After listening to the last two episodes of Big Red Potion podcast, which concern themselves with the validity of game reviews, I thought I’d share my thoughts on their creation. For in my opinion, you can’t really discuss their validity whilst ignoring the process behind their creation.
I’ve been reading game reviews for over 27 years now and authoring them for the better part of 10 years. Over this admittedly rather long period of time, I have been exposed to a variety of methods of reviewing games, some better than others. I have learnt many lessons from others, both good and bad on how to approach a review and I’m going to try and share them with you here. No doubt some of you will argue against the points raised here and by all means post a comment or even send an email. I’d be happy to share any opinions on what I’m about to divulge.
Lesson 1 – Play the game at length, preferably to completion
A fairly obvious one this, but is sadly not always followed. Playing a current generation boxed game for 1 hour and deciding to base your entire review on this fleeting experience will do you no good at all. Your ignorance will shine through in the text, as it will be littered with qualifiers, rendering it ultimately useless. The Edge magazine actually ran a feature many years ago for reviewers to base their observations on the game after only 15 minutes of play. The results were interesting, most of which amounted to a series of projections and guesses as to how the player’s experience with the game would progress. None of the reviewers were adept at the art of crystal ball gazing of course, so their projections were largely off. It must be noted that the 1 hour rule stated above doesn’t apply to smaller games like those that appear on iPhone/iPod, PSN, XBLA Indie Games or Wiiware. For those titles that time can potentially be scaled back to the 15 minutes mentioned above, depending on the game.
Lesson 2 – Respect structure
The one thing you should try to avoid at all costs in a review is to meander from one point to another, without any respect for structure. It makes it very hard to read/listen/watch (depending on how it is being delivered) and ultimately forces the audience to drift off as they simply can’t be bothered to try and fathom what you are talking about. Over the years I have found myself using the following structure for review writing/delivery:
INTRODUCTION -> STORYLINE (IF APPLICABLE) -> GAMEPLAY -> PRESENTATION (SOUND & GRAPHICS) -> MULTIPLAYER (IF APPLICABLE) -> SUMMARY
You can chop and change these around and there is really no need to put these sections under headings. Historically reviewers did do this very thing, but it lead to a very disjointed method of delivery, with each facet of the game broken up into chunks. What has happened over the past 5 years or so is the encouragement to let the text flow into each segment seamlessly, making for a much more relaxing and less text-book like read.
Lesson 3 – Grab the reader’s/listeners/viewers attention and keep it
Attention Deficiency Disorder (ADD) is apparently rampant to people who are deeply involved in the world of video games. As such, the method of delivering game reviews has had to adapt to make sure its ADD addled audience isn’t being distracted by something that is shiny! These vary from restricting the size of the review down to a single paragraph to making missives and references within the text that keep the reader entertained whilst being informed. I choose the latter method as I find it more gratifying to create than having to compress my views on a title within a 150 word limit. I do however admire those reviewers that can achieve such brevity and would not wish to take anything away from them in that regard.
The key here is to always respect your audience and try to put yourself in their place. Do you find what you have produced to be in any way engaging as well as informative and coherent? If the answer is yes to all of these facets, then you’re probably going the right way. Have some pride in your output!
Lesson 4 – Research and background knowledge
A bit of background knowledge is a very powerful thing. It provides comfort to the reviewer’s audience that the reviewer has a good understanding of the background that lead to the creation of the game they are sharing their opinion of. I do this by looking at previous games the developer has made or other titles in its franchise. This gives me a greater understanding and appreciation of the body of work the developer has produced. It is also important for the reviewer to have some interest in the genre and topic of the game. For example, it’s never a good idea for a non-sports loving reviewer to be given a copy of Madden to examine, for they will likely flounder and make a complete hash of it. This will then result in some very angry tirades aimed squarely at not only the reviewer but the outlet they have created the review for.
Lesson 5 – Nothing is sacred
Be brutal and learn to self edit. Nothing the reviewer creates is sacred until it is released for public consumption. After that happens it is very difficult to recall what has been produced, without some credibility being eradicated in the process.
Eurogamer learnt that lesson earlier on this year when it had to re-review Darkfall, an MMO title the writer of the original allegedly only played the game for 2 hours. He gave it 2/10. Another offender was IGN who had to withdraw a review of Football Manager 2009 after the writer failed utterly to comprehend that it was a soccer management simulation and not a straight soccer game, like FIFA. IGN had to offer an apology to SEGA, the publishers of the game and release a new review.
So to avoid such a horrid mess the reviewer and their editor must be prepared to cull anything that simply doesn’t work or indeed is factually incorrect. There are a variety of methods of achieving this, one of which is to delete the first paragraph the reviewer writes. The argument being that it is simply a brain dump and is of little merit. I’ve never tried this personally, but I can see the benefit of it being a kind of palette cleansing exercise to enable the reviewer to start a-new with a proper frame of mind.
