How we actually decide on a score

People ask what separates a 4.2 from a 4.6 on the site, so here is the honest answer. Our scores are not a formula; they are a judgment after real play, but there is a shape to how we think.

A game starts from how it feels to control, since that is the thing you touch every second. Clumsy controls drag a score down hard no matter how pretty the game is. From there we weigh how it respects your time and your device.

Battery and heat matter more to us than to most reviewers. A brilliant game that cooks your phone in twenty minutes loses points, because that is a real limit on how you can enjoy it.

We also try to score within a genre. A cozy sim and a twitchy racer aren't held to the same expectations. A high score means the game is excellent at what it set out to be, not that it beats everything else on the store.