...but it doesn't have to.

I think a lot of times my opinions of things aren't really fair. My perspectives change so easily, I can be absolutely sure that I hate a game one day and absolutely sure that I love it the next day. I guess it's because I judge a game based on what I expect it to be and what I want it to be. It's sometimes hard for me to take things for what they are without a little nudging.

Like with Prince of Persia. I think my complaints with the game are valid, it tries to be cinematic and those elements don't work for me. But almost everyone I know that played it liked it a lot. So I think I must be missing something, or looking at something the wrong way.

Or maybe those people are just stupid. Every positive review of it that I read (and every friend that tried to explain it to me) failed to give me a perspective. I guess that's what's missing in most gaming media, conveying of perspective. A game review at IGN or Gamespot consists of a description of features and how much the reviewer liked it or disliked it. And by extension many smaller sites that are trying to emulate the big sites (whether they realize it or not) suffer the same problems.

Hell, we can extend this to criticism in general. Movie reviews tell you what the movie's about, whether or not they thought it was successful in what it attempted to do, and whether or not they liked the end result. They may mention the acting, writing, or directing if it's particularly good or bad. But we still have no idea who the reviewer is and what his personal reaction to the movie was. I don't care whether you liked it or not. I want to hear your experience of the film (or game, or book, or anything else people review).

Your opinion is probably useless to me. Unless we have very similar interests, I'd have a different opinion. Most people don't even consider other people's opinions. They know what they like and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. And that is the way it should be with opinions.

Some reviews try to go by without even expressing opinion, they try to remain completely objective and it's completely god damn boring. And useless for any purpose other than maybe finding out what's different in the xbox version or does the frame rate suck. Stuff like that is good to have in a review, but not as a replacement for subjective writing.

Express a feeling instead of just opinions. If you don't have any feelings toward the object of your criticism then you shouldn't be writing about it. The easiest way to convey a feeling is to do it through some kind of narrative story about your experience with the game, but there is no wrong way to do it. The only way you can screw it up is if you're lying about how you feel. It will be obvious when people read it.

Sure, include what was done well and what was not done well. Just be careful you don't start sounding like a press release. Make it into a story that will be engrossing for anyone to read, whether they have any intention of playing the game or not.

Maybe some people like the reviews at IGN, but you know, they've already got IGN and a million other sites for that. They don't need another wannabe fan-site. If you're not doing something different, you're wasting your time.

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