My Review Scale

There can be only one… through five. And maybe one more

There are plenty of review sites out there. All of which having scores and grades. They all work for them and over the years of writing and voicing my own opinions, I have thought often, how best do I put a tangible value to these opinions. The number or score doesn’t really matter, in the end my thoughts are simply my own and they will occasionally differ from anyone else’s. This is more of just a benchmark of how I would score and level in a simplified way.

I Believe that the best scale is one of 5 points. Going higher than that often makes things more confusing or trying to explain away why it’s this or that, bumping a point up or down. If you look at a 10 point scale, once you get past 6 and lower, you’re essentially trying to explain how bad something is. Sure you could argue that one thing is worse than the other, but at the end of the day what is objectively bad, is still bad. A scale of 100 is just overkill, as is a 10 point scale with decimals… (they are secretly the same thing!). 5 Points just makes sense.

A score of 5 is obvious, its awesome, great, amazing, near perfect (nothing’s truly perfect but is so nit picky you gotta let these things go). 4 is good, you liked it, it was well done but it didn’t have that oomph that will linger in your mind for years to come as that thing. 3 is meh, it wasn’t great, but it wasn't bad. You can tell that there were more good ideas than bad, it just may not have landed, but the effort counts! 2, this is where things start to get bad. You didn’t like it, it may be you were in the wrong mood, its not your cup of tea, but you were just not a fan, and you probably won’t give it another chance to change your mind. 1, This. Thing. Sucked. You almost could argue that the movie was so bad that you’re glad you watched it so that you could hate it. Every once in a while its nice to blow off some steam, now you have ammo.

And then there is 2.5…

Okay, I lied, technically I have a 6 point scale, or well.. 5 and a half? Point is, every once in a while, there’s that movie that you walk out of, and you have no thoughts at all. You nothing it. I honestly think this is the worst score you can give something. If you have gone into something, invested 2 hours of your life, you better have gotten something out of it, positive or negative. I don’t use the 2.5 often, i try to weigh it out, decide that my negative feelings are based off the story or the lack of any sort of inspiration. If it’s the latter, it’s getting the worst score i could think off.

So there we have it. 5 *cough* and a half *cough* point scale, cut and dry. This is the scale I choose to go with. It can change and be altered down the line, but it seems pretty simple to me, and isn't that what the scores are all about?