How we land on a rating

People ask how we decide a game is a 4.2 and not a 4.5, so here's the honest answer. There's no spreadsheet formula. There's a person who played the game and a discussion about whether it earned the number.

We weigh a few things. How it feels moment to moment. Whether the systems hold up past the tutorial. How fair the difficulty is. And whether we actually wanted to open it again the next day, which is maybe the most telling one.

We deliberately keep our scale narrow, roughly from the high threes to the high fours. If a game is below that for us, we usually just don't cover it rather than trash it at length. Life's too short and so are your evenings.

So treat our ratings as one opinionated group's take, not a verdict from on high. Read the actual review — that's where the useful detail lives.