How To Write a Halfway Decent Game Review

[Paradigm^]

This is a set of guidelines on how to write a halfway-decent game review. Two things to note from that sentence:

It's a set of guidelines. Not all the rules here are hard and fast. There are situations where you can ignore them, but don't make a habit of it.
If you follow all these rules to the letter, it'll only get you a halfway-decent game review. Much of what makes a piece of prose good has nothing to do with your spelling, grammar and the format of the review: it's how you write it. This I can't teach you - people will either like your writing style or they won't.

There are two sections to this guide: general writing tips, and tips on what to write.

One final thing: these guidelines outline what I believe to be a good review. Others may not agree. Handle with care, YMMV, IMHO, IANAL, OMGHAX.

Part I - How To Write

If you take only one thing away from this section - or even this guide - let it be the thing in great big capital letters below.

PROOFREAD.

Please. In the name of your theistic deity of choice (or otherwise if you're a godless infidel), proofread your work. Once you've written it, read it over. Then read it again. Then read it again, carefully. Then give it to a mate who's at least as clever as you (if not clevererrer) and get them to proofread it. Instruct them to give you their harshest critique of the work, paying particular attention to spelling and badly phrased sentences. If they still pussy about the bush (hooray for mixed metaphors), threaten to kill their hamster.

The basic things that go wrong in a piece of prose can also be found in the form of a delicious meal: SPAG. It stands for the following four things:

Speling
Pretty obvious really. If you can't spell for whatever reason there's still no excuse - dump your review into MS Word and run the spellchecker. (Do not pay attention to the Word grammar checker, it's rubbish. More ranting on that later.) Hell, even browsers these days come with spellcheckers. Do bear in mind that spellcheckers - especially the Word one - won't notice if you write you're instead of your. If you don't know the difference between you're/your, it's/its, loose/lose etc. then go back to school and never darken the doors of Reviews again until you have learnt the error of your ways. (If you're confused about which of any given two is the one you want, do a Google search for them e.g. "lose loose" and you'll get a multitude of websites that explain when to use each.) Having said all that, spelling errors are the least heinous of the SPAG crimes as they can be fixed pretty easily before being put on the site. (Not that that gives you a licence to be sloppy.)

punctuation
Punctuation generally isn't a problem for most people, although do remember to capitalise the names of games, publishers and dev studios. Don't overuse commas, brackets or dashes - if you spot yourself doing so, restructure your sentences. Bonus points for correct colon and semicolon use, but use them sparingly. Again, the internets will provide ample instruction, if only you look.

And
Alright, I admit, you don't really have to look out for the word "and". But SPG doesn't make as good an acronym. The only thing I can say about and is: don't be afraid to break the rules about putting "and" and "but" at the beginning of sentences, as long as you don't overdo it and it flows. Also, flowers are pretty.

Grammar
Your sentences, make sense they must. If it doesn't read clearly, change it. You might know what you mean, but other people can't read your mind (and they probably don't want to. Eww). The word "it" is itching to trip you up - make sure it's clear what you're referring to when you're using the word. Try to avoid starting all your sentences (or paragraphs - this is very noticeable!) with the same word. As I've mentioned before, avoid the MS Word grammar checker like the plague. It's shit, and will probably make your review worse.

In summary: chekc your speling and punctuation? and keep an eye for bad grammar out. This can all be done with the magic that is PROOFREADING. Please, please proofread your reviews. (Please, please don't give them to me to proofread.) If you don't care about your review enough to check for mistakes, why should we care about it at all?

Part II in the next post due to character limits.

[Paradigm^]

Part II - What To Write, and How To Write It

"But Paradigm," I hear you cry: "You've already told us how to write!"

So far I've told you how to write basic English: the stuff that you should have learnt at school, but didn't because you were too busy staring at your teacher's cleavage. Shame on you. You traded in a mastery of our beautiful language for an eyeful of boob. Didn't you realise you can get as much boob as you like as long as you can write poems?

But I digress. This section is about how to approach writing your review. It's split into three: Preparation, General Advice, and Format.

