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Editorial Entertainment Games

What Makes a Game Review a Game Review? 63

Posted by Zonk from the if-you-prick-reviewers-will-they-not-bleed? dept.
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?"
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What Makes a Game Review a Game Review? More

What Makes a Game Review a Game Review?

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  • Not a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Richie1984 ( 841487 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @04:25PM (#11352645)
    Any review of any service or product is simply someone's opinion, regardless of their writing style, whether it be detailing certain aspects of the product in detail, or having rather abstract ideas based on one's own gamimg experience. I feel it important to find reviewers that you can often agree with, and that you can trust to be impartial. So, I think that a game review is a game review if you think it is, and if you are more informed after reading it.
    • Good reviews have plenty of facts about the product that they're "detailing in detail". Example:

      Fact: "Game stutters"
      Opinion: "Stuttering makes game unplayable"

      Check out mags like Consumer Reports for examples of just-the-facts type reviews.
      • Consumer Reports actually has a lot of (sometimes unstated) opinion and assumptions in the target market for the products they review. I find I almost never agree with their reviews on tech gadgets, while I often do on cars.
      • Consumer reports' reviews are largely written by non-experts. This can lead to misinformed critisism and misleading conclusions.

        I would guess that the overwhelming majority of slashdot readers would disgree with Consumer Reports on the subject of personal computers, and with good reason. The couple mechanic-types I know think their car reviews are a laugh-a-minute riot. Same thing with photographers and reviews of cameras.
        Basically any time I've talked to a subject matter expert about something I saw in a

    • Game Reviews (Score:4, Interesting)

      by queenb**ch ( 446380 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @07:39PM (#11354621) Homepage Journal
      The major factor that seems to be lacking in a lot game reviews is honesty. Far too many of the commercial game reviews seem to be either written by the devlopers or their marketing cohorts. I know of one game who had to get an employee to put up their first fan site!

      If there are problems in the game, I'd like to see them reported. I've yet to see anything like that in anyone's reviews, unless they are another end user who's not associated with the game or a web site who sells the game. None of the magazines or on line review sites give you this kind of information. Just to illustrate, I'll name some examples.

      I've purchased several games only to be severely disappointed. I purchased Morrowind III Bethesda Softworks and it took me 3 months just to get to a point where I could create a character without the game causing me to get the BSOD thanks to an illegal call to my video driver. I was not alone in this problem. How hard it is to tell people that your game isn't compatible with the NVIDIA chipset? At the time the NVIDIA chipset was the hottest card around and in order to meet their sales projections, they kept mum.

      I purchased Sacred by Ascaron Entertainment and it's so full of bugs as more annoying than fun to play. The on line forums are full of people who state that they have moved on to other games because of the bugs. Their patches only seem to make matters worse and many of the bugs only affect high level characters (over lvl 100).

      Guild Wars is still in beta because of issues. Worlds of War Craft recent extended its "grace" period for paying customers because of it's problems. The whole Prince of Persia series has been problematic for me and I've never been able to get even their demos to work properly for me, so I've been spared shelling out $50 for something that didn't work.

      Lest everyone think I only flame, I will list some of the positives. I've purchased I of the Dragon and it's been nearly flawless even though it's written by a small team who's relatively new to game development in Russia. It's also one of the more inventive games I've played in a while. Nothing like being able to eat your enemies! I also purchased Rise of Nations and it too has been nearly flawless even though its just a nicer version of AOE. I'm also a big fan of Neverwinter Nights and the Gothic series.

      2 cents,

      Queen B

      • I purchased Morrowind III Bethesda Softworks and it took me 3 months just to get to a point where I could create a character without the game causing me to get the BSOD thanks to an illegal call to my video driver. I was not alone in this problem. How hard it is to tell people that your game isn't compatible with the NVIDIA chipset?

        Apart from the fact that the game is Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, I purchased it close to release day (don't know exactly how close, but I just took one of the Collectors edi

      • I played completely through Morrowind with a GeForce 3 Ti 500. I'm pretty sure a lot of other people have beaten that game with some type of GeForce as well. Saying that Morrowind simply doesn't work with nVidia chipsets would be a lot more dishonest than saying that it works with them no matter what.

        Rob

      • Re:Game Reviews (Score:4, Insightful)

        by FortranDragon ( 98478 ) on Friday January 14, 2005 @03:31PM (#11366467)
        If there are problems in the game, I'd like to see them reported. I've yet to see anything like that in anyone's reviews, unless they are another end user who's not associated with the game or a web site who sells the game. None of the magazines or on line review sites give you this kind of information. Just to illustrate, I'll name some examples.

