Grading Criteria

To be objective here's a simple scoring table (expressed as a number between 1 and 100) that we've come up with to rate what we feel are important aspects of any game:

Story/Plot: Games are like stories, and the best ones draw us in and make us feel like we're part of the action. For a brief amount of time we can suspend our disbelief and be someone else and do things never possible in real life.  The worst ones make us wish we could be watching a lounge act where second rate performers dressed like Elvis cover Justin Beiber and Hannah Montana songs.

Gameplay/Controls: Let's face it some games just work better than others.  Granted Alex really seems to take to Real Time Strategy (RTS) games on any controller, while I grew up playing those sorts of games on the PC and believe that playing them on a game console requires 4 hands.  That being said, for a game to score high in this category the controller needs to feel like an extension of ones body. Realization and reaction need to be instantaneous and the controller is the interface that makes that possible. If you can't make your character on the screen do what you're thinking, well...that will earn some awfully poor marks indeed.

Graphics/Sound: We have a variety of platforms around the house including seven X-Box 360's, two original X-Box's, a PS3, a PS2, a Wii, a Gamecube, several DS's and a few PSPs.  Not to mention eight PCs including a monster Alienware system (Quadcore i7 3.33Ghz, 12Gb RAM, 3Tb hard disk, dual ATI 5800s).  Most of those systems are hooked up to Bose speakers.  So we take this category seriously...very seriously! The top scoring games here will have dazzling graphics and positional sounds that make us feel like we're in the game and that the bad guys (be it Nazi's, zombies, or the dreaded Nazi zombies) are breathing right on the back of our necks.

Overall Score: The bottom line. All we're offering with this is a suggestion as to if you might enjoy the game or not.  In the next few posts we'll be posting more about ourselves to give you an idea of our gaming backgrounds so you'll know whether or not you trust our judgment.