Preparation

Choose your game. Can't write a game review without a game. Duh. But this is important - if you don't play racing games, you shouldn't be reviewing the latest PGR. If you've no experience of a genre you won't know what to look out for - the things that shine, the common pitfalls. Maybe the handling on PGR is fine for me, but to experienced players of the racing genre it could be all over the shop and completely ruin the game. Review games that are similar to games you normally play. The only exception to this is casual games, which by definition are pretty much open season. Just be careful if you're a hardcore gamer reviewing a casual game - remember it's aimed at newbies.
Play the game. Don't play a game for an hour and then run off to write a review about it. Play the game for long enough to get a really solid feel for how it plays. Pay attention to the little details. Does the camera swing off to stupid angles when you walk near a wall? Did you find yourself dying repeatedly for reasons other than lack of skill? What's the learning curve like? If there's multiplayer of any sort, how well would a newbie fare against a pro? Obviously they'd get owned, but would they still have fun? You don't have to answer these questions in the review, but they're an indication of the type of things you should be thinking about as you play the game. If you absolutely must rush to review a game that's just come out and you've only spent two hours playing it, clearly label your review as First Impressions so people know that they're subject to change. Sometimes games require a bit of initial investment before they get good, which might not be obvious in the beginning. Sometimes they seem great for an hour, but by the fifth you realise that they've used up all their ideas already and it's become boring.
Research the game. Who made the game? Is it part of a series? If so, how does it fit in to the series? How does it compare to its predecessors (or descendants, if there have been sequels)? How does it compare to other games in the same genre? Has it been ported to other systems? If so, how does it compare to them? What kind of audience is it aimed at? You might be all hardcore and only play Crysis and Counterstrike, but that doesn't mean Animal Crossing isn't a great game to the more casual gamer.
Read other reviews. Sadly, your opinion is not the only one in the universe. Other people may have different opinions. Read other reviews and see what they pick up on. Ask people you know what they think of the game. Try to get a wide variety of criticism and praise and incorporate them into your review. It's OK to present different opinions: "People's attitude towards the control system varied a bit - some found it confusing, others found it intuitive and could use it from the beginning. It took me a bit of time to get used to them, but with practice they've become second nature to me." This warns the reader that they might spend a bit more time than anticipated getting into the game, and that it might be a wise idea to try it at a friend's before committing to the purchase.


General Advice

Don't sound like a fanboy... This is important. Don't call it "a rip-roaring adventure" or "a thrilling ride" every other sentence. Leave the marketing hype to the back of the box, and concentrate on enumerating the good and bad points of the game. If you find yourself writing a really positive review, try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who would absolutely hate the game, or find it confusing. Everyone loves Portal - but what about the people who suffer from motion sickness? Or people who are allergic to the colours blue and orange?
...or a hater. Alternatively, the game might be rubbish. Truly, honestly, absolutely the worst most awfulest game you've ever played. So bad that you'd happily murder your entire family twice if it meant not having to play another minute of the game. That's fine. You're allowed to say that. On one condition - that you say why. What spoilt it for you? Was it terrible AI? Was it the camera controls? How would the game play if whatever's broken was fixed? The Simpsons Game for Wii has a hideous camera. It spoils the entire game - you walk into pits / pools / of acid constantly, and you can never see where you're going. But if that were to be fixed, it would actually be quite a playable little platformer. Remember: it's OK to be critical, as long as you explain why, and temper it with some positivity.
Do explain the premise of the game... "It's time for a Star Festival in the Mushroom Kingdom, and Mario is a VIP at Peach's house party. Is he finally going to get some action? Of course not - Bowser appears in the nick of time and whisks the Princess off to the centre of the universe. Mario faints in all the commotion and wakes up to find himself rescued by Rosalina, mysterious captainess of the Comet Observatory - part starship, part astronomical research institution. It seems the Observatory is without power, and the game centres around Mario visiting faraway planets to gain Power Stars - the Duracells of interstellar voyage. After collecting enough of these, our Italian studmuffin can finally chase his bit of tail to the centre of the universe for the predictable Bowser boss battle." If the game relies heavily on previous installments of the series, say so, and give a little background to the series for those who are unfamiliar with it. If it's a new franchise or one not everyone is aware of, explain who the player is and what they're doing in the game world. But beware...
...but don't you dare spoil the ending! Anything story-wise more than a couple of hours into the game (anything past the tutorials, essentially) is off-limits. You'll have to refer to it indirectly - "The plot twist towards the end of the game really takes you by surprise and completely changes your perception of the world around you." Obviously it's fine to talk about the fact that you don't get the BFG9K until the second-last level (but when you do it's a real blast - hur hur), but mention that the people you start off working for are actually the bad guys and you can expect angry mobs wielding pitchforks knocking at your door. It's the same thing that goes with movies - don't give away the plot. Nobody likes spoilers.
Comedy: use it! But be careful. There may be only one person who finds you funny. If it's you, you're in trouble, because everyone else is going to think you're a prat. Try to keep the comedy similar to the articles already featured on the site (more on this later). Witty is better than internet memes. A pun is better than an edgy joke that people might find offensive. Don't forget that if your article is going to be featured on the site, lots more people will be reading it, and not everyone shares the humour found here on the forums. Be mindful of your audience, young grasshopper.


