Previews, reviews and comment - Writing about Games

Many games that are released to the public tend to be reviewed by critics. When i say critics, this doesnt just mean someone who is an expert with the theory of games, but gamers themselves. You see many internet websites and forums where gamers can rant on about the last game, and others where each area of a game is analysed by a professional.

The trouble some reviewers have is the fact that many games can be very similar, especially first person shooters, reviewers have to try and pick out small areas which are unique to the game, Aswell as this, there is the problem that people are only interested in a certain genre or franchise, otherwise known as Fanboys. You can often find reviews of well known games such as Halo or Call of Duty, with comments saying that the reviewer is completly wrong, usually along the lines of this: "omg halo 3 rulz, i give it 10/10, not 7/10 you n00b". On the other hand people who dislike a genre may say that it is a terrible game and should be rated 1/10, when clearly it shouldn't be. This can often irritate employees who write these reviews as a lot of effort can be put into them, on average, sixty thousand words are produced to fill a 150 page magazine, baring in mind this has to be done in 19 working days. Due to the amount of the work load that needs to be completed, some reviews tend to be rushed, therefore they can't focus a great deal on the subject.

However, not everyone creates written reviews, there are some people who create video reviews. The one reviewer that stands out the most for me is a man known as 'Yahtzee' who creates the zeropunctuation reviews. The fast talking along with a simple flash animation to go with it makes it incredibly fun to watch, mainly because they are simply hillarious. If you don't know who I am on about click on the link below and enjoy :)
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation

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