        I've purchased several games only to be severely disappointed. I purchased Morrowind III Bethesda Softworks and it took me 3 months just to get to a point where I could create a character without the game causing me to get the BSOD thanks to an illegal call to my video driver. I was not alone in this problem. How hard it is to tell people that your game isn't compatible with the NVIDIA chipset? At the time the NVIDIA chipset was the hottest card around and in order to meet their sales projections, they kept mum.

        The thing is, is it a widespread problem or a single user's problem? A reviewer needs to look at the broader picture. If a big only happens on their PC and not others then should they report it? Maybe.

        To use your example of Morrowind, in my house we were playing it on three different PCs (all legit, we all wanted the goodies in the collector's edition :-D) with three different Geforces (a GF2 Ultra, a GF3 Ti300, and a GF4 4600). All were using the latest WHQL drivers for the particular OS (XP and 98SE). No bluescreens or illegal operations.

        So, the question becomes as a reviewer, does one report that Morrowind won't work with "the NVIDIA chipset" or just assume that the problem lies with one's personal PC? After all, we all buy a lemon part once in a while. It doesn't mean that entire line of parts is bad.

        My preference would be for the reviewer to state they had a problem, list the hardware and software used (w/version numbers), and then continue the review with another (stock setup) PC.
  • My reviews on GamesAreFun [gamesarefun.com] tend to be a bit lengthy, but not in a "make the reader think about ideas" sort of way. Instead I explain controls, how I feel the story (if any) is, what I think of the graphics, sound, and overall how much fun or lack thereof I had while playing the games.

    An example would be my WWE Day of Reckoning review [gamesarefun.com]. Typed out it was about 7 pages, but most of it goes into the controls, and create-a-wrestler modes, and touches on how the story works without giving it away. Or my Star W [gamesarefun.com]

    • Re:My own reviews... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Black Pete ( 222858 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @06:12PM (#11353699)
      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.

      • Re:My own reviews... (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Ra5pu7in ( 603513 )
        I think this is why the reviews I like best incorporate both. I definitely want to know how smoothly the control scheme works or the length of load times. However, I also want to know if the game was fun and involving.

        I never rely on a single reviewer. When I'm dealing with a new reviewer (one I haven't read before), I try to look at how they rated various games I already own. Do their impressions match mine or are they a complete opposite? What is their bar of excellence? What kinds of games do they
      • What works for you doesn't work for others. I know a lot of wrestling game fans and the type of info you criticize is *EXACTLY* the info they want. Sure, the info is in the manual, but when deciding to buy or rent a game, you don't have access to the manual.

        Of course, this is specific to wrestling games because there are engines that are generally liked and engines that aren't. When reviewing, say, Tony Hawk Underground 2, you really don't need to know that square does flip tricks and circle does grabs.

  • You know... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by tsanth ( 619234 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @04:25PM (#11352651)
    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.
    • 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.

      I absolutely agree. When I'm reading a review for any product (or even a movie review), what I want to know is, is this worth my time and money?

      I don't want to be impressed by the writing style of some guy who wishes he were a novelist. Give me the info, short and sweet. Good graphics? Good level design? Good story? Many bugs? Yes, yes, yes, no? Sounds good.

      I'm even in

    • The problem arises when the reviewer has a financial (or other) incentive to push you towards a certain game, or away from another, which unfortunately is all too common in the industry.

  • Simple (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mopslik ( 688435 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @04:27PM (#11352674)

    What are your thoughts on game reviews?

    If I already own the game, then I can play it and draw my own experiences from it. No need for the review, obviously.

    If I don't own the game, I need to understand why I should or should not buy/obtain it. Whether the reasons for this involve gameplay, graphics or some random gamer's personal experiences is largely irrelevant, as long as the reasons are clearly stated. Both can be good or bad.

    Good:

    • "Sound is horrible, like the developers carefully tuned each sound inside a tin can while wearing earmuffs."
    • "I felt as if I was a part of the game, rather than a casual observer, because of the well-developed storylines and character development."

    Bad:

    • "I didn't like the graphics, especially compared to similar games." Great, but why not? Too cartoony? Not cartoony enough? Painful to the eyes?
    • "I felt waves of emotion running through my core as my character leapt from miniscule platform to platform." Way to wax the poetic there, but this really tells me nothing. Oh, except that there are platforms. Apparently they're small.