Format and Style

This is the bit where I can't really be too helpful. I was totally ready to write a long lecture here on splitting the review up into sections and the importance of keeping a consistent ratings scale - and then weebl got back to me with some guidelines and all that's gone out of the window. The big man himself says the articles should be "fairly irreverent yet hopefully informative", and that "various narrative structures can be used" too. Look at the games reviews already on the site (weebls-stuff.com/gaming-articles/) to get an idea of format and style. Be relaxed. Don't take yourself - or the game - too seriously. Remember: irreverent yet informative. Repeat it over and over in your head as you type. Be funny, but don't let that get in the way of helping someone form an opinion on the game. And the converse applies: don't get so caught up in reviewing the game that you forget to inject some humour. Rate the game by all means, but on criteria like "how much I want to bone Alyx" rather than "scaleability of the optimised LOD code on low-end systems with HDR and 4xAA set to Maximum". Obviously, if you're going to give a final score then let it reflect the true quality of the game, rather than taking the average of all your silly metrics ;)


I hope this guide has been of more use than it has been pretentious, misleading bollocks. Happy review writing!

[Drattigan]

SpelingI've sooo already made that joke.

[albie_123]

Part III - How to not be a dick and pretend you are good at reviewing games and then tell everyone else how to do it

Don't be paradigm^, or Tim Buckley.

That's it.

[Paradigm^]

Part III - How to not be a dick and pretend you are good at reviewing games and then tell everyone else how to do it
<nothing>Excellent guide, very thorough. I'll be sure to stick to it.

:rolleyes:

[albie_123]

okay i'll change it

[CoX]

dis thread stinks and i hate it and i fink the developers shud go bak n change everyfin bak to how da first game was but even den it still wudnt be very gud lol i give it 1 out of 11.5

But seriously, Paradigm. This is really pretentious.

[Paradigm^]

In the (very) short time Gaming Reviews has been up there's been an instance of pretty much every single thing I've mentioned up there happening in a review. I wouldn't have thought people needed to be told "watch your spelling" and "proofread your reviews" but apparently they do. I saw a need for this thread because I'm an anal pedantic bastard and I hate to see the English language massacred to the level it has been in only six threads. Quite frankly some* of the reviews posted so far have been shoddy at best. If they weren't, they'd have been posted to the site.

And yes, I do sound like an arrogant patronising twat when I write. Sorry.

*Not all.

[Joe G]

I'd rather you'd just write a review to show people how to do it to be honest.

[Mr.L.Xp]

When I read the thread name I was all like this better not be made by who I think it is and it is

Deja vu.

[matt bird]

paradigm self proclaimed king of english

[basstard]

Using less words, I will say this :

If anyone does want an article proofread, my msn address is in my profile. Or PM me.

[Hydralisk]

Using less words than Paradigm, but more than basstard:

Use common sense, and don't start writing a review if you are going to bail halfway through it. Make sure you REALLY want to review the game - don't just type "The graphics are kinda crappy but the gameplay more than compensates for it." - give some examples. ["The graphics are kinda crappy, especially the water textures - they look like they came from a PS1 game - but the gameplay more than compensates for this: I mean, one some days you really do just want to hijack a tank and annihilate everything in your path!"]

[Mr stabby]

Yeah I'm gonna go against the h8rs on this one and say even if it is pretentious, its a lot more than pretty much any of us have done to help people out with the gaming reviews. When the unwritten rules thread was made who said "omg poofbird is telling us how to forum" or when noob adoption was put up who said "omg stabby/cloud trifle is telling noobs how to act". Not many. Guidelines aren't rules anyway they are suggestions. So hop off the pedestal and write a kick ass review that goes against all that if you can.

