Our Review Format

Learn about our strategy for reviewing games.

At Nintendo Players, we do our best to review as many games as we possibly can, covering all Nintendo consoles past and present. We focus our efforts on key new releases, but we can't always cover everything due to time and financial constraints.

Our reviews all follow a common format. This makes it easy to compare two reviewed games side-by-side, as each review will cover the same aspects of the game, so you'll know exactly where each one excels. Our scoring rubric, found at the end of each review, contains a score for each main aspect of the game, as well as an overall rating. Scoring is done on a scale of 0 - 10, with 0 being the worst and 10 being the best. For the sake of simplicity, we measure a game's key aspects (gameplay, presentation, graphics, audio, and replay value) by half points, meaning that each category may have a score ending in a .0 or .5 (e.g. '5.5' or '8.0'), but not any other decimal (NOT '7.2' or '9.9'). Our overall score for a game is specified to any tenth of a point (.0 to .9) in order to generate a broader scale to make it easier to compare different games based on their review scores. It is important to note that a game's overall score is NOT AN AVERAGE of the scores for each category.

The scoring rubric shown at the end of each review contains three key elements for each category (including the overall score): the name of the category, the game's score for that category, and a short explanation of our rationale for that score. Although the table provides a great summary of each element of the game, it does not contain as much detail and relevant information as the main body of the review, nor does it provide any information about the game's available modes of play, etc.

The following table, which is identical to the one displayed with each review, contains the name of each grading category and a sample score for that category. The 'Description' field contains a short explanation of the features of a game we analyze to determine the score for that particular category.

Gameplay	Controls, single-player modes (overall depth and fun factor), level design and variety, overall fun of main game mode.
9.5
Presentation	Story, ability of cut-scenes and/or voice acting to make game world more engrossing, game difficulty, visual style and ease of use of game menus, user options and settings.
4.0
Graphics	Degree to which the graphics match the tone and overall presentation of the game, visual quality (color, realism, etc.) of playable characters and environments and cut-scenes, frame rate, support for advanced visual technologies such as progressive-scan or widescreen.
7.5
Audio	Variety of music and sound effects, degree to which the audio matches the tone and overall presentation of the game, quality/clarity of the audio, audio intelligence (do characters say things that make sense?).
8.0
Replay Value	Depth and length of single-player mode, multiplayer modes of play, unlockable items or challenges, number of players supported, online connectivity.
6.5
Overall	A general statement clarifying the main strength and/or weakness of the game. Who should consider this game worth buying?
8.3

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