First of all, here's a brief explanation of what the final score really means at the end of each review.

100%	The Programmer is a God	Impossible to attain.
99 - 90%	Excellent	Awe inspiring and enjoyable to the highest degree.
89 - 80%	Very Good	Falls just short of excellence, but still great.
79 - 70%	Good	Just a good game, not quite great.
69 - 60%	Above Average	These come in just over the boring games.
59 - 50%	Average	Dull. Tiresome. Play it if you want to sleep.
49 - 40%	Dumb	If you play for an hour, you're insane
39 - 30%	Dumber	If you play for more than half an hour, you're braindead.
29 - 20%	Painful	If you play for more than five minutes, you're a masochist.
19 - 10%	Embarrassing	You should feel personally offended that this game was made.
9 - 1%	Tragically flawed	Overexposure may lead to brain damage.
0%	The programmer is dead.	It was for the best.

All present ratings (except overall ratings) stand, with a few exceptions. All overall ratings will be averaged.


Categories will be weighted as follows:

New! Updated 7/20/13: I decided the ratings system would be revamped for all new reviews. A new category was added for "story", which will judge how good an RPG's story is; which, I felt was essential to any good RPG. Due to "final fantasy syndrome" in recent days (the phenomenon of developers of RPGs focusing too much on graphics and 3D and neglecting gameplay), I have reduced the weights of Graphics and Sound by 1 point. To make room for the new Story category, I have also reduced Innovation by 2 (As I feel the importance of Innovation has gone done over the years). The weights of Gameplay and Replay Value have stayed the same. One final note: since the replay value for RPGs (which is generally all I ever review) is almost always inevitably based on how many hours of gameplay the game has for completion, I am renaming the Replay Value category to "Hours of Gameplay".

Graphics - Weighted by 3	(All percentages multiplied by
Sound - Weighted by 2	"weight" then divided by 20)
Innovation - Weighted by 1
Gameplay - Weighted by 8
Hours of Gameplay - Weighted by 2
Story - Weighted by 4

Also, sometimes when I look at the final score I decide that maybe it doesn't really say what I want it to say, so I allow myself some leeway for up to 2 points. Also, I don't make all the reviews, sometimes my friend Wayne (who has just as much, if not more game experience as I do) do some of the reviews, and I will start writing the name of the person who really did the review after the review. I still do all the web stuff, though.

Also! I will start adding a new difficulty rating for each game on a 1-10 scale. Games with difficulties in the 5-9 range will get the best ratings but otherwise this is just to give the reader an idea of how difficult the game will be for his own information.

1
If you can't beat this game, you're brain dead.

2
A good player can beat in a matter of hours.

3
At no point was anything ever even close to difficult.

4
May present a challenge to 6 year olds.

5
These days, the average difficulty for an RPG (read: still relatively easy).

6
Challenging. Veteran RPG players will still have little trouble.

7
Difficult. Even veteran RPG players will lose several times.

8
Very Difficult. Will take an average veteran RPG player all of his skills to beat.

9
Agonizingly Difficult. Only the most determined veteran RPG players can beat this game.

10
Stupidly Difficult. Borderline impossible. It may be possible to beat, but it's not worth your time.