Oh and I won't be writing any reviews so none of this affects me la la la laaa.

[Drattigan]

write a kick ass reviewAlready gotcha covered...

:p

[Mr stabby]

Yeah man you two's criticism of each other looks jokey or at least constructive I didn't mean that.

[Locke]

Yah, tbf, he is trying to help, maybe you find he is putting it across in a shitty way, be he doesn't have to do this for everyone, give him a break ffs.

[Luna]

I think Para deserves some credit for writing all that regardless of your opinion on the content.

[Locke]

Thankyou Luna!

[faragher]

Another hint is to try to take any criticism in good grace. My review got slagged off by weebl. Did I cry? No*, I did a few edits and tried to take on board what was said. Regular revision will usually improve your article.

* well maybe just a little :(

[Locke]

Every piece of criticism can be used in a constructive way.

[Midget]

^ hypocrite much?

but yeah, this is decent advice, stop being pricks y'all

[Youlikeyams?]

Locke, I think you'll find you're asking him for an argument here. Keep to yourself.
Midge, as fun as it is to wind up those who are angered easily, it's not worth it. You could easily use that wit somewhere valuable. :D
Let's not drag this off-topic.

Paradigm^ might sound a little pretentious, but upon reading through his points (after writing my own review mind :p) there are some very good suggestions in there. However, everyone has their own writing style and can take any criticism on board to improve their reviews overall, without necessarily sticking to one set of guidelines. Live and let live, and we can just help each other along.

yes i'm a fucking hippy blah blah blah

[weebl]

everyone needs to calm down I think. The guide is fairly helpful and some of the people wanging on here are just being dicks due to the fact they can't stand one another.

[Smowy]

You have to toughen up if you write a review, it's obvious para's gonna come and massacre it and if you aren't tough you're gonna start an argument. I managed to live through him massacre my review so I don't see whats wrong with anyone else.
So yeah, nice guide.

[Locke]

You make it sound like he murdered your whole family. Ohh the trauma!

[Youlikeyams?]

Locke, I have a feeling that if you wrote a big hefty review and Para slated it, you'd probably start an almighty flame war, hate petition and leaflet campaign for starters, and then protest outside his house at his cruelness to your review.

So please, just avoid the sarcasm and let people take criticism on board. It can be taken pretty personally by a lot of people, perhaps even you right now.

[La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo]

Locke, I have a feeling that if you wrote a big hefty review and Para slated it, you'd probably start an almighty flame war, hate petition and leaflet campaign for starters, and then protest outside his house at his cruelness to your review.

So please, just avoid the sarcasm and let people take criticism on board. It can be taken pretty personally by a lot of people, perhaps even you right now.

You're so minused now!

[Jay]

Or to summarize;

Fuck up, is it Locke?

[Paradigm^]

Can we take all personal bitching elsewhere and concentrate on comments and suggestions for the guide, please. This is rapidly descending into flamewars and drama llamas*, which are offtopic to say the least.

*You know it's all gone mad when I'm saying this!

[GorillaBearBear]

paradigm self proclaimed king of english

Suzie Dent seen raising an army in Oxford.

[Locke]

Whenever I make a joke here people take it literally & flip out :|

[La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo]

^



So please, just avoid the sarcasm and let people take criticism on board. It can be taken pretty personally by a lot of people, perhaps even you right now.

Nice guide btw Paradigm.

I will take a lot of this into consideration while writing my review.

[Jay]

Can we take all personal bitching elsewhere and concentrate on comments and suggestions for the guide, please. This is rapidly descending into flamewars and drama llamas*, which are offtopic to say the least.

*You know it's all gone mad when I'm saying this!^^^So Yam's was talking about himself?

Either way, I hate in nearly every thread I'm in I get dragged into the middle, attempt to defend myself, then everyone comes out of nowhere, negs me & calls me shit.

Well thanks guys :DShh Locke.

Anyway, the guide is really useful...I've started a Smash Bros. Brawl review which I hope to finish soon, the guide has helped me alot so far, as I'm not the greatest writer in all the lands.