    • Re:Simple (Score:5, Funny)

      by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @05:33PM (#11353287) Homepage Journal
      Mario and I became quite close over the ensuing days and months. He became like a friend to me, he would do whatever I ask of him, and all he wanted in return is a nice mushroom or flower and he so desired to avoid getting hit on the head by a hammer. We spent many a long summer night together, you know the kind where the air just kind of hangs there and the crickets are the moons only companion.
      It was in the heady days of my youth that I first discovered Mario. I was at a toystore with my parents when, underneath the glowing halogen lights, and above the pristine reflective floor, I saw him. It was in that austere environment that I fell in love for the first time. Although he was wrapped in plastic, that round face and bright eyes called to me. It was as if he was saving himself just for me. I decided then and there that I would not leave without my beloved. I screeched, "Mommy, mommy, I need Mario!". At first she resisted, perhaps out of a misguided notion that a boy does not need a greasy Italian video game character as a friend, but she eventually found out that there was no consoling me and politely requested the game from the pimply face teenage store clerk.
      The whole ride home my heart palpitated with anticipation. "It's real! It's real!" I kept on repeating as I rocked back and forth in my mother's 81 Ford station wagon, you know the kind with the wood paneling and guady interior. What innocous surroundings for my dear...dear Mario. I clutched the box covered with twilight and screen shots to my chest dearly and rocked back and forth. Come to think of it, maybe my mother was right.
      Home was a split level in a planned community in pretty much any northeastern city you can think of. We lived in the back of a cul-de-sac where everyone knew what toys everyone else had. As we pulled into our driveway next to the spotlessly manicured lawn my mother opened the garage door. Finally, the last gate to pass before I could finally get to know my precious Mario. Unfortunately, much like the real gates of heaven one has to pass by Saint Peter first. In this case, my Father...
      "I thought I told you to rake the fucking lawn!" he bellowed.
      "But dad....Mario...this is the most important day in my young life!" I pleaded.
      "I am going to pretend I didn't hear that" he replied as he threw a rusty rake into my chest, causing me to drop the treasure I had so carefully been clutching.
      "Finish and you can do whatever you want." he said coldly as he went inside.
      After about an hour that seemed like an eternity, I asked him to survey the job I had done. He said that it was acceptable, but that if I don't start doing a better job, I'll end up a failure in life. I tried to comprehend the statement, but there was Mario afoot. I slid open the glass door and stepped inside the kitchen. It was a cramped space with slightly dingy tile floors, a refigerator that ran too loudly, and a microwave that just flashed 12:00 over and over again. The picture of imperfection. I walked past my doting mother who was making stuffed cabbages for dinner. Not very Italian, but we are Polish. I guess some people just cannot get over their roots.
      I tore open the box with the veracity of a lion ripping open the side of a gazzelle. After taking a second to marvel at my dream machine, which had not 1 but 2 different shades of grey on it, I thought, "Nintendo", that is Japanese. Imagine, a totally alien culture, a country that my nation had gone to war with not 40 years ago, was now the home of the manufacturer of dreams come true.
      I was sitting there, staring at the box on top of the plain brown carpet, in the plain living room, 7 feet high, about 4 times that long and wide, with the plain floral print furniture, the plain tables, the non-descript lamps. It's comfortable, but a dangerous kind of comfortable. The neutral shade of green painted haphazardly on the walls called for one to relax, but to never leave. The throwpillows in the love seat comforted you but mocked you at the same tim
      • Funniest (I think) damned thing I've read in a long time. Kudos. (I don't have mod points, sorry)

      • Here's another "hell yeah" for you. Funny as anything I've read on /. in a long time. Keep 'em coming!
      • While I was dreaming of my princess, my father interrupted my trance by shouting, "well, we paid 200 fucking dollars for that piece of shit, you going to play it or not?"
        A grand don't come for free, and making me laugh out loud is a comparable task. Thank you, my burger-wrapping fry-frying friend. +6 Legendary.

  • no.. (Score:2)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 )
    they can be anyway the writer wants. it might make for shitty entertainment to read though.

    frankly, i think more of the reviews should get to the point like my favourite review of all time that was on a finnish magazine.. "p*sk* commando klooni" - directly translated: "sh*tt* commando clone.". and that was the whole review, total classic.

    you could write reviews like that and be daaaamn accurate of 50% of games coming out.

    • this may not be a traditional review, but it gets the job done.

      http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/a/animal- collective/here-comes-the-indian.shtml

      why can't game reviews be written with the same approach?

