What makes a good review?

By Jonathan Stark · December 16, 2008

A very large question, I know.

I've been thinking about it a lot, recently.

One thing I've come to conclude is that, in the case of reviews, shorter IS better. The 800 word range seems to be perfect for a video game. I've been looking over my old reviews, and the longer ones definitely lack the energy of the shorter ones.

It seems to be a "no-brainer." A dry review that's short doesn't outlive its welcome, while an entertaining one leaves you wanting more (a concept we seem to have forgotten in America... not sure about other countries).

Thus, I've been trying to write shorter reviews. I managed to cut my Chrono Trigger DS review down from 1200 to 800, and I'm fairly proud of that.

Comments 3

overdrive Staff Dec 16, 2008

I'd agree with that for the most part. Sometimes you pretty much HAVE to go long if the game warrants it, but I've been working to keep the writing short.

I used to be in the 8-9 KB range with about everything with 7 KB being short. Nowadays, I've streamlined things down to 4-6 on average with 7 being long.

honestgamer Staff Dec 16, 2008

The game should determine the length. I usually find that 1000 is a good average word count for most games, with RPGs usually skewing longer and some casual games coming in shorter. While it's always good to try to keep things short, most games have a lot of content--important content--that you'd have to skip to make things shorter. Go for brevity, but never commit the crime of deciding to cut something you feel is really important just to drop below a magical word count. Also, never commit the crime of going on at length about something non-important. As long as your review is covering interesting and important ground, readers won't mind the length. Word count mostly comes into play when you're padding your review in an attempt to make it longer (something some writers still do, though none on this site spring to mind).

psychopenguin Dec 18, 2008

The problem with short reviews is that I tend to feel bad I am leaving about every crucial detail, and it's hard for me to determine the importance of each detail.