We’re striving for as much transparency as possible in our review process here at 7outof10, so you know exactly where we’re coming from and the guidelines we’re working to.

For your reference, our digits roughly equate to:

10 - Spectacularly brilliant. Recommended to all
9 - Excellent on almost every count
8 - Very, very good
7 - Good, with a few reservations
6 - Above average, worth playing for die-hard genre fans
5 - Thoroughly average
4 - Fairly poor, demo first
3 - Bad with a smattering of redeeming features
2 - Almost entirely terrible
1 - So jaw-droppingly awful it’s automatically worth playing

We’re happy that the /10 scale gives us enough granularity to differentiate between similar titles, but the most important point to stress is that a 10 absolutely does not mean “perfection”; rather that the reviewer in question would have no qualms about recommending it enthusiastically to anybody at the time of press.

As for the range, we do endeavour to use the entire scale as appropriate, and we’ll never stop a reviewer shouting from the rooftops if they absolutely fall in love or end up despising any given title. If we have a glut of excellent games in for review in the holiday season, they may all end up with high scores, but we can guarantee that every number will be an honest appraisal.

We often pick and choose the games we cover based on our interests and those of the audience as a whole, so there might be a natural skew towards games of quality. That doesn’t mean we’re just constantly pitching soft balls however, and you’ll find plenty of coverage on the lower end of the spectrum.

From our perspective, the most important aspect of the whole process is transparency and ensuring the text clearly matches up with the number assigned. As ever, if you have any questions about specific scores, feel free to add a comment to the article or email us direct. We’d love to hear your feedback.