How We Actually Score A Game

People ask what our ratings mean, so here's the honest version. We don't have a spreadsheet with weighted columns. The number reflects how much we wanted to keep playing after the review was done.

We look at a few things consistently. Does it control well on a phone? Does the difficulty feel fair? Is there enough depth to come back to, and does it respect your time with sensible session lengths? A game can be simple and still score high if it nails its own goals.

We also weigh how it treats you when you're not paying attention. Constant nags, aggressive interruptions, and menus designed to trip you up all pull a score down, even if the core game is good.

A 4.5 from us means we genuinely recommend it and kept it installed. Anything below 4.0 means it has real problems we couldn't look past. We'd rather have a narrow honest scale than pretend everything is a masterpiece.