Forums > Submission Feedback > fleinn's inFAMOUS review

This was a very detailed review, fleinn, but I would encourage you to trim things down in this and in future reviews. The text was remarkably long, to the point where I finally copied the content into Word for a word count: 2599 words. That's just a few hundred words shy of the typical length of a chapter in a novel, and about twice as much as most readers will endure when they decide to start reading a game review.

You made a lot of good points here, but word economy would have made them more quickly and with more impact. That would have resulted in less retread, as well, since at times it felt like you had just made a point and then decided to start making it all over again.

I think that your ideas here are interesting, but it's important to present interesting ideas in a way that leaves people inclined to explore all of them. In high school, a lot of students complain when they have to write a 500-word essay or whatever, because how in the world can someone possibly come up with so many words? By the time we grow out of that juvenile phase, a lot of writers are struggling just as much to trim away unnecessary words and cut right to the heart of the matter. If you're looking to improve as a writer, that's your next step. See how much good content you can pack into a 1500-word review. See how you can better phrase things. It's a wonderful exercise.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world2

:) yeah. Agree with that. I think the problem was that I wanted to have a lot of different other things in there as well, about the entire link between the game-world and the player theme. But I ended up just skipping it. So I didn't think it was that long.

..honestly, I'm more and more liking the idea of two-part reviews. I wrote one for New Vegas that way. Deliberately doing the story and emotion separately from the technical bits. I know I've always wanted to read the technical bits in the same review myself. And I still do prefer the breaks to be about technical explanations. But.. I have to admit that it freaking difficult to get right with anything that needs more than a couple of sentences. Because suddenly it's like this review - it's too brief to really explain anything correctly. But it's way too long to just give you that first impression.

So maybe the two-part reviews would work out almost as good as I imagine in my head :p

(..but will spend some time cutting this review down, and fixing some of the sentences...)

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