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Reviewing a game: A problem of trust and clarity.

Review is the tool through which interaction declares its sovereignty. It's the magic moment where you establish a common ground where two persons' views are re-conciled beneath the same ruler. What follows is the steps to what i deem an impartial review.

Colm McAndrews, Blogger

April 13, 2009

3 Min Read
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During a review a critic describes a videogame and then judges it. He has to give the reader a clear figure of the game and then tell him whether the game is good or not. 

Regarding the second purpose, I'd like to briefly inveigh against today's readers, because it's ultimately up to the them to be influenced or not by the reviewer's analysis, they're the receivers of the message. I believe reviews are mostly about seeking unbiased "truth" so I've always been affected by them. I never complied with those immature players instead who reject impartiality, and affirm that a title that's been judged poor by means of logical and effective reasoning, and more importantly by the standards of a modern gameplay depth, I say, They persist on thinking otherwise, claiming the defects described, albeit true, do not keep the game from being "good and fun". I reckon these persons simply have very low standards. They should humbly state that notwithstanding the game's low quality, They are contented with low quality games, because of their own low opinion of videogames. The vast majority of the readers plainly doesn't care about others' opinions,  even as unbiased as they strive to be. To me it's self-centredness and basking in adoration of chaos in a society that's savagely individualistic.

Regarding a description of a game you must act like in a tribunal and expose only the facts. The goal is to avoid telling the way you(reviewer) saw and "lived" the game in your mind but how this presents itself empirically.

A reviewer of good sense finds a connection, a bridge twixt himself and the reader, that is, a concept where an obscure personal idea is shaped into substance that is intelligible to both.. I believe this criterion is the degree of interaction, and to be sure the player understands it, the reviewer can choose to throw in a comparison with a previous game of given genre, working as quick reference. Lastly He will consider aesthetic content.

In the end, the rating is already written, because when the reviewer was describing interaction the reader already knows the METRE into which every game is scanned and has its own place ready for it in the scale.To summarize, the reviewer goes over these processes. He:

-Describes an empirically played segment of the game AS IS;
-Measures the level of interaction according to a universal metre of interaction or UMI, as I baptized it, by analyzing the parts He described (which o'course represent a typical gameplay momentum)
-Compares the game to an older, similar one;
-Considers decorative and purely artistic elements such as atmosphere or any other factor that increases the beauty of the examined title, but the games in which atmosphere makes up for the poorness of interaction are an extreme rarity: I.E. Broken Sword, which atmosphere is unique, though with its plain puzzle adventure type of interaction it had, would have been a discreet game, yet the game's general atmosphere is what takes it to the level of absolute masterpiece.
-Decrees a rating and final judgement.
The novelty of this method is that this way the reader IS AWARE of the writer's creed, while in the average magazines you don't know anything about the reviewer, you have no other choice but to concentrate on your own ideas, you're lost among his empty jabbering pseudo-journalistic rhetorics. As i said, this method is meant to establish a connection.

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