Graphics
By graphics, we mean the technical merits of a game's visuals as well as the aesthetic quality of a game's appearance and presentation. The graphical performance of a game weighs heavily into our consideration of its visuals, so even if it looks pretty in screenshots, there's no guarantee it'll earn a high graphics score.

Sound
By sound, we mean the quality and use of sound effects, voice acting, and music in a game. Any of these may potentially have a significant impact on the overall sound score. For instance, a game with an excellent soundtrack and sound effects may still lose points for sound if the voice acting is of low quality.

Gameplay
By gameplay, we mean everything from the responsiveness and design of a game's controls to how challenging, intense, or exciting the game is. Basically, this represents how well a game plays and how enjoyable it is to play. Games very rarely earn a 10 in this category, due to how elusive games with perfect or near-perfect gameplay actually are. We weigh the gameplay score heavily when deriving the overall rating.

Value
By value, we're referring to how long you'll be able to both play and enjoy the game, and also how much replay value you'll get out of it. Breadth of gameplay options and overall volume of content both weigh heavily into this score. The retail price of a game can also figure into the value score, as can the presence or lack of similar, competitive products in the market. The overall quality of a game also has some impact on its value.

Reviewer's Tilt (Tilt)
While this component is not intended to be directly representative of our overall experience with a game, we use it to influence the overall rating one way or another, based on our overall experience. For instance, a technically impressive game that's highly unoriginal may be tilted low, while a game with a truly outstanding story but an unremarkable presentation may be tilted high.

What the Numbers Mean:
Here's how the overall rating ranges break down.

10.0: Perfect This exceedingly rare score refers to a game that is as perfect as a game can ever aspire to be. Such games could not reasonably be improved upon in any meaningful way.

9.0-9.9: Superb We absolutely recommend any game in this range, especially to fans of that particular genre. However, games that score in the 9 range are also typically well suited to new players. Games that earn 9s are naturally uncommon, and earn GameSpot's Editors' Choice Award for their outstanding quality.

8.0-8.9: Great This range refers to great games that are excellent in almost every way and whose few setbacks probably aren't too important. We highly recommend games in the upper half of this range, since they tend to be good enough to provide an enjoyable experience to fans of the particular genre and to new players alike.

7.0-7.9: Good A game within this range is good overall, and likely worth playing by fans of the particular genre or by those otherwise interested. While its strengths outweigh its weaknesses, a game that falls in this range tends to have noticeable faults.

6.0-6.9: Fair Games that earn 6-range ratings have certain good qualities but significant problems as well. These games may well be worth playing, but you should approach them with caution.

5.0-5.9: Mediocre A 5-range score refers to a game that's "merely average" in the negative sense. These games tend to have enough major weaknesses to considerably outweigh their strengths. There's probably a substantially better, similar game out there for you.

4.0-4.9: Poor Games that just don't work right and maybe didn't spend enough time in production tend to fall in to this category. They simply lack the cohesion and quality that make other games fun.

3.0-3.9: Bad You probably shouldn't get too close to a game in this range. Any of its positive qualities most likely serve only to make the rest of it seem even more disappointing.

2.0-2.9: Terrible Beware, for a game in this range is almost entirely devoid of any remotely decent or fully functional features.

1.0-1.9: Abysmal Ouch. The rare game that falls in this lowest-of-the-low range has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Don't play this game.

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