Once discarded methods...

...Are sometimes the ones that work best. The Top/Bottom lists have returned to their very original format. Some time ago, I renovated them so that the game with the higher average score would determine which game with the same conclusive rating ranks higher than the other. Although that was somewhat of a fair, politically correct method, it didn't work because I felt bad ranking Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater - as great as the game is - higher than Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Final Fantasy VI, which I consider better games by sense alone. Just an example, that one. When I adapted the new rating system less than a month ago, the Top/Bottom lists, as they were, were rendered utterly unfair and pointless.

One game for which a simple rating is just not
good enough. Super Metroid currently ranks as
the 21st best game ever made. I guess that's
enough... for now.

But, it's important to me to have them, 'cause they're cool. Also, some lazier new readers can use those lists to quickly gather some sort of idea of what kind of games I like. After giving it a lot of thought and trying out some wholly new - crappy - methods, I decided it would be best if I just blasted through the 354 reviews I've written, write the games' titles and conclusive ratings down, in order from best to worst - and when it comes to identical ratings, I'll just pit those games against each other in my head, measure their qualities in better and worse, and rank the all-around more comfortable game higher than the other.

What's a bit surprising is that the re-adaptation of this old method didn't change either one of the lists by a whole lot. I wanted them to change a little bit more to actually see some results - I deserve more after giving it so much thought - so I decided to expand the lists by ten games each. I could've went straight for a Top 100, but considering that I have written only 354 reviews, of which 8 are exempt from the count (plus the DLC Guides), that's a little too much. For the record, if I had done that, the lowest-ranked game on the Top list would've been Dead Space 2 (8.5), so we're not really talking about filling the gaps up with shit here. Still, the time is not ripe for an official Top 100. Not even close. It is also my agenda that the Bottom list would be filled with actual crap - if I expanded it too far, it would inevitably include playable games, that might have been rated low for some other reason than simply sucking ass. 40's a good figure - but don't you go making the mistake of thinking that anything between 4.6 and 5.9 would be too much of a game from any standpoint.

So here's how the Top/Bottom lists used to work, and will work from now on. Some of the ideas I had would've probably worked if this was an actual website which didn't have the limitations of a blog, but again, I like VGMania as it is - a blog instead of a website. Or like my friend says, it's a bit of both. It's back to reviewing games with me - I'm not quite sure of the next game myself as there are a lot of potential titles from the past and present (as you can see from the Now Playing gadget which I just updated), but I am sure that we'll all know soon enough.