How this trust score was computed
Trust blends alignment (40%): does the outlet rank games the way players do; decoded accuracy (30%): after translating the outlet's own scale habits (a '7/10 means mediocre' scale is decoded, not punished), how well its reviews predict player sentiment; and player-side (30%): on games where press consensus and players sharply disagreed, whose side it took. Recent reviews weigh more (2-year half-life), and the blend is shrunk toward a neutral prior (60) so small samples can't peg the scale. Player quality is launch-window Steam sentiment, so outlets aren't punished for reviewing a launch build that later got patched.
Controversy record: on 27 games where press consensus and players sharply disagreed, this reviewer sided with players 6 times.
Computed 6m ago · full methodology →
Outlet vs. players
Each dot is a game both this outlet and players scored. The dashed line is perfect agreement: dots above it mean the outlet was more generous than players, below it more harsh.
Biggest disagreements with players
The receipts: games where this outlet's verdict landed furthest from player sentiment.
- +45No Man's Skyoutlet 87 · players 42 · Aug 2016
- +24Halo 5: Guardiansoutlet 83 · players 59 · Nov 2015
- +28Evolveoutlet 76 · players 48 · Feb 2015
- -62Hatredoutlet 7 · players 69 · Jun 2015
- -28Undertaleoutlet 65 · players 93 · Oct 2015
- +22Street Fighter Voutlet 80 · players 58 · Mar 2016
- +13Assassin's Creed® Unityoutlet 65 · players 52 · Nov 2014
- -35Prison Architectoutlet 55 · players 90 · Oct 2015
- +8DARK SOULS™ IIIoutlet 86 · players 79 · Apr 2016
- -33Goat Simulatoroutlet 55 · players 88 · Apr 2014
Recent reviews (301 tracked)
- 75Sid Meier’s Civilization® VINov 3, 2016
“The suburbanization, the cartoonish aesthetic, and the “one more turn” addictiveness are still recognizable parts of the core experience people keep coming back for. It is still a full, massive, joyous videogame, even if I have to squint to find the joy beneath mere wit—but the two extremes are now growing wider and wider apart. How long before the fabric of the game snaps under the strain?”
read full review ↗ - 84OwlboyOct 27, 2016 · Brent Ables
“Owlboy is a masterful tale of transcending disability”
read full review ↗ - 84OwlboyOct 27, 2016
“Owlboy is itself as joyful and powerful an example of such art as I can recall. That it also happens to be an exceptionally well-crafted and tasteful videogame made by a very small group of people may not entirely be a coincidence.”
read full review ↗ - 54Masquerada: Songs and ShadowsOct 20, 2016 · Chris Breault
“Masquerada declines as the plot slows down. The herky-jerky pace gets more grating, the mania for proper nouns more distracting. What looked like a scrappy little underdog RPG turns out to be a collection of worn-out ideas.”
read full review ↗ - 60THOTHOct 19, 2016 · Zack Kotzer
“Thoth’s main addition to the twin-stick shooter is its constant intimidation tactics. The short segments you set out to beat—64 in all—keep you aghast constantly, and you’ll learn quickly that even when things look peaceful it can mean that something deadly hasn’t shown itself to you yet. Silence is just an opportunity for a bomb to go off.”
read full review ↗ - 56AragamiOct 17, 2016 · Brent Ables
“The Last of Us took a boring idea and made everything about it sublime; Aragami takes a lot of good ideas and neglects to make any of them great. Even the story feels uninterested in itself: the cutscenes are mostly under 10 seconds, and the characters habitually preface expository statements with phrases like “By the way” and “In case you were wondering.””
read full review ↗ - 81ThumperOct 13, 2016 · Dan Solberg
“Thumper is a remarkably physical experience despite the fact that you control it with such modest thumb gestures.”
read full review ↗ - 81ThumperOct 13, 2016
“There’s something to be said for the sensation of Thumper’s mid-game, where survival is the goal, ignorant of whatever score comes along with it.”
read full review ↗ - 40PAC-MAN™ CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2Oct 7, 2016 · Dan Solberg
“The creators of Pac-Man CE 2 had the difficult task of remixing a game that has already been expanded upon and reworked to the point of refinement, and they chose to pile on the complexity anyway. The result is a Frankenstein’s Pac-Man—a mess of features and modes that, despite all the power pellets and fruit and ghosts, still left me feeling hungry.”
read full review ↗ - 78Diaries of a Spaceport JanitorSep 29, 2016 · Gareth Damian Martin
“Delicate moments that point towards the optimism at the heart of Spaceport Janitor. By bridging the gap between our daily struggles and the daydreams that surround them, it suggests that the one space we truly own is our imagination.”
read full review ↗ - 45Wheels of AureliaSep 26, 2016 · Jess Joho
“Wheels of Aurelia sputters onto the race track”
read full review ↗ - 54ReCore: Definitive EditionSep 23, 2016 · Nicole Carpenter
“By the game's end, I found I didn't care about any of the characters. Instead, I was fed up, hunting down the rest of the prismatic cores in order to reach the end. The game had done a full 180. It's a major disappointment, given the promise ReCore shows at its beginning, when it's just Joule and Mack.”
read full review ↗ - 30
- 77Event[0]Sep 19, 2016 · Jay Egger
“As is the case with a lot of like-minded sci-fi, Event[0] sets out to blur the already hazy lines between human and machine. It does this especially well with how it coaxes you into communicating with Kaizen.”
read full review ↗ - 77Event[0]Sep 19, 2016
“Don’t expect to find touchscreens, paper-thin televisions, or computers any smaller than a child here.”
read full review ↗