Now I'm not going to say my reviews are perfect, they're not. My vocab is severely lacking and I often either tend to ramble on or be way too brief with making points, so sorry if even just the idea of making this comes off as egotistical or self promoting. Its come to my attention however that reviews are becoming less and less of what they should be, and more and more just stupid, controversial or a sad attempt at comedy. So without further attempts to justify myself, lets get into it, 5 rules every reviewer should realize.
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1. Every fantasy universe has the right to set their own rules, whether it takes place in the real world or not. Don't complain about recharging health because it's unrealistic, don't complain about how people should die in 1 shot to the face from any gun, and don't you dare bring up the scientific effects of what radiation does to a man. Most of the time this directly applies to people demanding realism, but it can also apply to other stuff. Example, people complain about the anime style "power of heart and friendship" in kingdom hearts and other such stuff. So what? In their universe it's a mysterious physical power, let them make it that way. If the street fighter devs want their characters to be bullet proof, so be it. Fantasy is fantasy and a game designer can be given whatever rights to the rules of the universe as they want. Otherwise we don't have a fantasy world, we just have world number 2.
2. Balance the good and the bad in what you write. If you write a review purely to address how much you think it sucked, you will definitely overlook what some people actually play the game for. If you write a review raving about how amazing the game is, you're most likely overlooking an very brutal flaw just to tell us about all the features we already know. In this respect, I don't mean your reviews should be 50/50, but just try to address the other side. People looking for bad, try to understand what the maker was actually trying to accomplish and give it a small shot before ripping it a new one, and goody goodys should try to admit a flaw here or there at the very least and continue the good act talking about how you got over it or how it wasn't that big a deal in the end.
3. Don't give in to hype, no matter what side you take. Many people take this advice the wrong way and these people are some of the most obnoxious reviewers I have ever met. Not giving into the hype doesn't mean yelling at the fanbase about how wrong they are and arbitrarily hating a game, it's about not giving into heaven or hell on this scale. You should always be out to give an honest review, not just out to rip the game to shreds in an attempt to balance out all the people who are giving the game a perfect 10. outside influence shouldn't play a part and the game should be reviewed as if you just got it as a birthday present and had no prior knowledge about the game.
4. Play a game as far as you can before you decide to review it. I don't care if the game just came out and you're eager to tell everyone about it. Your love of it should build up over the time you play it and shouldn't be just a blinding light in your face. further more you also shouldn't quit a game you got frustrated with and just dub it not worth playing half way in. Let the hate or love of the game build up over time so you actually get the full experience of it. The only reason you should ever review before you finish is if there is a game stopping moment that happens on multiple occasions which is literally almost impossible to get past, or if you've beaten the game, little extras excluded, and seen the end credits of all it has to offer the average player. Until then, keep your comments and criticism to what you tell people in your IM buddy list.
5. Play the game to enjoy the game. What is a videogame? A videogame is a interactive experience made with computers to bring pleasure to the user. If you walk into every game with this mindset, your reviews become a lot better. This isn't to say you're supposed to enjoy every game the same way. Some games are enlightening and others are just about delivering a punch to someone's face. This also doesn't mean you're going to like every game either, there are good and bad games in this world and that's why we do what we do. I just say this because a lot of people walk in with the wrong mindset when turning on a game and that immediately sabotage the review one way or the other. This is just the way to walk into it without any problems and with reaching the most people.
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Take my opinion as the opinion it is, even if it's an opinion on how to form proper opinions, but these are rules to keep in mind. Can you never ever break a rule? No, otherwise I'd be calling them laws of reviewing. Are these the only rules? No, there's probably more, but I just felt like addressing whats in the media today. Reviews are becoming a joke and it's almost saddening. People say never to take their advice, but we have the good intentions of just trying to guide you into what's worth your money and not. People are also making reviews almost a complete parody. Rather than giving a structured review, we're fed a reviewer trying to be a character while throwing trash on a game to be funny. As entertainment, I won't question whether it's funny or not, but as these becoming real reviews, we're entering a dark age of reviewing here.
Now I've gone on way too long of a rant on this. Thank you anyone who read all that, and as for personal life, nothing much other than continual progress of my own game and college which is a drag. I'll brief you more on the game when I can get a tiny bit further, art is hard to make when you're no artist.