It is an often-heard complaint that video game journalism as a whole lacks the maturity of other branches of journalism. This assessment is hard to counter when one takes a look at how gamers themselves look at video game reviews. To many, it is all about how high a score a certain game gets. What is written in the actual review itself is hardly ever brought up. Part of this may be attributed of the immaturity of gamers themselves, but another conclusion one could draw from this is that reviews just do not contain a whole lot of interesting information.


What are the odds of him writing a review on Halo Reach?

The reason that video game reviews seem to be getting less interesting is that most of them keep sticking to the buyer's guide ideal, the belief that the primary (or even only) function of a review is to inform potential buyers whether or not Game X is worth their money. This perception may seem logical, but over the past few years, us gamers have obtained more and more possibilities to inform ourselves. Demos are making a comeback thanks to services such as Steam, Free-to-Play versions of games are becoming increasingly popular, and websites such as YouTube make it possible to witness with our own eyes how a game plays. The role of the reviewer as an informer in this sense, seems to be over. I tried recalling the last time when a review made me go out and buy a game, and I could not come up with anything. And as someone who likes reading reviews, this says something. As such, I cannot help but conclude that this must be the same for a lot of people out there, effectively reducing the relevance of reviews in this sense to a Metacritic average that may give us a slight indication of a game's quality.

This should not mean, however, that video game reviews have been rendered obsolete altogether. On the contrary, perhaps we can now move on to a more mature 'discourse' if you will, and use reviews to get closer to the essence of a video game. Pretentious as it may sound, it is a necessary step to take if we ever want serious video games to be taken seriously, instead of it being perceived as just another pastime for antisocial teeny boppers. After all, most of us who have been playing video games for a long time are aware of how fascinating they can be. How they can keep us busy and even become valuable emotionally. Therefore, this is perhaps the right time to revindicate the video game review and use it to start exploring these sentiments rather than just sticking to the worn-out graphics/sound/story/gameplay check-list formula that stems from a day when reviews were still virtually the only way for gamers to inform themselves.


What the writers of Law & Order: SVU think you look like.

Because it is a good habit to put your money where your mouth is, I have taken up experimenting with new ways of reviewing games. My ArmA X and Cryostasis reviews were already precursors of this new styIe although it should be noted that they were initially intended as original ways of analysing games that lent themselves exceptionally well for a fresh outlook. What I will do in the coming days/weeks, is post reviews to more mainstream and/or unspectacular titles and try to explore how they interact with the gamer in a slightly more down-to-earth way than with the aforementioned two reviews. It is not my desire to claim that I have 'reinvented' video game review writing, or to imply that writing them in the traditional way is bad necessarily, but I do think it is a good idea to reflect on what reviews are for and maybe evolve the way in which we write them when we conclude that they are starting to lose relevance.

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In the next couple of days/weeks, I'll post reviews to several titles to see how this new approach works for different types of games. Firstly, I will soon post a review of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the gaming equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster. Then I'll attempt to review TMNT: Smash-Up, an obscure and not very original fighting game that is still not without merits. Finally, I'll post a review of a yet-to-be-determined game of another genre to complete the cycle. It would be great if you read one or more of these reviews and told me whether I'm on to something, or I should stop over-analysing simple entertainment. :P