How We Actually Rate Games

People ask what a 4.2 means versus a 4.6, so here's the honest answer: not much in isolation. The number is a rough summary of how glad we were to have played something, read alongside the words.

We don't score against a checklist. A short cozy adventure and a deep strategy game are judged by whether they do their own thing well, not by some universal standard that would make no sense across genres.

Everything starts from real play time. Nobody rates a game they installed and bounced off in five minutes without saying so clearly. If we couldn't put the hours in, we don't publish.

Treat the rating as a nudge and read the review for the why. The subjective bits, who a game is for and who should skip it, are the part that actually helps you decide.