How we actually decide a score

People ask how we land on a number, so here's the honest answer: we argue about it. There's no spreadsheet of weighted categories. A score is shorthand for how much we'd recommend a game to a friend.

We do play by a few rules, though. Nobody scores a game they haven't put real time into, and we try to judge it against others in its own genre. A relaxing sim and a twitchy racer aren't measured by the same yardstick.

A high score doesn't mean flawless. Hollow Lantern has pacing issues and still earned a great rating, because what it does well it does brilliantly. We care more about the overall experience than a checklist of features.

If a game's under 4.0 here, it's not necessarily bad — it just didn't fully win us over. Read the words, not just the number.