spBlended Review Policy

How does one go about reviewing a Blender game? They come in many different shapes and sizes and most are in only half complete. But that doesn't mean they aren't worth playing. And if they are worth playing then they must be worth reviewing...



The process of judging a Blender game and awarding it a rating is not an easy task. Blender games are developed by a variety of different breeds of developer. At one end of the spectrum you have the amateur, learning Blender through trail and error and producing impressive work in the process. At the other end you have the professional Blender guru able to push Blender to the limits and produce some truly playable and impressive games.

In almost all cases, whether an amateur or professional, the games are far shorter than commercial games due to the sheer amount of work involved. Therefore, most games are labeled as "demos" or "works in progress" and are never really fully completed.

The spBlended Review Policy bears all of these issues in mind. Our readers are gamers who just want to know whether a certain game is worth playing and where to find the best gaming experiences. If a game is not worth playing then we say so; if it's crap then we say so; If it's excellent but very short then we say so. Get the idea?

There are 5 ratings awarded to each game, with the most important being the spBlended judgment Rating - a value between 1 to 10 which indicates how much we enjoyed playing the game. More on this later. Then there are the following specific ratings:

• Graphics


• Sound


• Potential


• Longevity

Most of these are self-explanatory. The Longevity rating is an important one. Many blender games are brilliantly designed and great fun to play so they deserve a high score, but they remain very short ( HellStation springs to mind :) ). The longevity rating takes into account not only the length of a game but also the replay value.

The Potential rating also deserves some further discussion. In many respects, this is self-explanatory, such as for games like HellStation where the potential would be realised by simply developing more of the same. But in other situations, where a game receives a low overall score but we can see what the developer is trying to do, a high Potential rating may give him/her the motivation to return to the game and realize the original goals.

The spBlended judgment Rating

When we award a score to a Blender game, we hope you all understand that our reasons are purely fair and objective. However, unless you are a reader of Edge magazine (for the unaware, it's a popular cutting-edge videogames mag), you may find some scores very harsh and offensive. It's all down to the to mainstream video game magazines who have popularized the concept that a game scoring 70% is crap and only games scoring above 90% are worth buying. What about the rest of the scale?

Here at spBlended, a game scoring 5/10 is average. This means it's a good game worth playing, but it offers nothing new or interesting enough to keep a player's attention for very long. But a score of 5 certainly doesn't mean the game is unplayable. Totally Unplayable games will receive a score of 0. Get it?

Summary

So there you have it - the spBlended Review Policy in all it's glory. What do you think? A pile of sh**te or a good way to review games? Have your say and write a comment below...