How we actually decide on a score

People ask how a game ends up a 4.2 instead of a 4.5, and the honest answer is: it's a conversation, not a formula. We don't run numbers through a spreadsheet. Someone plays it, writes up their notes, and then we argue.

We weigh how a game feels moment to moment more than how much stuff it contains. A tight racer with three tracks can beat a bloated RPG with a hundred menus. If controls fight you, or the game constantly interrupts itself, that pulls a score down fast.

Battery drain, load times, and how pushy a game is about grabbing your attention all count too. Those things are easy to leave out of a review and impossible to ignore when you actually live with a game.

So treat the number as shorthand for the words around it. The paragraphs are where the real verdict lives — the score is just a signpost.