How-To Write Video Game Reviews

(Written for my Spring 2008 Review Writing Class)

How-To Write Video Game Reviews

The trick about writing video game reviews is that the audience mostly likely has the intention of purchasing the games written about and a very short attention span to read about them. That is why video game reviews have to be succinct and entertaining. There is almost always a rating system and the best of these rating systems have a list of requirements (Concept, Graphics, Sound, Playability, Entertainment, Replay value, etc) that are listed, rated and given a small explanation as to why. This means getting to a point and really driving home what the buying audience needs to hear. If the game is riddled with bugs and things that are going to hinder game play than that needs to be upfront in the review. It is so important for the reviewer to be honest about the evaluation of the game, because many of their readers do actually go out and buy these games – and if they find the game to be substandard without any warning they might drop those reviews.

A good opening is always warranted to draw a reader in, in any type of review, but with Video Games there are so many reviews out there if a reader doesn’t have direct interest in a game s/he might just drop the review if the opening doesn’t have any punch. A particularly bad game usually leaves room for humor, as seen in Jeremy Dunham’s review on IGN of Super Rub-a-Dub:

“Spoiler alert! In George Clooney's 2005 political drama Syriana, his undercover alter ego Bob Barnes was the subject of a brutal torture scene. During the disturbing sequence, the captured CIA agent is repeatedly punched in the face before having several of his fingernails ripped out via pliers. It's a terrible moment for sure and, while drawing parallels between that kind of pain and what it's like to play Super Rub-a-Dub isn't fair to victims of such inhumanity, you shouldn't lose the metaphor -- it applies.”

Exaggeration to start with and a sense of drama works with the audience and this quote draws out a real torture scene from a current movie and applies it to the fact that the game was so horrible. Not only is it drawing it is very effective and the potential buyer is going to think twice about picking up this game if it elicited such a strong reaction from the reviewer.

It is also important to shift the review to the tone of the game itself. A game rated M for Mature can have swear words in it or violent epithets to connect with the audience, but a game about the latest Mario game should rethink that approach and limit any strong language to fricking sweet.

The reviewer also has to make the point clear about the verdict of the video game, whether that is in a rating system or in the review itself (usually the review itself needs a clear conclusion either way). The clarity has to be accompanied by reasons and also an enthusiasm one way or the other beyond It was good (baring that the game isn’t mediocre, then the reviewer takes on that tone). Kristan Reed of Eurogamer reviewing Bioshock attempted to relay her point about the entirety of the review in this paragraph setting up for the rest of the review:

“So to have any shred of doubt surrounding BioShock comprehensively swept away within the first ten minutes, well, you feel like dancing. You want to tell people about this game who you know won't even care, just because it makes you so giddy inside. Before we get into the nitty gritty, here’s the deal: Bioshock doesn't just meet your expectations, but completely redefines them forever in ways you never even expected - in ways that games used to in the past, routinely.”

Reed even narrowed down her opinion with a qualifier about really narrowing it down.

The voice of video game reviews are always casual. It is a well-informed person giving a concrete opinion of a game, but it could be over a couple of sodas and an Xbox. It is important to keep this personal tone, because that is what the audience is drawn to – a more academic tone will leave the readers bored and questioning the validity of the reviewer. A good example is Robert Workman review in Game Daily of Oddworld Stranger’s Wrath, where he uses casual language, slang abbreviations and a commonality sense of knowing the top-popular games: “One: just too darn quirky and not really as accessible as it deserved to be. Two: Halo came out the same day. 'Nuff said.” There is a sense of the audience already being knowledgeable about the systems, the reviewer cannot dumb down things within the genre (everyone reading will know what Halo is, what RPGs are, and most big companies within video games like Rockstar and Lucasarts). If the audience’s understanding of a certain subject is in question, the reviewer should briefly touch on it without focusing on that so that no reader feels s/he is being talked down to.

