Whilst surfing around looking for sites that offer alternative rating systems for movies etc. I came across this cute little beauty, with the tempting tease to try and “Review the World”. After playing around on there for a few minutes I was impressed enough with the fun and easy format to create a profile and download their app.
The whole thing kinda runs like a game within itself, where you are awarded Kudos points (KP) for rating and reviewing stuff, being social and otherwise helping the community of some 50,000 members function. It is not just films however, but TV, music, books, games (video and tabletop), and even apps and tech! Basically, anything you could ever want to rate out of 10 to satisfy a need to organise and compare the entertainment world. There are also badges to earn for loyalty and influence, related to your KP score, which is fun too! Not to mention a super easy to enter freebies section where your name goes into a hat for all sorts of pop culture goodies!
The interface is colourful and lively, and your growing collection of reviews looks great gathered together. It’s also very easy to search for reviews and request recommendations from other users / reviewers, with an option to “follow” people you like, making it a social app that really does have a community feel. For cultural media bloggers like me there is also a very attractive added bonus of being invited to run a publishing partnership to your website that will help publicise both parties and get the reviews read by a larger audience – which is simply a great idea!
It does take a little while to understand how the site fully functions, such is the depth of ambition for what they are doing, but after a while it all makes sense. There are some layout and ease of access issues that could be improved, but I have no doubt they will be in due time – it appears the site has been slowly growing and learning from its community since 2017.
One slightly annoying function is being invited to review random things as part of a “daily task” after leaving a rating. The list of things I have been asked to rate are invariably 90% made up of things so obscure you have never heard of them. However, it doesn’t take up a lot of time and can be opted out of with a single click. Cosmetically, this aspect of the site appears at the top of the home page, and I think there are far more interesting things on there to be doing. Perhaps this element should be given a lower profile…
In general though, Smashbomb compares quite favourably to better known sites such as Rotton Tomatos and Metacritic, but has a way to go to match the majesty of the king of rating sites: IMDb. I can’t lie, I get a kick out it and would recommend anyone to have a wee look. I can’t think of another place you can literally rate everything side by side like this.
As a further example of what they do, here is a link to their book section:
You can let me know in the comments how you found it. And you will be able to find a link to my page there in the sidebar of The Wasteland and on the About The Wasteland page. Enjoy!
The Wasteland 