Here’s how the Sucktinuum works:
You start at the Zero point on the scale and measure the amount of Suck or Awesome is in whatever you happen to be measuring. You then travel along the Suck Track (ST) in the proper amount of Suck Units (SU) until you arrive at the Final Suck Rating (FSR). It’s that simple!
Yes, I have prepared some examples.
Here is a scale for one of my all time favorite games, Tetris Attack. Clearly this game has more Awesome than Suck.
Here’s the scale for one of the worst games ever created, Zoop. Zoop is such an abomination that I don’t even want to call it a game any more. From now on, I’m going rename Zoop to Waffle.
Here’s the scale for Karnov, a game so bad that it actually crossed the Suckawesome Traversal (SaT) and actually became good. Absolutely nothing about the game makes sense, but somehow people like it. It’s tough to make a game with that special brand of Suck so that it becomes an underground classic, but Data East found a way.
Here’s the scale for a game that was so good that it crossed the Suckawesome Traversal (SaT) the other way and became bad. It’s probably even more difficult (and rare) to find a game that is so good that it becomes hated. The best example I can think of is Counter Strike. I’m sure that the people that are still playing it think that it’s a good game, but I’ve washed my hands of that opinion a long time ago and I’m sure that many of you have done the same.
Now I don’t want to give the impression that the Sucktinuum is solely intended for games. The beauty of it is that you can use it to rate just about anything. Go ahead and use it to evaluate whatever you can come up with. I’d be very interested in seeing what kinds of results you get.