It is very important for a review to be descriptive. Video games are a very visual medium (it is in the name) and it is important to relay that sense of visual understanding into the reviews. Descriptive, salient details are required to really draw a reader into a game and make them understand what the reviewer has seen and visually played out. Ben Reeves of Game Informer reviewed Turok with a good sense of dramatization and style: “You’ll see a T-rex shove over a few trees and your stomach will drop as he comes at you, dry swallowing any small creatures that get in his way like they were meat candy.” There are a lot of very grabbing, interesting words meat candy especially.

It is not just description for style, however, it is also the importance of getting a good feel for the game play. The reviewer needs to set up a sense of credibility that they have played this game thoroughly and that the reader can step in with some sense of what is happening in the game. This is especially important, because of the buyer’s audience – the buyers want description of what is in the game so they can decide whether it is worth the $30-70 of un-returnable merchandise. Aaron Thomas of GameSpot in his review of Sega Superstars leaves a very good trail marker of how the game is set up in each section, something very important for a game with mini-games and separate sections:

“Many of these missions are really fun, and some of them are especially creative. In the Virtua Squad minigames, you shoot (aim the ball at) the bad-guy targets that pop up while trying to avoid hitting the civilians, just as you would in Virtua Cop. In Puyo Pop Fever, you're essentially playing the actual puzzle game and clearing the Puyo with tennis balls. […] The only knock against these stages is that the game doesn't do much in the way of explaining the gameplay, so if you've never played ChuChu Rocket before, you're going to be clueless as to how to proceed here. […] But even with these issues, game mode is an entertaining and enjoyable way to play tennis.”

It is important to see how he spreads judgment in with his descriptions. This applies to all the points of good video game reviews, it gets the point across quickly, the style is casual, and it’s descriptive enough for a buying audience to be involved in.

Even though the style is casual, the video game review is a complicated process and a very important one for the economy of that specific market.

Sources:

Gamespot Review

EuroGamer Review

Gamedaily Review

IGN Review

Game Informer Review

Left without a Climax: The Incredibly Unrealized Potential of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust

(Written for my Spring 2008 Review Writing Class)

Stardust
By Neil Gaiman
248 pages. HarperCollins Publishers. $13.95

Left without a Climax: The Incredibly Unrealized Potential of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust

Queen Victoria is reigning, still in her youth; Dickens is writing and publishing Oliver Twist; Mr. Morse is finally done fiddling with that code of his; and Mr. Draper has caught the moon on camera. All of which is of no importance to a small little town, too far from London to walk, on the edges of a long wall which borders the lands of Faerie. The town, aptly called ‘Wall,’ holds a man named Dunstan Thorn who gets to know the locals of Faerie a little too closely during the nine-a-year fair. And nine months later gets his own package; a son, Tristan Thorn, the hero of this tale, a boy from both worlds.

Fantastical with a starting jolt of humorous irony is just what one would expect when cracking open a Neil Gaiman book and in the land of Wall and Faerie, there is no disappointment on that front. In Stardust, the town of Wall is very country and as commonly described as Faerie is whimsically and so the hero of the tale Tristan is just as so. He is a young boy of seventeen remarkably stupid in love with a woman who has no interest in him. Even in this possibly dull setting with an exceptionally familiar situation, Gaiman’s prose manages to capture the reader into his spell. This does not stop throughout the rest of the novel and if prose alone would make a masterpiece, Gaiman would have one on his hands. “Victoria Forester [Tristan’s object of affection] laughed at the skinny shop-boy, laughed long and loud and delightfully, and her tinkling laughter followed him back down the hill, and away.” The reader will feel the rhythm and movement of the words, but be so enraptured with it and never notice the mechanics involved. Tristan’s quick plight where he ends up promising Victoria to get her a star that fell out of the sky, an idea that even Victoria (the rational, logical, and somewhat catty) finds laughable. Tristan being completely enamored and stupefied by love goes off beyond the wall to find the star. But the star landed in Faerie, and in Faerie all is not what it seems and Tristan soon finds that the star is a stubbornly beautiful woman who is more than a little pissed that she had just been knocked out of the sky. Tristan, unhindered by the fact that she is not bits of rock, decides to bring her to Victoria anyway.