I doubt mine will get on the site or anything, but I would like to share my opinions on the game with everyone...so I'm looking forward to feedback.

[Shalashaska]

Locke, I think you'll find you're asking him for an argument here. Keep to yourself.
Midge, as fun as it is to wind up those who are angered easily, it's not worth it. You could easily use that wit somewhere valuable. :D
Let's not drag this off-topic.

Paradigm^ might sound a little pretentious, but upon reading through his points (after writing my own review mind :p) there are some very good suggestions in there. However, everyone has their own writing style and can take any criticism on board to improve their reviews overall, without necessarily sticking to one set of guidelines. Live and let live, and we can just help each other along.

yes i'm a fucking hippy blah blah blah

Ture, but now instead she'll throw a hissy fit and neg anybody who minused her.

[Locke]

When you say she do you mean me? :p

[Youlikeyams?]

Oh dear. Everyone, please.

Locke, you pick fights and expect your insults to be taken as 'jokes'. Stop it.
Everyone else, don't rise to his baiting.

Keep this thread on-topic, because the last thing we need is Locke trying to annoy everyone and succeeding. He'll play the victim and claim it was all a joke, but really mate, you need to lay off the jokes.

ONWARDS WITH SERIOUS TOPIC DISCUSSION

[Drattigan]

He'll play the victim and claim it was all a joke, but really mate, you need to lay off the jokes.I can stay on them though, right Dad?

[albie_123]

lovin this thred

[Shalashaska]

Albie's posts are so productive. And I was almost sure Locke was a she, having that avatar and all.

[Jay]

ONWARDS WITH SERIOUS TOPIC DISCUSSIONOh dear, I so had the mental image of a lemming holding a sword and riding horse when I read this.

sorry

[Locke]

I thought you were on about the joke in that Cheesebin thread..? Nah, I'm a guy

[Splush]

I'd like opinions from people about what they want/expect from reviews. If there's going to be game reviews on the front page I think they need to follow a fairly similar philosophy to make it feel somewhat professional.

A couple of things specifically. Firstly, what do you guys think about scores on reviews? Personally I'd prefer reviews didn't have scores at all because it sucks that people get overexcited about scores/metacritic instead of reading the actual criticism, but realistically having a review without a score probably means hardly any readers. So, accepting that a score is necessary, what sort of scoring system is best? I tend to think 1-100 and 1-10 are right out, trying to decide the difference between 92% and 93% is absurd and the 1-10 scale is just straight-up broken, where different outlets have different approaches to using the scale, and the culture on forums seems to be to see 7/10 as an average. I'm leaning towards either a score out of five, like film reviews, or just a thumbs up/thumbs down thing.

Secondly, how long should a review be? I really like Eurogamer for their quality of writing and generally reasonable criticisms, but I wonder how many people actually bother to read their 2-page reviews. I feel like all the major sites/mags probably make their reviews too long, and even people who start reading probably just skim-read for a bit and then jump to the score. I think anything more than four paragraphs might be unnecessary, unless it's an exceptional case.

Opinions please. Also, what sites do you actually go for for reviews, if any?

[GorillaBearBear]

I think that reviews shouldn't have scores outside of the text of the review? Putting the scores in context helps mitigate the "omg 6/10 that game is the worst ever lol!" effect and make a more sort of "OK it is not great but a certain type of person will like it."

Also, I think in the context of the site reviews need to be funny, with some jokes, but also serious. Sort of like how they do game reviews on somethingawful but a little more serious?

Reviews probably need to be around 1 a4 page, a bit less maybe? maybe three quaters an a4 page. Any longer and there is a high chance of just waffling, I reckon, any less, and the reviewer is confined to generalities.

Hope that helps/you agree with me entirely splush!

[Youlikeyams?]

Scores out of ten work for me - five star ratings are simply half of this and people will inevitably award half-stars meaning that the system is essentially the same as a 10 point system, but I do agree with you on the percentage scoring being unnecessary.

It's easy to understand a 10 point system and it's easier to tailor to games that deserve the ratings - for example, you could give one game 5/10 and another 6/10, but on a five star system would they both be rounded to 3?