      • well, back in the day a lot of the reviews on the magazine here that promptly turned to shit later had a story at the beginning, telling what the game was about and setting the mood, the reviews were usually good to read just for those.
  • Trip Hawkins answer ;)
  • I don't have time to read a 27 page review of Zoo Tycoon 8. Or hear some fanboy explain why Doom 3 was or was not everything he hoped it could be.

    Ironic since I'm posting on Slashdot that I would whine about time.

    Anyway, I just read a few sites, figure out who I agree with most of the time, and read them - looking for scores and *brief* summary's. If I want to read the review, then I will, most of the time I have a passing interest in a game and want to know if it's thought to be "good" or "bad" by peop
    • The reality is, most people care more about the score than the actual review. Hense the rise of aggregator sites like Game Rankings.
      • I wonder why there aren't more aggregators for other media (or maybe I missed something). There's RottenTomatoes for movies, GameRankings for games, but nothing for CDs or books? Electronics?
      • I use aggregators to narrow down my choices. For example, when I wanted to buy a fighting game, I used GameRankings to toss out the bad games. Then I could read the reviews of the highly regarded games.

        I do this even without regard to genre. If I were to buy an XBox (which I don't currently have), the first thing I would do is determine what the top rated games are. Then read the reviews to see what kind of genre I want to go to.

  • Critique Vs. Review (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If we look at movies, there's a pretty substantial difference between Entertainment Weekly and Film Comment. I suspect that the vast majority of moviegoers, even the avid fans, have nothing but disdain for critical/scholerly review. I expect nothing less from Gamers. Nothing more complicated than scale of 1-10, please.

    That's not a knock, it just reflects their objectives.

    I mean, I don't give a shit about sculpture. Constantine Brancusi? I give him a 9.4

  • Sound, Video and More! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Goyuix ( 698012 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @05:13PM (#11353077) Homepage
    Personally I tend to stop at Gamespot for the large part of my initial game reviews, not because I like their editors (I think they generally fall somewhere between mediocre and stink) but because they have lots of easy to access screenshots and movies, and quite frankly - their video reviews are pretty decent. They also have reader reviews, forums and other informational bits all nicely tied up so I can explore as much or as little as I want.

    The bottom line in my opinion is that we really need both hand fed, just give me the stinking average rating of the game, and immersive, make you think and decide for yourself movies and demos .

    And for my soapbox speech, reviews very rarely mention the in game music (partly because it isn't part of games like it used to be). Sound effects generally get a mention, but music rarely. When a reviewer actually reviews the music, and heaven forbid actually takes it into account when giving their stamp of approval on the game - the nostalgia runs thick and rich. Lets not forget about all the elements of gameplay, not just story and graphics!

  • duhhhhh all of the above. don't try to make it one-size-sits-all.

    when i want a politicized/family-oriented opinion of a game, i'll go to a massively-public site.

    when i want a fighting-game enthusiast's opinion, i'll go to a fighting-game-fansite.

    when i want a game designer's opinion of how good a game is, i'll go to a game design enthusiast's site.

    when i want a lot of info quick i'll go to a site that aggregates from all of the above.

  • ratings and reviews (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Fundamentally, it is impossible to communicate gameplay and aesthetics with a number. Even a very, very large number (and yes, even all the bits in the program itself; you are not a computer). If anything, ratings can only be misleading by giving you a false sense of familiarity.

    I think, then, that the primary goal of the review should be to help synthesize some sense of the game in the mind of the reader. Out of what? Previous experiences, that's what. The review should relate the game to other games, pop
  • You really feel the game reading this one [insertcredit.com].
  • This story sounds awfully similar to this one [slashdot.org] from almost exactly a month ago.

    It looks like a Kotaku [kotaku.com] dupe [kotaku.com] was posted each time through by Slashdot. So, I guess Slashdot is duping Kotaku's dupes.

    Crazy.
  • As others have stated game reviews (and for that matter pretty much every other review) exists for one point: should I pay for foo? Reviews are not criticism, nor are they narratives, anecdotes, or literature. They are a form of journalism wherein the reviewer attempts to impart information of a semi-objective nature devoted to answering the stated question of whether you should or should not do something.

    It is possible to arrive at this point many ways, but if you remove that critical point (which does no

  • Good quote - One typo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by awtbfb ( 586638 ) on Thursday January 13, 2005 @07:53PM (#11354768)
    The problem with many Slashdot posts 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.
  • Call me picky but sometimes I play a game only to find out it is missing a feature that totally ruins the game for me.

