Opinions are fun. Everyone has them (even though most of you are wrong). So why not assign simple numbers to a complicated thought process? It seems to work for Dragonball Z. Instead of justifying why someone is the best, they were just given an arbitrary number, and the higher it was the more badass they are. Simple enough. If it’s good enough for Dragonball, it’s good enough for me. That being said, I don’t conform to the stand zero to ten scale. It’s not deep enough, and besides, I didn’t come up with it, so it certainly can’t be any good. No, my scale of 12 is substantially better. Here’s a quick rundown on how I judge everything and anything I see on a daily basis (note that numbers are in no particular order):

7: Sevens are average, or are have good ideas with crippling flaws. A seven can be a good score or a bad score. For example, despite extremely positive first impressions, Brutal Legend was demoted to a seven because it was missing about a third of the game. An example of a good seven would be Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. I know I didn’t care at all when it was coming out, but in a very rare occurrence of me being wrong, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Anything seven or above can be considered good. Off the top of my head, some other sevens: The Darkness (again, surprisingly good for a game I didn’t care about before release), Fable 2 (glitchy, laggy, unbalanced, short, ugly, yet so easy you have to play it), and any shooter made by id after Doom 3 (including Rage. I am right, you will see).

8: Eights are pretty good. An 8 is often a 7 with one quality that redeems it. You have fun when you play 8′s. You would consider playing them again but likely not follow through with that because of laziness or having better games. Any company that produces a game, or movie, or whatever, that earns an 8 should be proud but also work harder to make the next game better. Some recent-ish 8′s: Resistance, Mass Effect, MadWorld, Batman: Arkham Asylum.

9: Nines would be what most people would consider great. This is probably the part where this scale lines up with your average reviewers. A seven here would likely corresponding to an 8 point something to an average reviewer. You love playing nines. I love playing nines. Everyone loves nines! The fall of 2009 gave us many nines (irony?), here are some: Demon’s Souls, New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Assassin’s Creed 2, BlazBlue, Dragon Age: Origins.

6: I told you this was in no particular order. 6′s are almost good. You can play them, but you won’t have a lot of fun. They usually have crippling flaws that frustrate and/or annoy you. I’ve noticed I give out very few sixes, but here are some for your reading pleasure anyways: Prototype, 50: Cent Blood on the Sand (Hiiiilarious, if you’ve never played it.), Red Faction.

5: Seven is the first important division of the scale, 5 is the other. 5 is the lowest score you can give a playable game. 5′s suck pretty badly, but you can still play them because they are easy, give you achievements, have a redeeming story, or are just really funny. Any recent Tomb Raider games come to mind, Red Steel, the newest Banjo Kazooie game, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t see on my shelf from where I’m currently sitting.

10: Doubling our previous score, we reach the 10. Usually the pinnacle of most review scores, I determined after minutes of difficult studying that 10 wasn’t enough. 10′s are almost perfect and can best be described by generally meaningless words such as “awesome” or “excellent”. The most recent game I gave a 10 to was Mass Effect 2, which very nearly earned the score you will read about next, provided you haven’t got bored and stopped by now. Other 10′s: Fallout 3, Dead Space, Super Mario Galaxy, Call of Duty (any of the ones made by Infinity Ward, not their much less impressive odd numbered counterparts), Portal.

11: Eleven is the best anything has ever achieved. Even though I use this scale for absolutely everything, I have only encountered a handful of 11′s. I have certainly never seen a person who’s attractiveness I would rate an 11. Sticking with the video game theme of this article, the 3 11′s (like that band, anyone?) I have given out belong to The Legend Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Go ahead laugh at the cliché, I dare you), Okami, and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I am ashamed/proud to say that I have the Symphony of the Night soundtrack on my ipod and can shred a few of the songs on guitar. Anyways, time to jump again.

1-4: Can be considered at best “a game”. Playing them is like work, or torture, and can only be excused for achievement grinding. Since I am too lazy to give examples of each individual number, here are some 2′s: Any Sonic game from the past decade, Lair, Haze, Anything called “Blank: the game” or “Blank: The Movie: The Game”

0: Zeroes are the garbage equivalent of 11. Impossible to actually consider a game, they almost transcend human imagination and inspire fear in the hearts of those who most play them. I’m sure everyone has games they would consider this bad. To avoid the usual clichés (Superman 64, anyone) I’ll just give one example: Trigger Man. My friend gave it to me for free and I overpaid. Maybe I’ll write a more in depth review of it some time. Anyways, time for the last unexplored number.

12: There will only ever be one 12, ever (maybe), across all mediums. I consider it completely theoretical because it is so perfect that the entire world stops to bathe in its glory. This is essentially God descending to the earth. This number exists solely because it is required to show that even the almighty 11′s aren’t perfect.

Anyways, that’s the scale. I give it a 10 on the scale. If you want to whine that there need to be decimal values, too bad. It’s staying as is. I suggest starting to use it to judge everything you come in contact with. Get other people to do it too. If their number is off by more than one either way compared to yours, they are wrong and must be set straight.