Retrograding 12.17.07

5 Years. 150 Reviews. Where the the time go? I’ve written about 1000 articles, reviews, columns, news bits, and commentaries on games since my very first article for 411Mania.com five years ago. Who knew it would turn into such a big piece of my life?

This retrograding is more a look back at the games I’ve reviewed more than anything else.

My First two reviews were on 12/17/2003 and they were Robotech: The Macross Saga and Pokemon Ruby. Back then there was a four point system catering to graphics, sound, gameplay and fun. In other words it was skewed for a high score. I would review 14 games under this system until 10/02/2003 when we would switch over to the process you now know and love: The ten point scale.

The first review under this system was actually a test run we did on 1/28/2003 for a PSX game called Vanguard Bandits. The system was so popular, we ran with it and used it up until the entire games staff left 411mania for Inside Pulse. The first official review I did under the system was 10/28/2003 when I reviewed Demikids Dark and my last review for 411 was on 07/30.2004 which was MISSING Since November. In less than year I would review thirty games.

My very first review for Inside Pulse was also the very first new piece of content for the website. It debuted on 08/10/04 and was a review of Echo Night Beyond. There was actually a review I did two days earlier on August 8th that was for Inside Pulse in Ham-Ham games, but that ended up being on both sites. My last review on Inside Pulse in its preblog format would be on 09/01/2006 and it was about the game Barrow Hill. I would review sixty-nine games in a little over two years. Insane.

The first review I did for Note a True Ending was Disgaea 2 and it was on 09/16/2006. My last review was on 11/25/2007, which was KoF XI and my 150th review. In the year+ NATE has been around, I have reviewed thirty-seven games. Again, I find this to be insane.

As you know, there is a difference in how we score and how most other sites scores. MOST video game sites only give out scores ranging from 6-10 and are paid by publishers to give bullshit reviews and high scores, all the while telling their readers 7 is somehow average on a scale from 1-10. Not here. We don’t take swag, we don’t take bribes and a 5.0 is average because no one at IP has failed basic math. Here now is going to be a lot of statistics to chart my average review rating so we can see how I’ve evolved from website to website and year to year.

411 average with the old four point scaling method: 7
IP Average (From the first review for IP to the last review before IP3.0 when we all became blogs) : 6.1957
New Format Average (Every review under the ten point scale): 6.2243
NATE Average (all the reviews I have done since the switch to NATE): 5.73
Total Average: 6.2967

As you can see I’ve gone down from website to website. I feel my average is still pretty high, but I chalk that up to (hopefully) playing a lot of good games.

Here’s my average by year:

2002 Average: 7.5
2003 Average: 6.83
2004 Average: 6.76
2005 Average: 6.07
2006 Average: 5.93
2007 Average: 5.57

2002 can easily be explained by the fact I reviewed only five games that year: Phantasy Star 1-3, Robotech, and Pokemon Ruby. It’s no wonder my average was that inflated.

In 2003 I reviewed 18 games and half of those were still in the original IP formula.

2004 was arguably our best year in gaming. During this time period I reviewed a whopping FOURTY games. I was still playing a ton of games I loved, and some stinkers like Beyond Good and Evil and CIMA: The Enemy, but for the most part I was loving what I was doing. However I knew I was close to burning out and decided I wanted to stop reviewing and doing games writing in general.. Yeah. Look how well that worked.

My Hiatus lasted from 11/04/2004 until 02/21/2005 when Widro and Bebito literally begged me back to writing and bribed me with a Beta XBOX. My first game out of the shoot was the dreadful Chicago Enforcer. I didn’t take it easy on myself at all this year as having beta GCN and Xbox’s meant even more shit was coming my way. In 2005 I reviewed 38 games. Pretty insane when you realize that was in only nine months. I only reviewed from 02/21 to 11/11. You can see that this is really the year I agreed to throw anything publishers put in my way and well…the average score from 2004 to 2005 dropped by .69. Heh. Sixty-nine.

I took two months off and returned at the start of 2006 with SNK’s Samurai Shodown V. In 2006 I reviewed twenty eight games, showing I just don’t know when to fucking quit. My review average continued to drop, and the highest score I gave out that year was to Pokemon Ranger, the only game to get an 8 from me. Ouch.

ONCE AGAIN I tried to leave gaming, but got pulled back in. I managed to escape this time from 12/09/2006 to 03/09/2007, a full quarter of not gaming. This year I cut my reviewing back dramatically – down to 21 games. Yet this was also my lowest average ever, with a score of 5.57. There were a lot of bad games this year. I sadly seem to have played them all.

I thought it would also be fun to look at the different genres I’ve reviewed over the years and see how they faired. It gives a telling look at either what genres I prefer, or what genres inherently make for better gaming.

Action Games (10 Games): 6.05
Adventure Games: (10 Games): 4.95
Beat Em’ Ups (3 Games): 5.5
CCG Style Games (1 Game): 5.0
Compilations (7 games): 7.21
Dance Games (2 games): 6.5
Fighters (14 Games): 6.43
First Person Shooters (6 games): 5.42
Mini Games (4 Games): 7.13
MMORPG (1 Game): 6.0
Pinball (1 Game): 9.0
Platformer (4 Games): 7.5
Puzzle Games (4 games): 6.13
Racing Games (2 games) 7.0
Rail Shooter (1 Game): 7.0
Rhythm Game (1 Game): 4.0
RPG, Action (18 games): 6.08
RPG, Dungeon Crawl (4 games): 5.63
RPG, Strategy (12 Games): 6.38
RPG, Turn Based (21 Games): 6.9
Real Time Strategy (2 Games): 3.5
Shooters (8 Games): 7.5
Simulation (1 Game): 5.5
Sports Games (6 Games): 5.5
Survival Horror (7 Games): 6.43

It’s interesting that one of my favorite Genres in Adventure has such a low average, while a genre I hate, Platformers, have such a high one. I don’t think anyone is surprised that SHMUP’s are my highest scoring genre. I am shocked that a little over 1/3rd of my gaming involved RPG’s of some sort.

Now let’s take a look at games by system.

DS (14 games): 5.61
Game Boy Advance (28 games): 6.68
Game Cube (14 games): 6.93
PC (11 games): 5.14
PS2 (39 games): 6.06
PSP (2 Games): 6.25
PSX (1 Game): 6.5
Wii (6 Games): 6.67
Xbox (35 Games): 6.57

I had no idea I reviewed THAT MANY Xbox games. Not a surprise that the PC and DS had the lowest score averages. I’ve always been open that, in my opinion, both have pretty low quality games. The fact the Game Cube had the highest over all score did cause me to raise an eyebrow. I thought the GBA would win here as four of the five games I have ever given a 9 to have been for that handheld.

I figure we should close this at with two lists. The first list is a list of every game I have reviewed chronologically. The second is a list of the 150 games I have reviewed from lowest score to highest.

And now for the Scoring.

And there we have it. A way too long look at the 150 games I’ve reviewed in the five years I’ve been in gaming journalism. Hopefully this has been of interest to more than myself.

Tomorrow we see my 151st review in Neo*Geo Battle Coliseum. Let’s see where the next five years take me.