How we actually decide a rating

People ask how we land on a number, and the honest answer is that it's a conversation, not a formula. We don't run games through a spreadsheet of weighted categories. A score reflects how we felt after really playing the thing.

That means our ratings are subjective, and we're fine saying so. One of us loved Nitro Canyon's rubber-band rivals; another found them cheap. When editors split like that, we put both views in the review instead of averaging them into mush.

We do have a few baselines. A game that nags, stalls or breaks on an older phone loses points regardless of how fun the core is. Respecting the player's time and device matters to us a lot.

So treat our numbers as a starting point, not a verdict. Read the paragraphs around them, because that's where the real opinion lives.