    For Example: Some gameboy pinball games do not save high scores. Since there isn't much to see in a pinball game I play entirely to beat my previous high scores and I love it. Not saving the high scores makes the game virtually worthless to me and therefore is a show-stopper for me.

    Reviewers need to point out anything that they could imagine could be a show-stopper. Sometimes I read rev
    • I can just agree with this. One major show stopper for me was if the game designers left out the possibility to invert the mouse in first person shooters. I mean, heck, maybe they all play with non-inverted mouse settings, but I guess some large part of the target audiience does (like more than 10 percent or so). If the "invert mouse" option was not present on the config menu (of the demo...), I would neot buy the game, infact, that upon finding out about this, I would exit the game and uninstall it, no mat
  • I think that most reviews require a bit of critical thinking, simply by virtue of the fact that it can be a challenge to seperate out the facts of the good and bad of the game from the fluff and padding that makes it way into reviews.
    It seems to me like most review sites tend to have a good summary of the good and bad points of the game, and if it's worth a purchase or maybe a rental, but it's a bit of an exercise to get to it.
    • Every text can benefit from critical thinking. You can see in the examples here people bringing up bad reviews ("this game sucked") without saying why ("this third-rate Mario clone has three screens, insipid music that consists of 8 notes played over and over, and several crash bugs"). Any text that requires critical thinking for the reader to grasp its literal meaning is opaque.

      This article poses a false dichotomy, viz., "Either you can uncritically accept a stupid numerical rating system and a formula o
  • There is nothing more to it, a review is something written to express an opinion, Dictionary .com says something else [reference.com].
  • I'd like to see more reviewers make comments on the quality of the game levels themselves. This is something that is more important with first person shooters. Some games I've played (Jedi Academy, Serious Sam) have seriously fun gameplay but the levels sometimes are very bland. Both architecturally and in texturing. I figure thats a field that not many people take into account.

    Obviously this becomes more difficult because of the extra detail the games offer means so much more effort needs to be put into t
  • i can't stand that stream-of-consciousness crap. some people have seen fit to call this style of writing "new games journalism". these "new games journalists" write as if they are trying to emancipate the world from the tyranny of old games journalism. their writing makes me nauseous.

    i just want a clear, concise explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of a game. i don't want to read some lit major waxing philosophical about his gaming experiences -- describing some 30 second battle in everquest 2 as if
  • "I don't think you need to blatantly summarize your opinion in a pre-chewed paragraph of "this is good and that is bad" to make what you've written, analysis. Reading Turner's story about the emotions the game inspired is more than enough to give me a taste of the game and certainly a idea of what the writer thought of it."

    The whole point of reading a review is to determine whether we will like a game or not if we buy it. Turner's review was useless in that regard, as it gave little basis for comparison w
  • ...makes a game review a Game Review.
  • I write game reviews, and, since I don't have money coming out of my ears, demo reviews, for FragFiles.org (guess our web address. I dare you). I believe the most important thing in a review is to give the reader as much relevant information about the game as they need to decide whether or not to play it. The idea is that once you read the review, you will know if the game matches your idea of something fun. Reviews should also be entertaining to read, since I know I myself read reviews of games I already o
  • ...then it is completely useless to me. I don't care about a reviewer's opinion simply because it is not my own, and therefore not relevant to my choice of video games. Even a reviewer who appears to share many of my tastes regarding video games cannot be fully trusted.

    When I read a review, I look for information: What is the game about? What genre is it? What control system and/or interface does it use? If it's a PC game, what are its specs? Anything outside of that type of information basically ge
  • The original article states:

    "They don't want to be challenged, instead, they want to have the ideas swirling in the writer's head synthesized and explained."

    Which is nonsense, and only speaks to the author's lack of writing ability. The way I read it is "I can't concretely explain my opinions, so rather than improve my writing skills, I'll blame the reader for not understanding my oh-so-deep and complex ramblings."

    At the core of a good writer is the ability to take those "swirling ideas", and write t

  • I'll typically look at reviews for games I already have, and see which reviewers tend to look for the same things in a game.

    When I lived on the east coast, one of the few stations we received (rural, no cable) had a movie reviewer named Tom New who I trusted implicitly, because I never found myself in disagreement with any movie I watched. If he said it wasn't worth paying for in a theatre, I'd catch it on TV eventually, and lo and behold he'd be right. His opinions obviously wouldn't be useful to everyone
  • 3 Words:

    Tycho [penny-arcade.com] and Gabe [penny-arcade.com]

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