Writing a PC Game Review

Typically, when I write about a game in this blog, it’s rather simplistic.  “THIS GAME ROCKS!”  Stuff like that.  I’d like to see how good I would be at writing a full-fledged review of a game, the likes of which you would see online at places like GameSpot, or in magazines such as PC Gamer.  In order to do that, however, I first need to make a mental list of all the points that I should cover in such a review, so that is what I’m going to do in this post.  All of the below points I have construed through reading reviews and doing some research online.

1. The first thing I would need to do would be to list the game’s title, developer, genre, and release date.  This will accomplish two things:  First, it will let the reader immediately know what game they’re reading about.  They can then skip over the post if they don’t like the game, or know to keep reading if they’re interested.  Secondly, if the reader is interested and wants to try them game out, they have the information they need to do so right at the beginning of the article. 


2. Next, details on the game play.  How does the game play?  What is the interface like?  How are the controls?  How is the screen laid out?  How smart is the AI, both friendly and hostile?  What’s the inventory system like? 


3. Describe the plot.  How does it start?  Describe the antagonists and the protagonists.  Can you play on more than one side?  What’s the goal? 


4. Describe the quality of the graphics, sound effects, music, voice acting, and other aesthetic nuances.


5. Describe the “saved game” system (auto-save, checkpoint save, etc), the customization features, and the ease of their uses. 


6. If multi-player exists, focus on that for part of the article for a while too. 

Naturally, with good writing comes one important thing:  the power of observation.  Don’t just say, “The AI sucked.”  Say, “The AI sucked because they consistently were stuck running into walls and had other such pathfinding issues.  This really hampered my enjoyment of the game play.”  That’s much more descriptive and explains your conclusions to your reader.  It seems like common sense, but it’s often details that are left out, especially if you don’t have a lot of experience writing to an audience.

So there we go.  I just wrote myself a nice little guide on writing a review.  I’ll put it to use soon. 

 

Now playing: Fall Out Boy - (Coffee's For Closers)