Crappy videogame writing

[Diff-chan]

Jeremy's "writing" is everything wrong with videogame reviews in one smoldering heap. But we knew that already.

[Jeremy]

Thank goodness your writing represents everything good about it.

[Diff-chan]

I havent written a review in years, but when I do, I openly welcome criticism. Unlike someone we all know. Ill be posting a Half-Life 2 review so stay tuend for that.

[Jeremy]

Great, I look forward to reading your work. Keep up the jabs at me, they never get old. Ever.

[Cowdisease]

I havent written a review in years, but when I do, I openly welcome criticism. Unlike someone we all know. Ill be posting a Half-Life 2 review so stay tuend for that.

Great, I look forward to reading your work.

Stayed tuend for the next chapter of Diffx vs. Jeremy.

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What Diffx said about how reviews should be written is spot-on, and I wish I could read more of those reviews in that style. I look forward to see what you write for Half-Life 2, Diff.

[Mikazuki]

They should read the review to learn if the game is good or not, and then go to other sources (company's website, demos, whatever) to learn the nuts-and-bolts of a game. A review should be a critical examination of a game, not a blow-by-blow overview of the game's feature list.

I totally disagree. I believe a really good review is written in a way that allows you to play the game with your imagination and then make your own decision based on personal taste. Opinion is only NEEDED when something about the game can't be articulated by text.

Look at Jeff Gerstmann's review of Donkey Kong Jungle Beat. He bitches that the game is too short and easy, but makes ZERO mention of the combo/clapping system. For all we know, he doesn't know it exists!

Here are my problems with professional reviewers:

1. Many seem to have no idea how the game "works" and shouldn't even be reviewing it in the first place. Fighting games especially. Competition to publish content first makes this problem worse.

2. Like I first said, rather than trying to form an accurate picture of the game in the reader's mind, reviewers fall back on opinion which is often useless.

3. Most game reviews lack passion, are boring to read, and attempts at humor are often embarassing.

At least in the 90's, many fan sites took advantage of their freedom to say hat they want and not be bothered by deadlines or anything else.Now, most of them struggle to emulate professional sites. Remember UK:R, Dimension Sega, Higher Voltage, old-school Nintendojo, DaveZ's Saturn site, etc?

[MarkRyan]

What sort of passion do you expect in a review that doesn't have any personal opinion?

A review without an opinion is also called a press sheet. There are millions of those here.

[Mikazuki]

What sort of passion do you expect in a review that doesn't have any personal opinion?

You're meshing and exaggerating two different things that I said into one statement. Professional game reviews have plenty of opinion, but are boring to read, primarily due to being rushed out before the reviewer understands the game enough and/or poor writing skills.

Opinion is fine, but I believe it should take a back seat to describing the game and letting the reader make up their mind. At the very least, the opinion needs to be explained more thoroughly than it often is.

A review without an opinion is also called a press sheet. There are millions of those here.

Nothing near that. All I'm seeing are vague descriptions, new features thrown around as buzzwords, and mini-reviews from spokespeople.

[MarkRyan]

Really what you want can be found by reading previews and watching videos.

[RoleTroll]

This IGN Fire Emblem 2 review is interesting:

"It's only a letdown in the sense that all this game really offers is an entirely different storyline on top of the pre-existing gameplay built for the GBA Fire Emblem released in 2003. It's still a great strategy experience, but because the game has already wowed us in the original 2004 release its lost some of its luster."

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/618/618558p1.html