Current Weighted Top Twenty (as of 9/11/2023):- VVVVVV (4.47)
- Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 (4.42)
- Crawl (4.36)
- Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (4.30)
- The Swapper (4.28)
- Inscryption (4.25)
- Roller Coaster Tycoon (4.23)
- Dandara (4.21)
- Mr. Driller Drill Land (4.21)
- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (4.19)
- ARMS (4.19)
- Skwish (4.17)
- UNSIGHTED (4.17)
- Tetris Effect Connected (4.16)
- Kirby's Air Ride (4.15)
- Pick Pack Pup (4.12)
- Toree 2 (4.12)
- Toree 3D (4.12)
- Paper Mario TTYD (4.11)
- Lucah: Born of a Dream (4.10)
I've heard talk of these forums being unused. Of Discord emerging as the clear victor over old message boards. Well, I'm here to say that, without old message boards, we wouldn't have places to post unhinged rants like the one I'm about to engage in. You might argue I could toss this over onto r/gaming. I say, yeah, I guess I could. But it feels more at home here.
Having spent the last few years writing for a video game website, I had the privilege of playing a bunch of review copies of games, some of which I probably never would have picked up with my own money. This also led to me playing a bit fast and loose with the money I was saving
not-buying those review copy games. Long story short, I generated a healthy backlog. One large enough to likely last me the rest of my days. This is concerning to me, seeing as I know the slow march of time will mean new games will be released in the future that I might want to play.
So, I decided to spend an entire year foregoing new video game purchases, starting on my birthday. We're several days in now, and I'm turning back to my backlog and making sure I give games their proper due over the next year, in the hopes of clearing things out and learning to appreciate what I've
got, rather than what society insists I need.
But what does this have to do with spreadsheets? Well, I'm glad you asked. Since I delved into making weird inventories of what I own, I also started doing a bit of ranking of games. This got a bit messy, but it adds another layer of satisfaction when I beat a game, or put a game down for completion. Some games I end up bouncing off, and as a result, they might appear played, but not beaten on my spreadsheet. I can live with that.
How does one rank video games? Well, you're asking a mentally unwell person that question, so you better expect the unexpected answer. I should mention, I actually have two spreadsheets, one for all video games, the other strictly for RPGs, as they are the lion's share of the games I've played in my lifetime, and my personal ranking of RPGs involves evaluating some genre staples and finding trends that don't necessarily align with my overall video game ranking criteria. In any case, I broke down my rankings into six categories, each possessing a scale from 1-5:
GAMEPLAY: An admittedly nebulous label, this seeks to evaluate the breadth and complexity of the overall gameplay experience. Games that rely largely on a single type of mechanic or possess gimmicky, unpolished gameplay elements score low in this category, while more complex games with a variety of gameplay types or well-explored gameplay concepts score higher.
CONTROLS: Essentially, whether or not a game possesses tight and thoughtfully considered control schemes, as well as whether or not controls are customizable. This factors in the notion of developers making player control deliberately difficult or otherwise.
ART: Largely pertaining to visual aesthetics, this is a sterile way of evaluating art, but does have a bit of subjective reasoning. Game art that lacks consistency across elements or comes across as generic or serviceable score lower, with higher scoring games possessing strong aesthetics- not necessarily lifelike visuals.
SOUND DESIGN: Again, a sterile way of evaluating music at its lower rankings, but becoming more subjective on the higher end of the scale. It's music and sound design as a whole.
PACING: This one is contentious, for sure. I love RPGs, but I know for a fact that many of them are not good about respecting the player's time... or being disrespectful in service of presenting a more grand adventure. Do the narrative/gameplay/novelties of the experience seem intentionally spaced out for player enjoyment or appreciation?