[Paradigm^]

I PM'd weebl in the process of writing this guide asking practically all of these questions. His reply pretty much said "in the style of previous reviews on the site" and gave me a few links which I added at the end of the guide. Since you're asking for personal opinions though, here are mine:
Firstly, what do you guys think about scores on reviews?I'm indifferent. As you say, people end up focusing too much on the scores than the actual meat of the review. The other problem with scores is standardising them. Again, you point out that there's a tendency to rate "average" games with 7/10, with a bizarre logarithmic progression from there upwards, so that an 8/10 game is a lot, lot better than a 7/10 game, and 9/10 is practically godlike. If there are going to be scores they need to be standardised and sensible. An "average" game - nothing to write home about - should score 5/10 for a scoring system to be meaningful. Anything above 5/10 should be considered as "worth your time playing", to some degree. Given that standardising a scoring system across such a diverse range of people would be a nightmare, I'd have to agree with you and say a scoring system probably isn't a good idea.
Secondly, how long should a review be?This is where I vehemently disagree with you. I like my reviews comprehensive and in-depth. I like my reviews long. YLY's one on GTP felt a bit too long for me, but I'm not a racing fan and I suspect I'd be more than happy to read that amount of detail about an FPS or an RTS I was interested in.

Four paragraphs is nothing. You could spend half of that outlining the premise and point of the game alone, before even getting to your impressions of it. I like my reviews to have meat, and I'm more than happy to read for two pages if I'm genuinely interested in the game. Yes, I'll probably skim-read it if I'm not that interested, but skimreading isn't a bad thing. The more information that's there, the better - in the process of skimreading I'll naturally pick out what's of interest to me.

There's a lot I want to read in a review. The premise of the game. How it plays. How smooth or clunky the interface / controls are. How well-balanced the game is. What the teams are like. I want a fairly detailed description of each of the game modes; if they're new to me, I want an explanation of how they work. I want to know what the learning curve is like, and what the game does to keep my attention and challenge me as I progress through it. If it's a PC game, it's vitally important for me to know how well the game scales on various systems (mainly because I have a shitbox that struggles to run HL2 at anything above 1024x768). How good is the AI? Are your teammates terminally stupid, walking in front of your fire and generally getting in the way? Was the camera designed by a sadistic bastard who didn't want you to have any fun playing the game at all? How are the graphics? The sound? The voice acting? The menus? The level load times?

You can't get all of that in four paragraphs. As I say, I don't care if you tell me things I'm not interested in - I'll skip over them until I find the things that concern me.

I'm not going to base my decision on whether to buy a game on a short review. If anything, reading it will inspire me to go out and read other reviews if the game sounds good. It may well be that this is all the site is interested in giving - a brief rundown on a new game that's out. But if it's going to convince me to buy a game (or otherwise), I want to read many, many words first.

what sites do you actually go for for reviews, if any?I don't really use the Internet too much for game reviews, unless it's for a game I'm already interested in. In that case, I'll usually end up reading previews on IGN long before the game actually comes out. I do watch Zero Punctuation, but that's mainly just to groan at Ben Croshaw's predictability and the formulaic...ness of his reviews. I do like PC Gamer's reviewing style - as far as I'm concerned they have the art of reviewing pretty much nailed.

[Splush]

I think that reviews shouldn't have scores outside of the text of the review? Putting the scores in context helps mitigate the "omg 6/10 that game is the worst ever lol!" effect and make a more sort of "OK it is not great but a certain type of person will like it."

By in context, do you mean putting the scores in the text so it's like "...and so this game gets four out of five because...", or something less sneaky than that? Something about that irks me.

I agree that it needs the right jokes/seriousness balance. Everybody should be forced to read Charlie Brooker's collected guardian columns and learn that you can be can be informative and give honest criticism while still being funny. He used to write for PC Zone too, so, uh, everybody should go back in time to the mid-90s to read that?

Scores out of ten work for me - five star ratings are simply half of this and people will inevitably award half-stars meaning that the system is essentially the same as a 10 point system, but I do agree with you on the percentage scoring being unnecessary.

