Current Events > ITT: I rate ten games along the entire 10-point scale, from 10/10 to 1/10

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It's been said before that the 10 point review curve is flawed. Nowadays, 7 is considered the baseline of what constitutes "good", and anything below that is tossed out to the trash. I've fallen into a similar mindset, but I like to think that with the occasional realisation of this habit, it's possible to think about games and their ratings in less of a lazy, arbitrary way. What makes a 10/10 game so good? How should you feel about a game that's 6/10 - better than average, but not a game with a lot of staying power?

This topic is hardly an objective observation of that - it's gonna be me talking about games I like/dislike, and how I think they fit into the ten-point review scale because I think it'll be a fun little project for me to do. And I went so far as to begin this thread with a thesis statement, but it's ultimately just a fun little list idea for me to talk about some shit I care about. Have a look, have a chat, but ultimately let's have some fun.

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10/10: Rayman Legends

A 10/10 game can be many things. Ultimately, I think a 10/10 game should be able to stand on its own as a video game, independent of its series or genre - it should be one of the best games you've played, regardless of whether you're familiar with the genre or series that it hails from. In this case, it's Rayman - I've played very little of the Rayman series, having finished Hoodlum Havoc and Raving Rabbids and played a few minutes of 2, and it's always been kind of subpar to me. I like Rayman as a character, but he was never my favorite and I didn't particularly care for the series.

With this game and Origins, I was initially turned off by the art style. I don't like games with that stylised goofy art style, where the movement is all tweened between some JPEGs - and even with reviews and videos saying how good they were, I didn't touch these games for years. That is, until I saw them both on sale on the PSN store in like 2016 - bundled together for like $12.

Origins is okay. It feels a little half-baked in areas, but it's an alright game. It's perfectly fine, but the fact of the matter is that Legends blows it out of the water in every aspect.

The collectathon elements are challenging, but fair - things are hidden in clever ways that require both skill and smarts to locate, rather than always being hidden behind an obstacle course of death. The platforming gameplay is slick, responsive and fantastic across the board - though viewer beware, there are two levels that prominently featured swimming underwater. It's not terrible, but one water world is more than enough for the base game. It has these goofy and fun mechanics like the scratch cards, and the lums you collect in every level go towards unlocking new skins to play as - of which there are dozens. It has four player co-op, daily and weekly challenges, little pet monster things to collect, completion trophies to gauge your skill... and it remakes the entirety of Origins, bringing all of Legends' improvements over in the process. Nothing is left out of place in this game, and it all jives so well.

Rayman Legends is an incredible platformer that nothing could really match until recently - it's like a perfect blend of old-school Mario and old-school Sonic. It has a wealth of content for the price you can buy it for, and it's arguably the best platformer of the 2010's, period. It's a game you can enjoy whether you're familiar with Rayman or not. This game is a 10/10 for me because it rises above its series and genre to be the best of both, and it gives you enough stuff to do in the game that you will well and truly run the game into the ground during your time with it. But by the time you're burnt out on it, you're out of content to play - from my experience, the game doesn't overstay it's welcome, nor does it end on a bittersweet or sour note. It hits a perfect middle ground. Few games can claim to do this out of the box - but Rayman Legends certainly can.
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Paid review.
/s

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9/10: Mass Effect 2

The process that led to this 9/10 is a similar process to what led to Rayman Legends being my 10/10. Legends is a game that surpasses its genre and series to become something fantastic regardless of where it came from - whereas my 9/10 pick here, Mass Effect 2, falls a bit short of that mark. That is to say, Mass Effect 2 is effectively -the- definitive Mass Effect game - it sums up and expands upon the niche that Mass Effect fills almost perfectly, to the point where it doesn't have to be the best game of its genre. It's still very much the best Mass Effect game, and that's fantastic.

The funny thing is that I prefer the first game to this one in a lot of aspects. I like Mass Effect's story, themes and tone - it feels very Silver Age of Comic Books, kind of goofy and endearing, but it also has a genuine heart - and it's pretty endearingly optimistic. It was a good way to start the series, storywise - the gameplay was clunky, and the Mako was a bit rubbish (though I like it more than most), but it was a bold first step in the right direction.

Mass Effect 2 works so well to begin with because it instantly subverts the first game's tone. You started the first game with a slow, dialogue-heavy exposition dump about this weird mission that you're about to take. It sets up the story arc of the game, and it sets up the universe at large - human-alien xenophobia, the council, the Alliance, the SPECTRE program etc. I like it, but it's not for everyone and that's okay.

So how does the second game start? The ship you spent the first game using is destroyed in an attack. Your crew scatters, some crew members are killed, and Shepard is thrown into space where they ultimately die.

If Mass Effect 1 is Silver Age, then Mass Effect 2 is very much Bronze Age if not Dark Age. But that's not a bad thing.