The star, named Yvaine is not dreadfully pleased with this idea either and Tristan is not the only one after her. In one of two subplots that artfully come together, the royalty of Faerie filled with a cast of fratricidical Princes who in the grand tradition of the recently deceased King are set to all at once, kill their brothers and capture the stone which Yvaine wears and which consequently (by the dying King) knocked her out of the sky. Three witches are also after Yvaine, hoping to eat her heart and regain their power and youth. These plots intertwine as one and the tension mounts and builds up as they perfectly fold into one another and meet up with the main plot. Tristan has some troubles before and after that and proves his bad taste in women and manners does not apply to the earnest nature of his heart as he slowly grows on Yvaine.

The plot is whimsical, funny, and easily adaptable to children and adults alike if not for a few placed adult words and themes that could easily be removed for bedtime stories. Still catching onto the fantasy steeled in real experience that Gaiman is so crafted at, Stardust manages to lighten in evocative prose as well as plot, to be more diversely enjoyable. This novel would be near perfect, except with all the mounting tension and build up to a climax – there is none. Stardust, in still completely entrancing prose, tapers off into walking and discussing things with Deux Ex Machina of the balloon losing air kind. The subplots do not achieve the grand conclusion they deserve and Tristan and Yvaine come to sensible ends with no real tension involved, something of quaintly ever after. There is something to be said for the quietness of the ending and epilogue, which may have be better achieved with Gaiman’s usual medium of graphic novels – but what instead occurs is the reader left feeling swindled after they finally come down off the sweetly affective prose high. It seems to be easily solved if Gaiman were to instead of summarizing a large portion of Tristan and Yvaine’s journey (all of which sounds interesting and easily readable) that he would write this out in the same manner as the rest novel. Then perhaps the reader would reach the tapering slow conclusions as the characters have and not feel so shafted by their sudden decisions and less than dramatic plot wrap-ups. Unfortunately the promise and artistry of the writing and plot of Stardust leaves the taste of the ending ultimately bitter and stale.

Neil Gaiman’s Stardust manages to be all at once enjoyable and effortlessly readable, but where it could have been exceptional easily with a hundred more pages, it manages (with a lightened ending and stilted climax) to be just slightly above average. Maybe that is good enough for Gaiman, but with light and airy prose, it was not quite good enough for me.

Giant Robots Fighting Each Other: Do we really need more for our Summer Blockbuster?

(Written for my Spring 2008 Review Writing Class)

Transformers
Dir. Michael Bay
Run Time 144min
B-

Giant Robots Fighting Each Other: Do we really need more for our Summer Blockbuster?

I have to admit, the second I saw the preview for Transformers where a giant robot threw another giant robot off of a freeway ledge, I was already forking the eight-fifty out of my pocket. That’s really all anyone wants from their Summer Blockbuster Action flick. What I wasn’t expecting was to see a new level of action movies, and a new level in regards to a franchise that started of with Hasbro toys in the eighties – “Robots in disguise!”

Transformers is a classic story about a boy named Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and his first car. Except that said car happens to be a giant shape shifting robot from outer space. Oh, and there are other giant shape shifting robots that came to Earth to find their means of creation called the ‘all-spark.’

The movie starts us out in the Middle East with a group of soldiers; we immediately assume (and are pleasantly surprised to find out differently) that they are all going to die within the first fifteen minutes. The base camp in Qatar is attacked by a giant shape-shifting helicopter, a Decepticon (the bad guys), and the group of soldiers, lead by an occasionally charismatic Captain Lennox (Josh Duhamel) escape the attack and come back several times through the movie. In doing so they provide stable military background and a sense (as much as you can get from a movie about giant robots) of realism. And most assuredly paying off lip service to all those military/USAF permissions that the movie needed to secure for it’s larger and extremely vivid action scenes.

