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Ever since it's launch in September 1999, V Planet has used the popular, stringent 35-point rating system for all of it's games. The reviewing system had done a fair job of ranking QB's finest and latest games up to a point, when Editor Vance Velez reviewed MUX and gave the game a six-point verdict for graphics, convinced that Pieslice Productions reached a new standard for graphics in a QB game, and a higher point value was needed to recognize it. This controversial decision, which was done without consulting the rest of the V Planet staff, was met with disagreement from both the staff and the QB community via the V Planet Forums. "I think I've overstepped my boundaries in terms of arbitrarily giving a game a score that goes beyond the five-point range given in V Planet's review system. I should have asked the rest of the V Planet staff first before taking such a huge step. But... this place isn't a dictatorship, and there's still time to fix this mess while still being fair to Pieslice Productions and their fine game," says Vance. A meeting then ensued with V Planet staff, where ideas ranging from adjusting point-scales and offering a stricter 5-point scale to allowing the scale to become dynamic were discussed. Ultimately though, it was decided that changing the scale for V Planet's scoring system would be a bad idea. "If you start giving more than 5 stars it starts to cheapen the system and sets an uneasy trend. If we give one game six stars, then we may be tempted a couple months down the line to give another one 7. After awhile, the whole rating system would turn into a joke. A game could get a perfect 35/35 yet only have a 2-star fun rating thanks to its 8 in graphics. That'd be absurd," says V Planet Entertainment writer Dusty Goehring. After conducting and meeting and hearing what the QB community has to say, the following compromise was worked out by the V Planet Staff regarding the future of the MUX review and any future reviews done by V Planet. 1) V Planet will not rate games higher than 5 points in any category. The max will be 5 points per category, for up to 35 points max. 2) Consequently, a point will be docked from MUX, but the game will still get a Silver Star Award for impressing the reviewer in terms of it's graphics. This will not add an extra point to MUX's score and the new score will be 26/35. 3) Reviewing standards will not become tougher (it will be just as hard to get 5 stars in any one category now as it was before) but whenever a particular area really impresses the reviewer, the reviewer may give the game a Silver Star, as is the case with MUX. Once the compromise was reached, the decision was unanimous. "MUX deserves a Silver Star and 5 points," says Graphics Designer Toonski. "In my own opinion, beneath it's SVGA graphics is a mediocre version of the RTE engine, but since the reviewer has completed and analyzed the game and said it's graphics are perfect compared to qb's current standard, then it deserves 5 stars." "What gives MUX a silver star is if you say it pushes the limits of QB's graphics to a new level. if it is better than any other game before it, or institutes a new, totally impressive system or style that isnt matched before it, then it should receive a silver star for pushing qb to new bounds and changing our scale for graphics based on what is possible and has been done." Article by V Planet Staff |
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