It's easy to understand a 10 point system and it's easier to tailor to games that deserve the ratings - for example, you could give one game 5/10 and another 6/10, but on a five star system would they both be rounded to 3?
When I said a 1-5 scale, I did strictly mean a 1-5 scale, no sneaky half-points! I just feel like the 10 point scale has stopped making sense, sites say 5 is an average but clearly act like 7 is the average. I think a 5 star scale remains relatively unsullied by that kind of skewing, it's used almost exclusively for film reviews and generally film reviewers don't seem to be afraid to use the whole scale. I recognise that there's a difference between 5/10 and 6/10 in the reviewer's mind, but once you factor in the reviewer's subjective tastes I don't feel like that difference is of much value to the reader.

In related matters, isn't 1up.com's new 'school grade' approach to review scores the lamest thing ever? There's even an F+ in there, what the hell is an F+?

Regarding length, I kind of sympathise with you Paradigm but I worry that you're not representative of the review-reading public at large. I personally feel like I value long reviews less than I used to because now there's so many more reviews. Back in the day I used to get one or two magazines a month and, say, PC Gamer's opinion on Half-Life was really important so I wanted a lot of text, but now I can read a bunch of different reviews and on balance I think that's more effective, as far as using reviews as a buyers guide goes.

[GorillaBearBear]

Scores out of ten work for me - five star ratings are simply half of this and people will inevitably award half-stars meaning that the system is essentially the same as a 10 point system, but I do agree with you on the percentage scoring being unnecessary.

It's easy to understand a 10 point system and it's easier to tailor to games that deserve the ratings - for example, you could give one game 5/10 and another 6/10, but on a five star system would they both be rounded to 3?

what makes this different from the disparity between a 10 point rating system and a percentage system.

One game might get 55% and another 60% yet these are both rounded to 6/10 what the hell man!?!

By in context, do you mean putting the scores in the text so it's like "...and so this game gets four out of five because...", or something less sneaky than that? Something about that irks me.

I agree that it needs the right jokes/seriousness balance. Everybody should be forced to read Charlie Brooker's collected guardian columns and learn that you can be can be informative and give honest criticism while still being funny. He used to write for PC Zone too, so, uh, everybody should go back in time to the mid-90s to read that?

by "in context" I mean more like, say you have just written a paragraph about the sound in a game, you might at the end have a sentence attaching a score because you can attach a meaning to that score more easily than if you have an SA style table at the bottom. It's too easy to take the scores as writ without remembering and thinking about the factors that mitigate the scores.

Agree with you about Charlie Brooker he is amazing.

[Splush]

I think I agree with that then, GBB. The score should be a line right at the bottom of the review rather than a separate box. And splitting up stuff like 'sound', 'graphics', 'gameplay' etc. into different scores is outdated and irrelevant as hell. Mention those things in the review of course, but giving them specific scores is weird. Down with deconstructionism in game reviews!

I think I generally like the way film reviews are done and feel like it's worth emulating.

edit: Also, I like the idea of game reviews being short buyers guides, like film reviews, but also having the option of writing a more in-depth article about the game later that discusses the content of the game, maybe one full of spoilers. Maybe that's just stupid and pretentious though, I suppose the number of games that actually warrant that sort of attention is small.

[basstard]

A couple of things specifically. Firstly, what do you guys think about scores on reviews?

I think scores are misleading, as it stands. Everyone's mentioned the 7-being-average problem. The other problem I have with scores is that I've enjoyed many mediocre games and hated some 9 or 10 point games.

What I like is an at-a-glance summary at the end. Obviously a score, be it out of 5 or 10, is a big aid in a summary, but by itself it does not mean much. I quite like some magazines' systems of using plus and minus points to go along with. Or even just bullet points, with possibly relevant criticism or praise in a few words. Be they things from the main text or things that wouldn't fit in. N64 magazine used to do this, I think, and I liked them for it. PC Format, ditto. Oddly enough evo magazine do this, and they rate cars (out of 5), not games.

edit - I would accept scores at face value, and buy games on their basis alone, if it was a reviewer (or magazine) I trust, though.

Secondly, how long should a review be?

My rule of thumb for websites is that if I have to click through to page 2 or 3, then I'm not interested. This isn't due to length concerns, more due to the fact that the internet means you can easily have 3 magazine pages' worth of text on one webpage, and having 3 or 4 pages worth is either an attempt to boost site hits or have more ad revenues.

The length itself depends on the game. I'd happily read a novel-sized review of Bioshock, for example, as long as it continued to be interesting and informative. On the other hand I can't see myself reading more than 2 paragraphs about the new My Little Pony game. I think slightly less than an A4 page is a decent target.