Rounding off into our main plot, the movie, directed by Michael Bay, but clearly showing Steven Spielberg’s influence as producer at this point, skips to an expositional where our main character Sam Witwicky, played constantly charismatically by LaBeouf is attempting to “hock” his Great-Grandfather’s “crap.” This slides right into Sam and his exceedingly cheap father picking up Sam’s first car, in one of many extremely charming and funny scenes with the Witwickys (even their Chihuahua with a broken leg Mojo lights up the screen). Of course the car Sam ends up picking out ends up being our first Autobot (the good guys), Bumblebee, in the form of a gorgeous faded yellow ‘72 Camero (if robots don’t do it for you, the car choices certainly will).

Sam does what any boy does with his first car; he hits a party and tries to get chicks. He ends up (after radio encouragement from his Camero) giving Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox) a ride home. Bumblebee, who only speaks through the radio, gives Sam some hints and stalls the car – Mikaela then shows an unusual talent for cars (which nicely pairs out her inability to find an adult sized shirt) and in an awkwardly familiar scene thanks to both LaBeouf and Fox, the pair ride off, establishing the romance for the film and pairing Sam’s coming of age story with a love interest.

Unfortunately for all the good familiarity about our own branching out into puberties (without the giant space robots), the pace of the movie doesn’t even remotely match up to director, Michael Bay’s usual style for the better. With the exception of a side plot including Analysts and Hackers attempting to find out who is hacking the Government’s systems that could be completely lifted from the movie without changing anything else, the rest of the movie streams together with heart, laughter, and amazing special effects (giant robots fighting, seriously). Every scene where any Transformer well… transforms is mesmerizing in detail and transition, from every bolt and screw, to the shine of the metal panels – you actually believe it.

Of course Transformers being an action movie, it is very clear where the pace of the film takes off and goes into nonstop giant robots fighting each other. Which is probably why everyone bought their tickets in the first place – the only problem is, by this time the audience is so enamored with the story line, bit parts such as Agent Simmons in a ‘Men in Black’ type Government Orginazation called Sector7, done flawlessly by John Turturro, and the Witwickys family dynamic, that the shock into a fast paced non-stop action sequence is jarring. All of the characters that the audience had firmly taken hold of as their own, get about four seconds of face time with plot advancing lines about getting out of the way and shooting things.

In addition to the shift in pacing, there’s never a moment, except with our lovely yellow Camero Bumblebee, where the audience feels attached to the title characters. There’s no real reason for the Autobots to be fighting for the humans, or choose a human over their own species and the awkwardness of this makes every very well voiced speech by the original Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) almost boring and inconsequential to the fighting.

Transformers provides what it advertises, a hard hitting thrill ride for those hot summer days, but it also throws in great human characters that the audience ends up liking more than the robots. Pulled together by great acting and some obvious intervention by Spielberg for the movies opening sequences, Transformers becomes more than just a great actions movie – and then it doesn’t. But in the end, amazing action sequences, and that scene of Megatron and Optimus Prime fighting over a freeway bridge really did deliver the reason you shelled out for an overpriced ticket and some stale popcorn.

Cheaper than Starbucks and Just Around the Corner – Cupz Coffee

(Written for my Spring 2008 Review Writing Class)

Cupz Coffee - $
Arizona State University
777 College Ave, Suite 101
Tempe, AZ 85281
Phone: (480) 557-5245

Hours: Mon - Fri 6am to 8pm
Weekends 6am to 2pm
cupzcoffee.com

Cheaper than Starbucks and Just Around the Corner – Cupz Coffee

It’s a safe bet that building a coffee shop right within walking distance of Arizona State University, you’ll be getting a lot of foot traffic from the student population. A student population that might not have completely discerning tastes, considering how full McDonalds is during Finals Week. That said, with four Starbucks on Campus, and a couple of roving coffee carts, not to mention Dutch Bros over by Cholla Apts (think Eaaaaast Campus), what does make Cupz Coffee such a big hit among the students?

