MOMENTARY HIATUS TIME.

No, seriously, it's not gonna last that long.

I've been fairly unsatisfied with the review style I've been using lately, so I'm finally gonna brainstorm and change the format. As a result, there's gonna be a little hiatus for reviews.

Still gonna try and come out with two posts of content a week though, so it's not all coming to a halt. Just reviews.

Yep.

Oh yeah...

There's now a score guideline compendium page. Cause I don't feel like having to continuously link to the darn guidelines every time I put up a review. But yeah! It's all over there on the side. Under the header marked "Stuff!"

Yep.

Fighting Game Review Guidelines

Okay, so for fighting game reviews, I've realized that there are a few factors that I feel simply aren't necessary to the overall score, and would be better off mentioned in passing. But I also realized that if I was to remove one or two score sections, it would seriously throw off my score totals. So, in order to accomodate games of different genres, I've decided I'll come up with separate score guidelines for the specific genres.

In the case of fighting games, I'll be using a five category system scoring up to a total of 50 points in order to determine the overall quality of the game.

The categories will be Presentation, Graphics, Sound, Controls and Fun Factor.

The score rankings will be as follows.

• 0-10: A Sissy Fighter - A fighting game that holds no weight, not even worth catching for free on basic tv.
• 11-20: A Featherweight Fighter - While not at all good, a Featherweight can at least offer a punch or two. Good for children and goat food.
• 21-30: A Middleweight Fighter - The average by which fighting games will be measured, a Middleweight will be worth playing with friends, even if it's not the cream of the crop.
• 31-40: A Heavyweight Fighter - While a Middleweight is the average, a Heavyweight is the baseline which all fighting games should at least try to aspire to. Worth investing time in getting skilled in.
• 41-49: A Champion Fighter - Now this is a fighting game! Playable at any level from casual to competitive, and worth every second of effort put into it,  champion fighter delivers constant knockouts! Forget pay-per-view, you've got to own this one!
• 50: The Strongest Under the Heavens - Much like the perfect game, the Strongest Under the Heavens is a legend of which most can only catch glimpses of the dream. Perfectly balanced, well rounded in cast, beautiful and blood pumping in soundtrack and perfection in it's existence, to play this game is to understand nirvana. It is to know where the answer lies.

Yep. So there you go.

Score Guidelines!

So basically, I just want to have a post that I can link to that will give people an idea of how the review scores work around here. Here we go:

•  1-10: SO FUCKING BAD! LIKE EYE EXPLODINGLY BAD! Don't do it to yourself. Even if you enjoy pain. Some things just aren't worth the trouble.
• 11-20: Pretty damn terrible. I wouldn't suggest it for any reason.
• 21-30: A bad game. Not my cup of tea, but I'll forgive those who chose to enjoy it. Myself included.
• 31-40: An O.K game. While not a worthwhile pursuit, the game contains enough merits that should someone choose to defend it, it's at least mildly understandable.
• 41-50: A decent game. It's nothing worth raving about, but it's worth at least an hour, or a quick playthrough on a rainy day.
• 51-60: A good game. A game that's happily nestled in average territory, I wouldn't tell someone NOT to get a game that ranks here. Hell, I might recommend it, simply because it definitely isn't bad.
• 61-70: A damn good game. While not a masterpiece, a damn good game is something I'd recommend. It has enough merits to stand at least a head above the average.
• 71-80: A great damn game. This is a game worth suggesting to just about anyone, a solid combination of story, gameplay, graphical presentation, and sound work.
• 81-90: An excellent game, one worth having praise sung about it. Games that have the qualities of a great dame game, but have something that shine about them that puts them above the others will rank here.
• 91-99: A positively marvelous game. An awe inspiring, breath taking work of art that sucks you in and doesn't let go.
• 100: The Perfect Game: All of my reviews will be pursuit of this... An act of god... Or better yet, all of the gods from all religions. A creation of active impossibility, dividing by zero and producing, hands down, a game that firmly belongs in the halls of the gods of gaming, passed down to our mortal eyes for enjoyment solely so said gods can be amused by our ravenous mind explosions as we experience game nirvana. AKA, Not gonna happen.

So yeah. That's that.

Review guidelines, version: the first.

So it's taken me quite a while to come up with a concrete review flow or style to use when I begin posting game reviews, but I don't want to wait too long in between posts. So I've decided to just roll with it and see what happens.

As a result, my review format for my first go 'round will follow a pretty freeform style, at least as far as text. My main guidelines will be to touch on the things that matter most to me in a game, then rate them on a scale of 1-10, using ".5"s as in betweens should I not be quite sure about a full numerical score.

The items I intend to touch on are:

• First Impression
• Overall Presentation
• Accessibility
• Graphics
• Sound
• Controls
• Difficulty
• Replayability
• Story  

           and

• Fun Factor (As inspired by the late, great GamePro) 

After compiling those together, the total scores will combine together to form the final score (0 being the worst, 100 being the best.)

That's what I got for now. With that out of the way, my next post will be the actual review. Yup.