Lesson 6 – Do not read other reviews prior to publishing your own
Opinions of others are terribly distracting to a reviewer. Reading other’s views on a game that a reviewer is evaluating can and does lead to plagiarism, even on a subconscious level. There is also the fact that the point of a review is to provide a personal subjective commentary on a video game, not the collective thoughts of half a dozen other people. When ever I am reviewing a game, I avoid any kind of reviews by others for the reasons given above. Yes I do read them after I have published, but never before.
Lesson 7 – Be succinct and to the point
The style of writing and/or language used in reviews is pretty well defined. It is not good form to use passive sentences or redundant phrases. Such forms of text is forgivable in features , such as the one you are reading now, but do nothing for reviews. They must be delivered in a manner that almost drills the reader into understanding what the reviewer thinks about a game and its various facets. They should not be left guessing as to the reviewer’s opinion of a game until the summary, for they would have drifted off a long time before then.
Lesson 8 – Read, especially game reviews written by others
I opened up this text by explaining that for over 27 years I have been reading reviews of some sort or another. I still do this as not only do I want to know about the game that is under review, but also how the review was written. This leads me to reading reviews more than once of course. Initially it is to be informed about the game under the proverbial spotlight and then again to examine the review itself. On a related note, it is also important to read a great deal too. This increases the reviewer’s vocabulary and enables them to draw on other references as well as improve their prose.
Lesson 9 – Understand that a review is an opinion and stand by it
A review is an opinion, nothing more. It is not entirely a piece of factual writing, although where facts are stated within it, they do of course need to be accurate! As such, it is likely that some people digesting it will also disagree with it. Sometimes even in its entirety. This is something that the author of the review, as well as the outlet they are working for, must accept. By doing so they maintain their integrity, which is a commodity that is of utmost importance to any media outlet worth its salt.
Lesson 10 – What does the ‘B’ button do?
No one cares what the sodding ‘B’ button does so for pity’s sake don’t describe it in the review. Delving into minutia with regards to controls and interfaces in games is not at all a good idea. The intended audience for a review generally know their way around a controller. There are of course exceptions to this rule, especially when it comes to the Wii-mote, but in general it’s best to only describe controls in abstract terms. For example; a driving game has controls that feel somewhat loose or in a FPS the aiming is very tight and precise. People don’t need to know that the right trigger is used to shoot.
Well there you have it, my 10 point lesson in game reviews. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
- Chris “Kropotkin” O’Regan
All Rights Reserved.
Lessons 6 and 8 seem at odds with one another… I usually stick to watching video reviews for a game I’m currently playing/reviewing, just to find new ideas or perspectives I may not have picked up on. No plagiarism, of course.
I gotta say, I toss out just about all of those rules in my reviews. But I’m a rebel.
This blog post sucks! Why do you hate video game reviewers? You Meany!
So Derrick, you play the game for 10 minutes, ramble on incoherently, plagerise, no editing and tell us exactly what the ‘B’ button does! Brilliant.
I got wind of this article through the Digital Cowboys podcast and, having read it, agree with almost all of your rules. The only point where I differ slightly is in the structure.
Structure is a thing I’ve been playing around with for a while now, but the way I’m going about it at the moment – and this may well change in the future – is to, first, make my general opinion of the game clear. Then I try to summise as succinctly as possible the story and gameplay (the facts and nothing but the facts, please!). After that, though, what I do is just talk about what I felt was interesting, what worked and what didn’t, and this eventually leads to a final paragraph, usaully reiterating my introduction in some way. I won’t claim that this is the best method or that I’ve mastered it, but I’m of the opinion, more now than ever, that people can watch a gameplay video, look at a synopsis and a couple of screenshots and know, roughly, how a game will play. To me, critical evaluation is far more interesting to read and outweighs the explanation of how, exactly, a game plays.
I only just started properly reviewing games earlier this year, and I’ve found it a very interesting, rewarding experience as you gradually learn what these hidden rules are. One of the most curious aspects of writing is that you know when you’ve written crap, and when writing becomes a slog, it’s usaully because you’ve stopped listening to your own inner voice and that also often results in sub-standard work.
@ Bowlby I like the fluid method of writing you’re describing, it’s something I have always stuggled with. Nonetheless I’m sure I still manage to get my message across, despite my religously following the above structure for so many years.
Thanks for the feedback, it is most appreciated.
Your point about structure is key, but really, there is no ‘one size fits all’ guide to reviewing. Every single website and magazine has its own rules, own style guide, own dos and don’t that apply to almost every point you’ve raised here. Writers really do have to bend themselves to the respective wills of their employers, freelancers especially so.
@Keith You say that some sites and magazines don’t adopt the same rules I have addressed here and I would have to contest that. They may not spell them out in the same way, but they will adopt them in some form or another. If they don’t then the reviews tend to fall apart and become meaningless. So long as the spirit of what I have written above is followed, then 9 times out of 10 a decent review is the result.