I've always had issues with arbitrary tone shifts in gaming series. I hate the 7th gen Bionic Commandos and Bomberman: Zeroes of the world, and I spent a lot of time disliking Jak 2 for how it changed the Jak and Daxter series into a decent, but not great, GTA clone. But Mass Effect 2 really resonated with me.

The first game had dark themes, what with the human supremacist terrorist cell Cerberus and the option to commit genocide against the Rachni. But Mass Effect 2 really dove into some messed up shit. We have Jack, a powerful biotic who was experimented on as a child and who spent most of her life as a slave, merc or drug-addicted space pirate - a hardened criminal who knows nothing but torture and anger. We have Mordin Solus, a character who essentially inflicted a genocide onto another race and feels little to no remorse over it due to logistics. We have the Collectors, who kidnap people while they're still conscious and use them for nefarious means. Pair that with locations like Omega and the planet you go to for Jacob's loyalty quest, and you have a game that's willing to get pretty depressing. The tone shift is played absolutely straight, and it works incredibly well.

The gameplay is also fixed up significantly. Everything about the combat has been revamped, for better or for worse - I much prefer how combat works in this game, but I dislike the use of thermal clips. The new characters can be hit or miss, but I like them. I especially like the returning characters, with some of the game's finest moments being scored to the main theme from Mass Effect 1 - it creates a real sense of nostalgia and peace, breaking up the occasionally upsetting tone of the game with some moments of levity.

Mass Effect 2 is a game that managed to amplify the best aspects of the first game by contrasting them against darker themes. It shifts the direction in which the series goes while staying true to the first game in many regards, and it forges its own identity as a game and steers the series beyond that. It has its issues, but Mass Effect stands as a great game of its time and arguably as the best game of its series.
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8/10: Pokemon Emerald

The first two generations of Pokemon are iconic - I like a good deal of designs from the first set of games, and I really love where the second generation went. The third generation of Pokemon doesn't have that pop to it - the soundtrack stands out, but there's a lot of design rehashes. Instead, what I like about Pokemon Emerald is that it improves on the gameplay significantly, and gives the series a pretty solid coat of paint in places where it needed it.

I like Pokemon Emerald over Crystal and Yellow for a few reasons. First of all, Running Shoes - these made going back to the older games borderline impossible for me as a teenager. Second, the graphics are really, truly fantastic - I'm not big on how the Pokemon sprites scale when they move, Crystal's animations were much better IMO, but each Pokemon sprite looks sharp and the overworld sprites are a major step up from the GB/C titles. Lastly, this game runs smoother than any Pokemon game beforehand - it's like it's at a solid 60FPS compared to Yellow or Crystal's sub-30.

Emerald also stands out in the series for significantly changing the story compared to its preceding games. In Pokemon Ruby, you fight Team Magma. In Sapphire, you fight Team Aqua. Emerald? Both of the storylines are packed into one. There's no other way that they could have pulled this gimmick off short of not releasing a third Hoenn game - and they did a pretty solid job of it.

To me, Pokemon Emerald sits at a point between pure functionality and decadence in the Pokemon franchise. The first two generations were bleeding edge for the time, and because of that they could break fairly easily. They were stylish, but by 2001 the games were beginning to show their age - the Gameboy was like a less powerful NES, and the GBC felt like it was about on par if not a bit weaker. So it makes sense that the GBA games would be something of a SNES rebuild of the series, with more vibrant colours and more intricate pixel work.

The third generation has its flaws and bugs, but nothing quite as hardcore as Glitch City, a Missingno. that would fuck with your save, a clone glitch that could bring your Gameboy to its knees with lag etc. You had your standard cloning glitch and an internal clock error that fucked over berry production, and that seems to be about it this time - and on top of that, the game is really polished this time around. Third installments in a Pokemon generation tend to be pretty solid, but this generation as a whole stepped the game up a notch - and Emerald was the pinnacle of that.

After Emerald, there was Diamond, Pearl and Platinum. And IMO, the games are all fairly sluggish and overly long. Platinum less so, but the speed is still a step down from how the third gen games felt. There's a difference in movement speed, and also in how long the main storyline takes to go through - on one hand, more story content isn't a bad thing, but on the other, compared to the fairly compact and succinct plot of Emerald, Platinum just felt so bloated to me. The game looks flashy, with limited 3D - but that gameplay was crusty AF if you ask me.

Emerald stands at a crucial crossroads to me - it's fun, functional and fast, and it has a story that's a smidge more involved than prior games. It looks good, it sounds good, and while the Pokemon aren't the best batch ever, there were some real keepers in there like the Trapinch family, Spheal and Metagross. It's the best of the past, and it has a decent amount of flavour that would spill into later titles without a lot of the extra content cutting into the core experience. The story is short, popcorn-tier fun, not heavy with themes of alienation and universal genocide. Let me beat up the mob, or a bunch of eco-terrorists who could pass for a Power Rangers villain group. Miss me with that dark shit.
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