MAMEWorld Forums - News - Re: Robin - new Front End and Database

Oh, one of these front-ends. The problem is that "non-crap" is incredibly subjective. It comes down to personal taste. Let's give some examples:

I hate slot machines, while others love them. Some people think Cherry Master is great fun. I'm not in a position to assess which of the many Cherry Master revisions/clones/hacks are "non-crap" because I don't appreciate these games.
Some people hate video mahjong and would say all video mahjong is crap; other people love it.
I like some objectively crappy video mahjong games (e.g. Nichibutsu's Second Love), because I have fond memories of them from when they were in arcades. This kind of thing happens a lot - many people like playing objectively terrible games for nostalgia reasons.
I dislike the coercion themes in Mahjong Hyper Reaction 2 (I love Mahjong Hyper Reaction, though), but I'll admit the animation and AI are pretty damn good. Is the game crap, or non-crap?
Games that are odd-one-out in a genre often get written off as "crap" because people don't understand them. The Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon beat-em-up feels strange and unbalanced until you understand that you have to make the most of knock-on damage from throws and knock-down attacks. Also, Usagi takes some getting used to because of short reach and points where she doesn't step forward on a hit in her combo pattern. But once you understand the mechanics, it's a lot of fun. Also, the first stage music is terrible, and it's questionable whether any of the better music later in the game compensates.
That brings up another point - games may be crap in some ways and great in others. There are games with crappy art and terrible AI, or great art and terrible AI. There are games that are only really fun with two players, or where two-player mode is a poorly-considered after-thought. What about games where the localisation is so poor only a single regional variant in a certain language is any good? How do you decide whether the crappy aspects outweigh the non-crappy aspects?
What about games that seem may seem crappy in retrospect due to technical limitations? Vs Battle City has great gameplay balance and stage design, but it doesn't push the graphical abilities of the NES very hard. Tank Battalion feels like an unfinished prototype of Battle City, but is it really crap when you consider that it's a stepping stone to a solid game?
What about games that are crappy on their own merits, but had a big influence on game design, or are historically significant in some other way? Mortal Kombat has lame, dumbed-down gameplay and the digitised graphics look terrible next to its hand-drawn contemporaries, yet it commercially successful, spawned a string of sequels and ports, and was highly influential on game development, and even had significant influence on cinema. NBA Jam is an unashamed "quarter-muncher" that had great voice acting for the announcer and ended up being highly successful. Is it crap?
What about games that relied on a gimmick? After Burner had repetitive, predictable gameplay, but at-the-time great 3D effects and cool motion cabinets. Golly! Ghost! isn't the best lightgun shooter, but the Pepper's Ghost effect with the mechatronic diorama was great - I mean, doors opened and closed, and ghosts could come out of or disappear down the toilet!

I could carry on for ages, but there's no objective way to decide which games are worthy of inclusion. You're doing people a disservice by excluding games that you write off as "crap". People will miss out on things they enjoy because they don't meet your subjective criteria.