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Starting from July 22 with Pikmin 3 on Wii U, we here at VideoGamer.com are going to be making some substantial changes to our reviews.
Instead of bombarding you with a wall of text – which has become the industry norm – we’ve decided to shorten verdicts to around 300 words.
There are many reasons for this change, the major one being that when it comes to reviews, many people just want to know a simple thing: is the game good or not. Hurling thousands of words at you feels like a hangover from the days of magazines and as times change – and as online and mobile continue to shake up how we all consume our media – we feel it’s time to move with them. If nothing else we’re sure you feel the review format is replicated across nearly every site you look at.
We want to try and offer something different, but that doesn’t mean we’re about to reduce the amount of content we write about a game. While all reviews will remain concise and to the point – meaning you can find out whether it’s worth your time in the quickest and most succinct way possible – VideoGamer.com is going to increase the quantity of articles related to each game, which will go up at the same time as the review. These will focus on elements we believe need to be talked about or highlighted in order to have a true appreciation, or the opposite, for the game in question.
Links to these pieces will be at the foot of most reviews, although if something doesn’t need any further justification or thought we won’t do it just for the sake of it. This gives you the option to learn more about a game’s specifics, or how certain aspects of it may affect the industry as a whole, without having to wade through multiple paragraphs to find the information you’re looking for. This may take the form of a written article, a video (which may also be the main review itself), a podcast or even variations of all three, the end result always being that you can digest tailored information that you want to, not that you feel you have to.
A review, as many used to believe, is no longer the full stop that ends the discussion. Now they start it, an idea which can been seen recently with the likes of The Last of Us, be that the opening, ending or the many themes Naughty Dog introduced throughout.
By cutting the filler and still giving you our honest opinion on a game – which we categorically will – we can then build out on the elements we believe are good, bad, or that must be talked about, regardless what they may be. For us, that’s a lot better, and far more useful, than simply stating ‘The ending is good – 8/10’ but never explaining what impact that has on the game or what it means in the wider scheme of things.
We think it’ll help. We hope you do too.
If you’ve scrolled to the bottom of this article, though, here’s a video that explains it all:
