Quick Reviews

Some might recall that last year i announced i would start reviewing the games i talk about on Monday Musings when i stop playing them. Well the main reason that didn't go into effect was i became stuck on how exactly to format the review.

I believe i have found a breakthrough.

I have almost finished reading Jessie Schell's 'The Art of Game Design', which is a fantastic read for anyone interested in making games. Early on in the book he breaks games into four categories that need to be in balance to make a fantastic experience. They are story, mechanics, aesthetics, and technology. I decided that these could be the categories of my reviews that i had such a hard time searching for. I tested this method on reviewing Borderlands this morning and it seems to work for a quick overview.

So starting with my Borderlands review, i will endeavour to review the games i play here and tweak the review structure as i go.

So the overview.

Each of the four categories will have at most a paragraph. Then there will a final paragraph summing up the game. Each category will receive a score and there will be an overall score. The score will be a 5 star system, but i will be using words instead.

Instead of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... each category and the game overall will receive a 'bad', 'poor', 'average', 'good', or 'great'.

This way there's no numbers, but there's still a qualifier, and if you want more info, there's a short paragraph to read. Win/win for all i believe. We'll see how it goes.

And as always i'll take any and all valid criticism on board (and by valid i mean a point of view with some thought behind it other than a knee jerk reaction).

First review coming soon.