How We Will Review Games
By Alex Chen | January 01, 0001
We’ve changed the way we review video games here at Kotaku. That makes this a perfect time to explain our approach to reviews and how the new system will work. Two things will stand out to pg123 those who have read last week’s Resident Evil Revelations review and this week’s review of Final Fantasy XIII-2:(new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c&cid=872d12ce-453b-4870-845f-955919887e1b'; cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "995c4c7d-194f-4077-b0a0-7ad466eb737c" }).render("79703296e5134c75a2db6e1b64762017"); }); https://kotaku.com/resident-evil-revelations-the-kotaku-review-5879545 They appear to be in two entirely different formats. They both have the rather large word “YES” on them, as if that was…. a… score?? Hell of a system, huh? Here’s how it works: Kotaku is staffed by talented writers whose job it is to write about a radically diverse range of games. They review role-playing games, music games, online-centric games, sports games and more, and I believe that our writers should have the flexibility to review those games in the way that best suits the game. They can review the game by writing an essay or writing bulletpoints; they can review a game with a poem or a comic strip. The format for the main part of their review will conform to whichever approach best suits the reviewer’s voice and the game they’re writing about. That’s why the two reviews linked to above look different. Under this new system, I expect each Kotaku writer’s reviews will become more instantly recognizable and associated with that writer. And why not? Each review can only ever be the opinion of one person, so it’s all the better if regular readers can develop a sense of the reviewer’s style and taste. But many readers—most readers, I’d wager—are short on time and don’t have the patience for creative writing. They just need to know if the game is worth playing. For those readers, we will have one of three answers: YES / NOT YET / NO. Every Kotaku review will include one of those three answers atop a sidebar that cuts to the chase. If you are in a hurry, the sidebar is the only thing you need to read. It will tell you who made the game (though, intentionally, not who published the game), what it’s like, when it’s out, how much we played of it and which two things the reviewer most liked and most disliked about the game. It will answer that worth-playing question and tell you, succinctly, why. Each review sidebar will also include a collection of made-to-order back-of-box quotes, because … because they’re funny. So, yes, we are finally scoring our reviews. For the longest time, Kotaku avoided putting a number on reviews. The editorial team was worried that people would just read the number and skip the words. They feared that the meaning of that number would be warped and that passionate readers would ascribe reasons for that number that had nothing to do with the reviewer’s feeling about the game. In short, they worried that the number would undermine the review. Screw the number. You really only have one question about these games, anyway: Is it worth playing? And we have those three possible answers for you. I expect that we’ll say YES to many games. After all, we’re kind people here and we think many games are worth dabbling with in some way. You might prefer that we tell you whether the game is worth buying—or whether we’d buy it. But the problem with the first, we’ve learned, is that we don’t know how much money you have. The problem with the latter is that, as reviewers, we probably didn’t have to buy the game we reviewed in the first place… so what would we know? We may not say NO a lot, because how bad does a game have to be to be not worth playing? And if it’s that awful, maybe it is worth playing (remember, we will explain why we’re giving an answer). I predict we’ll use NOT YET a lot, as a way to ward people off from games that feel not worth full price (income caveats notwithstanding) or is too buggy and in need of patches or has an online component we’ve not yet been able to assess. Reviews labelled NOT YET may evolve into YESes or NOs, and we’ll notify readers of changes when they kick in. Reviews will be timely, but we don’t want to make the Assassin’s Creed mistake. A few years ago, Mike Krahulik (Gabe) over at Penny Arcade zeroed in on a potential reason for the negativity in many reviews of the first Assassin’s Creed: Imagine what an open ended sandbox title must look like