When have you been exposed to enough of a game to feel qualified to review it? Can you review an RPG before you’ve played it? Can you review a video game from the demo? How many times do you need to play a board game before you can render a verdict?
When are you ready to review a game?
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I tell you, Will, I’ve thought a lot about this and I think you may already know the answer.
We have this illusion we all got somewhere that a critic or a reviewer is like a reporter, objectively reporting on the film or the book or the game as though it were news.
It’s that attitude that leads us to think “well, I can’t review this, I haven’t played the whole thing yet!”
But what a critic is doing is giving his *insight* into work through its effect on him. It’s *entirely* personal.
So the answer to the question is; it’s time to write your review *when you’ve got something insightful to say.*
I play games and see movies and like them and don’t like them and often come away thinking “Yeah, I liked it, but I have no insight on it. I have nothing interesting to say.” So I say nothing.
You can play a 40 hour game for 2 hours or a game with 30 levels for 5 levels, and come away with a lot of insight. You had an experience and that experience is valid. The fact that’s it’s not *exhaustive* isn’t the point.
Games aren’t like movies or books. They can take months or even in the case of something like D&D, years, to get to the “end” of. So it’s up to us to police ourselves and make a point to come back and write more if our experience proves different over the course of hours or weeks.
Matt, I think that’s a respectable reply, with one caveat: when you report that insight, you have an obligation to be honest about how much experience you had with the product. If you didn’t play a complete session because you just couldn’t stand it anymore, say that, and say why. And if you played several sessions before reporting, say that too. Just sharing that information will convey a lot to the reader.
Any work that someone creates to the point of sharing with the public is an accomplishment worth recognizing. It takes a lot of effort and guts to put something out there in the hopes it will be enjoyed: even if it flops, the creator has done more than a person who merely reports his opinion of it. A bad review can damage someone’s reputation, his livelihood, and his will to create something more: it had better be honest. Conversely, a favorable review inspires people to part with their time and money in hopes that they will also experience what the review described, so that had better be honest too. An essential part of that honesty is describing what experience you had, not just your opinion of the results.
All depends what you mean by “review”. If by “review” you mean, “be prepared to pass on the quality of the game”, then you gotta play it. The proof is GURPS, Third Edition D&D and HERO, all of which are horrific to read, absolutely beyond nightmarish, but which are fun in play. But most of the time it means “describe the high points and low points” which is pretty worthless and I’d never call it a “review” and you can do that almost through shrinkwrap sometimes.
I’m in a bit of this situation myself with a review I have to do. I feel I need to have a decent grounding in the system and prefer to have a playtest under my belt. If I haven’t been able to play, then I’ll review the book itself and admit the lack of play experience. Luckily, at this years con on the cob, I got to play a game with the designer of the book and talk to him throughout the convention. Like JDCorley says, books and play experience is very different.
Matt, I think that your point about offering insight is excellent, and non-obvious. I think it’s non-obvious because, as other comments point out, there are different kinds of reviews, and many of them are equally legitimate, for their niche.
I don’t thing that there’s anything wrong with a review that simply describes a thing, in much the same way that there’s nothing wrong with a no-frills compact car that you use to commute. In each case, a better version would be better, but as long as no one’s got any illusions about what you’re presenting, then there’s no harm.
To think critically, to resist the urge to draw attention to yourself instead of the thing, and to expose your underlying assumptions or situation in the review are the important things, to my mind.
Criticism is like other creative work: It is never finished, only abandoned.
More and more, as time goes by, I am lining with your position, Matt. And you’re certainly right, Carl, that a reviewer should be clear about just what he’s reviewing — whether it’s the first few hours of play or a whole game.
I very nearly reviewed Arkham Asylum based on the demo (my review? “Press X to be Batman.”), and now I wish I had, as I didn’t play and finish the game in time for my review to catch the very limited attention span period for video-game reviews.
RPGs are not play sessions. They are also books and the preparatory activities that lead to play sessions. In many ways, an RPG book is akin to the first few hours with a video-game: it should still be fun, it should suggest what the play experience will reasonably be like, and it should be appreciable. That said, I’ve stopped short of reviewing a great many RPGs because I’ve only read them. I like quite a few indie RPG books… but I don’t know if I like playing them yet. Both are eligible for review, though.
I tend to feel timid about negatively reviewing games, lately. Every one is somebody’s baby, and smart people I don’t know may like it, so maybe that means I should keep playing it until I find the fun. Maybe the game is fine and I’m insane — but ultimately, that’s for the reader to judge, I guess.
Exactly where the line sits will depend on the person. However, for tabletop RPGs, that line must be at least as far as “I played on session.” It’s a shame that RPG reviews are glutted with “I read the book, here’s my review.” You end up with a useless pile of “I think the game will work this way, which is good/bad,” and “I’m (not) looking forward to this and that.” Utter garbage.
Of course, I have no problems with criticism and analysis of the writing itself, with the understanding that you’re not really reviewing the game, you’re reviewing the writing.