◊ What rating scale do you use?

     Die-Hard Gamer uses a 0.5 - 5.0 point scale for all of our ratings, which if multiplied by 2x is of course equal to the 1 - 10 scale used by several other video game review systems. Unlike many other review sites, however, a 2.5 (or a 5 on the 10-point scale) is an *average* game, not necessarily a terrible one. We do this because we feel that there is more to a review scale than just a 60% or above like a teacher may grade a student's work.

     To assist you with understanding what all of those 0.5 - 5.0 ratings mean, we do include a word that best describes what we think of the game. Those words are as follows:

0.5 - Sacrilege
1.0 - Coaster
1.5 - Sucks
2.0 - Rental
2.5 - Borderline
3.0 - Commended
3.5 - Great
4.0 - Excellent
4.5 - Celestial
5.0 - Perfection

◊ Do you give out an award?

     Yes, a "Die-Hard Gamer Instant Classic" award, but we dole out this award very rarely - only for those games that score a 4.5 or better. In addition, while we do certainly use more of the review scale than most other magazines out there, our reviews are generally a good 1.0 - 2.0 points below the average scores found on review archive sites. This sometimes closes a few doors for us with publishers, but if a game actually does score an Instant Classic, it has to be a truly excellent game.

◊ What do your ratings mean?

     For game reviews:

- Graphics: How good a game looks visually. This takes into account things like frame rates, vibrant colors, and resolutions (if applicable) as well.
- Sound: How good a game sounds... This takes into account things such as voice acting, sound effects, background music, and options like Dolby Digital if possible.
- Control: Generally how quickly a game responds to your controller, as well as how intuitive a game is to learn. Things like easily navigating menus in genres like RPG's and strategy games are also important to this score.
- Gameplay: How much content there is to a game as well as how much fun you may be having while playing it from start to end. This also takes into consideration how original a game may be.

     For magazine reviews:

- Content: How much there is to read and learn from magazine.
- Layout: How interesting and clean a magazine's design is. How easy it is to read through and find stories.
- Reviews: How insightful a magazine's reviews are, and whether or not they have a gamer's best interests in mind when they rate a game.
- Exclusives: The amount of content you can't find in any other magazine.

     For retail reviews:

- Price: How affordable items are on average compared with other retailers.
- Product: What selection of games and systems they may carry, as well as how much of it is usually in stock.
- Service: How knowledgeable a sales rep is, how well trained they are to make sure you are well taken care of, how polite they are on average, and whether or not they routinely push "items of the week" on you.
- Shipping: How affordable it is to ship an item to you, how safely packed it is, and how timely the shipping may be. For brick & mortar stores, this rating usually implies the costs and efficiency of their own web site.

     The overall score - the one consistency through all of our rating systems - is of course how good the game or item is as an entire package... For a game that's how good it looks, how good a game sounds, how easy it is to control, and whether or not it is any fun to play. However, this score is not necessarily an average of these four ratings. We allow our editors to build their own intangibles into their overall score, which can often times shift what would have been an average overall score up or down as much as a full point.