionally, some of us may be pretty blunt with our views on games but consider it tough love.
A bad launch doesn't necessarily mean a bad game. Let me explain: What I mean by this is that a game having a rough start doesn't necessarily make the game awful. No, this doesn't mean defending crap like crunch time, purposefully rushed development and/or even worse, defending products by *chokes* ActiBlizz... What I mean to say is that just because a game has a bad launch doesn't make it the second coming of the Antichrist. Sadly the modern industry's just like that nowadays and it's rare that we ever get something relatively polished out the gate.
Fun is the name of the game here. A major factor we'll look for is how fun a game is rather than solely judging it based on appearances, writing or graphics alone. Are the mechanics interesting and engaging? What about, say, the gunplay in an FPS or the units in an RTS? We want something that's different and innovates rather than someone selling a glorified tech demo as a full-priced game.
Money talks. We understand that every cent you pay for a game comes out of your hard-earned paycheck and we want to make sure you get the most bang for your buck with these experiences. We don't want you to waste $50, sometimes upwards of $70 bucks on a game that'll end up awful from the get-go. If the game costs too much, we'll say it as it is and if applicable, steer you to a legit place to get it cheaper.
Politics don't matter, take a shower. Something to note is that much like what we said at the start here, politics really don't matter and we won't let the personal beliefs of the developers, publishers or other people for/against us sway our opinions. We look at games, well, as games and by extent, as an artform, rather than as some echochamber or culture war grift shit. While sometimes I or others may have some personal beliefs or ideas put into a review, we wish to keep these as apolitical and unbiased as possible.
You're in this with us!
Finally, your opinion matters here, friends. We plan to open discussion threads on the forums for folks to discuss their thoughts on games and the general goings-on in gaming as a whole. Feel free to stop by sometime and if you'd like, drop us a line for what games you think we should review, what games you think we judged unfairly or what games you believe should be given a closer analysis!