Frequently Asked Questions

     This FAQ covers the site and the reviews posted here. I've used this section to disclose my reviewing practices, and personal biases as best I can, as well as anwser other questions that people may have. It will be updated and changed as needed.

Q: Why is your site called "What I Played Today"?

A: I chose that name because this is a site dedicated to my reviews and commentary on whatever video game I last played. I try to post reviews within a day or two of beating each game I play, ideally on the same day, hence, "What I Played Today".

Q: Are there any critera for a game to get a review?

A: Yes they are as follows:
     1). It must be a piece of software designed primarily for entertainment, whose core content requires regular user input. (In other words no media players, or flash videos)
     2). All the files required for the software must be able to be stored locally. No streaming or web based games.
     3). It must be a full, finished release, meaning it must come on a retail cartridge, disc, floppy, etc. or be release version 1.0 or higher if it's a digital game. No early access games, beta versions, or demos.
     4). I've played it long enough to form a solid opnion on it. Usually that just means completeing the single player campain, but for excessivly long, or multiplayer focsued games, I'll probably write a review after about 20 hours of play.
     Anything that meets all four of these criteria gets a revivew.

Q: How often do you post reviews?

A: It varies. It depends on how much free time I have for playing games, and how much time investement each game I play requires. If I have a lot of free time, and am in the mood for some old arcde games, you can expect reviews every copule days or so; conversly, if I'm busy and have decided sink my teeth into a new Bethesda RPG, it could be a more than a month. That said I'll do my best to not go more than a few weeks between reviews.

Q: What platforms do you perfer to play on?

A: For current gen games I always play the PC version, fist party Nintendo games not withstanding. I dont even own an XBone or PS4. For older games I usually, but not always, opt for the PC version. For cross-paltfrom console games, my platform of choice varies by genration as follows:

Q: Who are some of your favorite game companies/devlopers?

A: Nintendo (duh), Valve (when they actually bother to make games), CD Projekt (mostly due to their anti-DRM policies), Epic Megagames (before they became Epic Games), ID software (expect everything they did form 1997 to 2012), Thatgamecompany (even though I hate motion control), and Sony (specifically everything they did with the PS1 & PS2).

Q: What are some of your favorite games?

A: In no particular order; Half Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Portal, Metroid Zero Mission, Tiny and Big in Grandpa's Leftovers, Doom II, Tetris, Shadow of the Colossus, Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, Arkanoid, Jak 3, Kirby: Nightmare in Dreamland, Antichamber, and Burnout 3: Takedown.

Q: How do you determine review scores?

A: The bulk of the numerical score is determined by how well I feel a game achieves it's design goals, and creates a cohesive experience. It's primarily determined by design decisions made by the developers, both artistic and technical, but the score can also be influenced by other factors that impact the overall immersion or cohesiveness of the experience, such as technical issues, implementation of DLC, and overbearing DRM.
     When deciding on a review score, if it's an older game I try to consider both how good a game is relative to other games form around the same time, but also how well it holds up at the time of writing. For newer games, I look at not only how well the game compares to it's contemporaries, but also how it's improved from similar games that have come before. If a game from last year makes the same bad design choice as a similar game form 20 years ago, I'm going to be much harder on the new game, because the developers had the benefit of hindsight.

Q: Why did you give game X,Y,Z such a low score?

A: I didn't give it a low score, it's probably because you're used to the scoring system used by IGN, Gamespot, and pretty much any other outlet that gives review scores to games. The problem with this system, (aside form publishers paying for review scores) is that it assumes that "average" = "bad". In reality "average" is nither good nor bad, it's just the point at which a given data set equals out to. This problem is most apparent when it comes to IGN who's soring system states that any game receiving around a 5/10 is "average", when the actual average score they give to games they review is around an 8/10. This has the effect of removing nuance in regards to quality, because if a game is truly exceptional there's not enough headroom to adequately convey how much better it is than an average game.
     That's why I score every game I review on the scale below. I designed it to cover the full range of interactive experiences that exist, ranging from a button that makes a light turn on, all the way up to the most perfect game ever in every respect. Let me be clear no game will EVER score a 100/100 on this scale, and I can only tkink of a small hand-full of games I would rate above a 90/100. Ideally, if I review a wide variety of games, my average review score will hopefully settle around a 50/100.

Q: Why use review scores at all?

A: I totally get the sentiment that we should just do away with review scores in criticism, but, if used properly, I find them to be a useful tool, both as a critic and a consumer. As a consumer I find review scores made on a consistent and clear scale to be a quick and easy way to compare multiple products side-by-side. As a critic I find that ranking things on a clearly defined numeric scale can help me maintain as much objectivity as possible when writing a review, and gets me to think more critically about minute aspects of design that most people gloss over. If you don't like review scores, feel free to ignore them, that's why there's a written review.

Q: What about that reccomendation next to the score?

A: I use the numeric score to try and summarise the overall quality of a game as objectivly as possible.The recommendation, on the other hand is a completly subjective score that's indicative of how much I personally enjoyed a given game. I also think it adds a nice bit of context to the numaric score. Take Hong Kong '97 on SNES for example, I wouldn't give that game more than a 20/100 due to it's terrible production quality, but I'd still recommend it to most people because of how much fun I've had laughing at it's absurdity.

Q: Why does your website look like crap?

A: Because I hate modern web design. I wanted to keep everything simple, funtional, and small, in other words, the exact oppisite of most websites these days. I also like the look and feel of old geocities pages.

Any copyrighted material on this site is used solely for purposes of commentary and/or criticism, and is property of it's respectful owner.
All other material and it's source code, is made freely available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license.