Now, the finer requirements for scoring high and low in these categories are more of a toss-up, and while I've tried to be very objective in delineating them, ultimately, each one caps out at a 5 amounting to "standout for the genre." No matter how hard I try, stripping these numerical values of an interpretative aspect feels impossible. However, I have slightly modified things to another extent: weighting values based on my personal preferences. The distribution is as follows:
CONTROLS: 16%
MUSIC: 19%
ART: 19%
GAMEPLAY: 24%
PACING: 18%
STORY/WRITING: 5%
This is not to say I think art and music comprise 38% of an overall game experience, but I do value them more than control options and strong pacing. The latter category is something I think we, as consumers, have a complicated relationship with, though you'll find that my top 20 has a number of very brisk experiences. As for writing, you might find it surprising that I value it so little. In short, I think most video game writing is pretty bad, with occasional bursts of originality and appropriate flair. Some of the best video games I have played have pretty minimal writing, so this category is more about whether the writing is appropriate for the project, and how generic or unpolished the final product appears to be.
In any case, here are some curious notes, as the spreadsheet does go beyond just weighted and unweighted averages: (This list curated on 9/4/2023, subject to change in a year)- My admittedly meager Steam library and PC games are very underrepresented on this list, which is something I hope to update in the near future. I'm missing a number of classics like Roller Coaster Tycoon, Age of Empires, and Starcraft, to name a few.
- Either I'm a nice guy or my ranking criteria are far too lenient, but a whopping 336 games out of the currently-listed 494 are rated a 3.00 or higher, unweighted. In contrast, my weighted preferences put 309 out of 494 at a 3.00 or above.
- For more precision, 37 games score a 4 or higher.
- There is a range of 22 unique average scores out of 495 games. There is a range of 208 unique average weighted scores, though this number is impacted by the amount of unique calculations factoring in weighted percentages. I will need to streamline this calculation in the future.
- 11 games have, in my opinion, a 5 out of 5 Control Scheme.
- 40 games have 5 out of 5 Sound Design.
- 48 games have 5 out of 5 Art/Aesthetics.
- 3 games have 5 out of 5 Gameplay. Yikes! They are: Mr. Driller Drill Land, Hand of Fate 2, and Tears of the Kingdom.
- 28 games have 5 out of 5 Pacing.
- 12 games have 5 out of 5 Writing.
- The top three averages on the sheet are 3.17 (67), 2.83 (61), and 3.33 (54).
All of these notes are based on weighted averages:- The top three most frequently recurring genres in my top 20 are platformers (5) and party/competitive games (5), and Role Playing Games (3).
- The lowest rated game I loved was Dokapon Kingdom (2.61). See, I enjoy average games!
- The highest rated game I liked was Dandara, which I think demands a replay for re-evaluation. I do really enjoy the ideas in Dandara but there were a couple of instances where I was a bit underwhelmed. The lowest rated game I liked was Metroid: Other M (2.16).
- I have a category of preference called "meh," and the highest and lowest games rated in this category are Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (3.61) and Sonic Heroes (2.03), respectively.
- The highest rated game I disliked was Crypt of the Necrodancer (3.65). I totally get what the game is trying to do but I think mastering its systems requires a single-minded obsession and a punishing reaction time. The lowest rated game I disliked was The Atla Archives (1.67). A recent release, I can't forgive its poor design, but I do know that it is an early effort from an ambitious and green developer.
- The highest rated game that I hated was Arc of Alchemist (2.61). Kind of shocked it even got that. The lowest rated game is Witch and Hero (1.65). This is a very mean ranking and is entirely based on buyer's remorse.
Here's the kicker. There's a backlog sheet on here, as well, and it contains a whopping 156 games. Some are near finished, but I don't feel confident enough adding them to the ranking sheet. 82 of these games remain literally unplayed, while the other 74 have been started or are in some progress. I need to sink a comfortable amount of time into a roguelike before I feel I can properly add it to the ranking sheet. Some of the near-finished games require a second look before adding them to the ranking sheet- I do not personally feel I need to complete a game to add it to the ranking sheet.
I do not know how I got to this point of having such a disgustingly large backlog, but I want to claw my way out of it, one way or another. I understand that having a bunch of RPGs and multiplayer/endless games in my backlog won't help that battle, but it is one I am committed to tackling, at least for the next calendar year.
If you have any questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to leave them here. May the gods have mercy on me.
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Topic: The Great(?) Video Game Spreadsheet Project: Year 32 Challenge! (Read 1635 times)