Well to start off, the Starbucks on campus are less than professional and you’re more likely to get a bad-shot (that badly timed, metal tinged espresso) than anything else. Not to mention how much you’d be paying for that Starbucks. The carts are carts so they’re not always right where a student needs them to be (and easily missed), and well, Dutch Bros isn’t exactly a hop-skip-and-a-jump to the nearest classroom. Location alone was enough for a college student (namely me) to take a trip over to Cupz for the first time. Right at College and University and right before the Fulton Building Parking Garage is the only coffee place in the myriad of tiny food shops built for college students tired of campus cuisine.

On first trip the baked goods were all gone, but according to the menu there is a random assortment of danishes, cookies, and muffins. Opting for one of their Eye-Opener Breakfast Sandwiches ($2.99) with a choice of English Muffin, Everything, Blueberry, Cinnamon Raisin, or Plain Bagel, and Croissant (add 50¢), egg or no egg, ham, sausage, or bacon, and a cheese of my choice from America, Swiss, Cheddar, and Pepper Jack, and a cup of cappuccino ($2.60), I felt promise. More promise when I bit into my toothsome Everything-Bagel-Egg-Sausage-Swiss sandwich. Hot and exceeding fresh it had more of a homemade feel without any of the work, the egg was consistent in texture, not overdone, and a little fluffed. The bagel was toasted perfectly on the outside and inside, leaving a crisp bite to it. The sausage was the right blend of sweet and savory – and the Swiss topped off with a mellow flavor. All in all it worked very well, except when I drank my cappuccino.

To be fair to Cupz and coffee markets everywhere, coffee tastes are very personal, and the current trend of making cappuccino into basically a flavorful latte has left me completely surprised for an actual portion of espresso mixed with steamed milk and foam. The problem, after reassuring myself that this was the real thing, was that the espresso was vaguely bitter in a way that left a mildly astringent aftertaste. It wasn’t enough to suddenly have the urge to tip the coffee out into a trashcan or put a drinker off, but it wasn’t as exciting as my sandwich.

The atmosphere of Cupz wasn’t exciting either, but for a smaller place was very nice. It wouldn’t be great for quiet studying, but watching the D-backs game on the fairly large television and sitting on one of the couches would be a comfortable fit for light conversation. There are also some tables that are a little too close to the front for my liking and some booths in the back away from the crowd.

On my next outing they were out of baked goods once again, so I opted for the drink of the day, hoping for better fare. What I got was a Raspberry White Chocolate Mocha ($3.45), a mix of ridiculously sweet flavors that really knocked my socks off. Espresso with white hot-chocolate, raspberry syrup (sans the whipped cream) blended together to create a mix of flavors, after getting the smooth culling flavor of the white chocolate a shot from the mildly sour raspberry would kick in. And as one who likes my coffee either dark and delicious, or so sweet I’ll get a cavity, this really hit the spot. The only unfortunate part, like all drinks of this sugary caliber, is the aftertaste that cries out for water once the drink is done. It can’t be helped, however, so I won’t hold it against them.

On my last trip, I finally got my hands on some baked goods and had my choice of a mini apricot danish (.95¢), a three-times as large cherry danish ($1.95), a Co-Co bar which looked to have chocolate and coconut ($1.85), and some bagels (.95¢). I opted for a cherry danish, which was probably too much danish for one person to handle. The cherry filling was tartly sweet in a way, similar to my ras-whi-choc-moc (name not on menu) from before, mixed with a tough dough with icing, that didn’t exactly wow me. I topped this off with a frozen vanilla latte ($3.45), which had a nice placid flavor (not exactly worth the price, which was comparable to a Frappuccino at Starbucks). Once I’d finished my desert and coffee it was time for lunch.

For lunch, I was excited to try their grill again and ordered a half-sandwich/ half- soup combination ($6.49) that includes Cupz’ Grilled Hot Panini. Ordering the Tomato Basil (the soup of the day, the other choice was Italian Wedding) and a turkey and Swiss, I sat back for an extremely short wait (with great smiles from the workers).