Opinions please. Also, what sites do you actually go for for reviews, if any?

I cheat and use comparison sites like metacritic. For serious reviews, I like PC Gamer UK and PC Format (PC Format is my favourite, but I can't buy it anymore cos France. They were more a hardware magazine, so they could afford to be flippant about their game reviews, which amused me). I used to like N64 Magazine and NGC, but they're now dead. In terms of websites, I don't have a particular favourite, to be honest with you. I enjoy things like Joystiq's Nega-reviews (take only negative criticism from blockbuster, well-recieved games) and kotaku's megareviews, where they take 4 or 5 reviews from sites and take the main points (including scores).

[Splush]

What I like is an at-a-glance summary at the end. Obviously a score, be it out of 5 or 10, is a big aid in a summary, but by itself it does not mean much. I quite like some magazines' systems of using plus and minus points to go along with. Or even just bullet points, with possibly relevant criticism or praise in a few words. Be they things from the main text or things that wouldn't fit in.
I like this! Thinking about it, when I can't be arsed reading a review I'll always just skip to the last paragraph and then read that then the score. Just a little something to put the score in context.

There's always the option of doing bullet points with +s and -s, although they're often fairly contrived.

[Paradigm^]

Regarding length, I kind of sympathise with you Paradigm but I worry that you're not representative of the review-reading public at large.I suspect you're right. Given the audience and tone of the weebls-stuff site, I'm not sure full-length reviews would be appropriate, so I'd be tempted to go with the crowd here and say that shorter reviews are probably better. To be honest, I'd find it hard to take weebls-stuff seriously as a credible games review site. That's not what it is - it's an entertainment site. Enthusiast reviews aren't going to sit nicely with the rest of the content: short, snappy, funny reviews match the tone and style of the site much better.

[faragher]

I feel pretty strongly that the reviews on W-S should not be "just another games review".

The tone of the site generally is pretty irreverent and nothing takes itself too seriously. Do we really want to come across like wannabe serious games reviewers, or should the emphasis be on them being a bit different.

Like weebl said (somewhere) - the best reviews tell a bit of a story, have a bit of a theme - are more than just an outline of the game and its + and -'s.

The unfortunate thing about this is that it is much more difficult (as I found) to write something like this than a straight up review. I also think that headline "x/10" type scores are not always necessary. For a start, you do get the omg 6/10 must be shit thing, and also I am more interested in the experience - the highs and lows of the playing. The reviews that really speak to me are the ones that make me think "that sounds fun" or the opposite, rather than the ones that get 9/10

/edit

I appear to have inadvertantly agreed with para...

[Splush]

Another issue: Comments or no comments?

Arguments against: go to any games website and view the quality of comments for any given article

Arguments for: ...


You guys are probably right about the reviews on this site needing to be a bit different/sillier than the norm. It's just a hard balance to get right.

[faragher]

moderated comments maybe?

[Paradigm^]

Avoid comments like the plague. Moderating them all will take up too much time, and don't really add anything to the review. I know I don't read comments. Instead, link people to the forum: those who want to discuss a review that's up on the site can do so here.

I appear to have inadvertantly agreed with para...Holy shit! I'm afraid you're going to die in seven days, mate.

[Splush]

Strictly moderated comments would be ideal if somebody was willing to put in the work of weeding out the crap. I might be willing to put in the work on a trial basis or something.

The comments on Eurogamer are often quite humorous once you just learn to subconsciously filter out the angry fanboy comments.

[Paradigm^]

I suspect we have more 12 year old idiots than intelligent people browsing the main site though. I'm not sure about opening the floodgates to them. Perhaps require a forum registration to comment?

Alright, I have no idea about the site's demographic. I'm just guessing.

[faragher]

I'd give modding comments a go if needed.
Holy shit! I'm afraid you're going to die in seven days, mate.Unless I can get someone to agree with me?

[Paradigm^]

Unless I can get someone to agree with me?'Fraid not. Feel free to take down other people with you though.

[Drattigan]

Was just reading what you guys previously said and as far as the humour and seriousness balance goes, did I hit the mark in my review or did I begin to go off on one?
I'm asking because I'm concerned that I'm writing in a style that isn't suited to the site.