There are many things in life that makes me wonder about how mankind ever managed to avoid being the first thing to go when the evolution came. Food distribution problems, politics, console wars, game reviews.
Specially the last one. The task: write something descriptive about a fairly simple experience, designed by others to entertain, so that other people can understand your impressions as you played the game.
There are many things to obviously avoid, of course. Shamelessly plugging the title out of love for previous titles from the same developer. Baselessly hating the game because of your own undescribed problems with undefined aspects of the game. Clinically describing the game while hiding your own personal impressions the descriptions are based on. Using esoteric language that's appealing, but fails to describe anything useful.
But mostly, it means avoiding to misrepresent the game, without describing absolutely everything. And that's the problem, of course. You want to write something that picks at what makes the game appealing, and how the game succeeds or fails at using this to create a good playing experience.
So what does other people take from the review? People who haven't actually played the game? Or, even people who don't regularly do play games?
I suggested once that maybe reviewing games as if they were movies was an idea. How the performances were. What parts captured your imagination and attention particularly well. How intriguing the plot was - that kind of thing. And the other guy said: good luck finding a game that works this way - because there aren't any.
-Games, you see, are just games. It's right there in the title, no? They are repetitive and simplistic, that always fail to truly be cinematic experiences except inside the heads of players - that is their strenght. To present simplistic interactive experiences that are designed to occupy your time while letting your mind fly.
- Any reviews of games (aha, here it comes) that attempt to describe such an experience therefore are subjective tales - and are bound to make every other player not exactly like you disappointed.
I'm not sure it was a very good point.
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