The sandwich once again proved that their grill is exemplary, and while it was no Everything Bagel, the rosemary crusty butter-infused bread really hit the spot, as did Cupz’ knowledge of perfect grilling. The fresh deli turkey was sliced just thinly enough not to flake and piled high, where it was warmly pillowed beneath a gooey slice of Swiss cheese. I was about ready to dip it into my soup, but what I opened was a neon orange that I wasn’t sure should be soup at all. The overflow of onions was also disheartening, as the fact that it was lukewarm.

Not being a rabid visitor of Cupz Coffee, I can’t pass a final judgment: Word of mouth says they have better coffee than most of campus, great Chai tea, and I’ve been told the soup is better than what I’ve had. But with decently priced coffee (except iced) and a great grilling selection, I would recommend Cupz for any college student feeling up to the two minute walk from the Language and Literature building at ASU.

Bioware’s—I mean, Jade Empire

(Written for my Spring 2008 Review Writing Class)

Bioware’s—I mean, Jade Empire

In the past decade of gaming there are very few companies that can just come out with a game and you know people will buy it, just because they made it – Bioware is undeniably one of those companies. If RPGs are your thing Bioware is the place to go, so trying to hold back salivating to pick up a copy of their latest: Jade Empire, there were already high hopes. Luckily, as always Bioware delivered, though they still haven’t managed to top their Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Jade Empire is an interactive martial arts first person based RPG set in a magical Feudal China. Fans of the turn-based gaming system shouldn’t be too worried, as JE’s system sets a nice middle ground between that and regular first person. The main character (once again, the chosen one, but who’d want to be anything less) can only take one of his or her companions, who doesn’t actually do much to support if put in attack mode (The Black Whirlwind and occasionally Silk Fox come in handy that way), but offer interesting back ups if put on support. The enemies focus only on you, but you get extra ‘chi’ (magic points), ‘health’ or ‘focus’ (it lets you use weapons). There’s also an option if you picked Hen Pecked Hou to use “Drunken Master” a martial arts style that lets you pick up jugs of wine as you go (belching sound effects included). The thing that really makes the fighting system is the harmonic combos, which include a chi and a focus attack done in a certain way that lets you trigger an animated action – such as lets say exploding someone’s head. Very satisfying result after all that hard work.

Now it wouldn’t be a Bioware game without a rich array of supporting characters, unfortunately we’ve seen them all before in KotOR. Dawn Star hits you in the face with a less feisty Bastila Shan; Sky is trying to be Carth Onasi not quite hitting the mark (he’s basically there to hit on any female and that’s about it), the wizened ex-mercenary figure, the old coot, the young girl and the monster, etc. While this does get a little distracting (and disappointing in the romance department if you’re playing a female character who doesn’t want to be a lesbian), several of the characters work anyway. Sagacious Zu provides interesting commentary and moves the plot along, Silk Fox has her own twists and taking a sharper tongue with her provides pleasing results, Hen Pecked Hou and The Black Whirlwind are hilarious and the interaction between the NPCs themselves really hits its stride.

Storyline wise, Jade Empire could be longer, but that’s mostly because it’s so damn enjoyable I wanted to keep playing. There is definite replay value, especially to play the Dark Side/Light Side Routes, called Closed Fist and Open Palm respectively. Though probably not a reason to stretch yourself playing a different gender than the one you prefer, there’s no visible difference in storyline (as there was in Knights). The philosophies of Open Palm and Closed Fist come up a lot at different points of the game and are very interesting, although Closed Fist (more of a ‘let people do things on their own so they can get stronger’) turns into literally kicking puppies (you get hit points). Though on the rare occasion an option for a real Closed Fist choice arises, the results are very compelling. My favorite was convincing a girl to kill the man who was going to make her a slave, which shifts her entire demeanor and she starts to seem like she won’t need you to rescue you her again.

Overall, Jade Empire has great graphics, great game play, and plenty of entertainment value – but I probably didn’t need to tell you that, because if you’ve played any of the other Bioware games you’ve probably picked this up already.