What Makes a Game Review a Game Review?

An anonymous reader writes "Kotaku asks Do Game Reviews Have to Be Puerile? in a short editorial about the state of game reviews. The article points to a recent story in The New Gamer about Silent Hill 4 as an "experiential piece of writing about the emotions and thoughts that swirl through a gamer's head as they play a game over time" The Kotaku article ends on this note: 'The problem with many reviews is that both their writers and readers expect a formula. They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained. But critical thought, in its truest form, should be something that inspires others to think critically, not just accept what has been handed to them.' What are your thoughts on game reviews? Do they need to have scores and a summary of what's good or bad about the game to be counted? Is experiential commentary more or less useful than a breakdown of the game's design?"

Comments

You know...

[tsanth]

When I read a game review, I want to be told information that will either push or pull me away from buying (or playing) that game. If it so happens that they can accomplish this while giving me some kind of stream-of-consciousness tour of their mind, then more power to them.

What works for me is this: tell me what games the reviewer tends to like, and let the reviewer tell me what he likes about the game.

I'll take it from there.

Re:My own reviews...

[Black Pete]

The problem is, most of the time game reviews simply read like an instruction manual. For example, take this snippet out of your DoR review:

DoR uses the same striking and grappling system from XIX, which is good, but still not as robust as the SmackDown! grappling system on the PlayStation 2; but it does work, and works well. The B button is used for strikes, tap to do light strikes and hold for strong strikes; also pushing the control stick in a direction while striking will make you do a different weak or strong strike. You can also make combos from strikes and chain them together for up to 10 hits, depending on your wrestler. The A button is used for grapples, tap for light grapples and hold for strong grapples. You have five weak front grapples, and five strong front grapples, and the same goes for rear grapples, five each for strong and weak. The grapple done is dependent on if you move the control stick when pressing the button for weak grapples, or not, or if you move the control stick or not after initiating a strong grapple and pressing A. You can also use B to do strikes while in a strong grapple, and depending on the type of strikes the wrestler has been given for the strong grapple, they can be chained into a grapple move.

That really doesn't tell me much of anything about how the game feels. By reading that, I can only glean the following information:

- there are grapple moves
- there are strike moves
- there are strong and weak versions
- etc.

Only the real hardcore wrestling gamer will really care or even understand the button mapping stuff. Even then it tells you nothing about how it feels while playing it. You know the saying: Just because it looks good on paper...

Another thing: I've never played XIX, so comparing it to that game just goes over my head, so once again only the hardcore fan will understand this reference.

When reading a game review, I don't need a rehash of the game manual since it comes included with the game; what I really want to know is: Is the game fun? How does it make you feel while playing it? Is it worth buying?

I think this is the point this article's author was trying to make.