How we actually score a mobile game

People ask what a 4.2 versus a 4.6 really means on our site. The honest answer is that the number is a shorthand for a longer feeling. We land on it after a game has had real hours put into it, and we adjust it against whatever else we have played in the same genre.

We weigh how a game feels in the hand first — controls, pacing, whether it respects your time. Then we look at whether it keeps giving after the honeymoon period. A lot of mobile games are great for an hour and hollow after that.

We also try to score within a genre, not across all of them. A brilliant puzzler and a brilliant RPG are doing completely different jobs, so comparing their raw numbers is a little silly. The paragraphs matter more than the digits.

If a game is a 4.0 here, that is still a recommendation. We rarely bother finishing reviews for things below that, because life is short and your storage is limited.