I’ve been reviewing video games for nearly seven years, and I still haven’t nailed it. The biggest problem is ego. As a writer, there’s always the temptation to make something more complicated than it needs to be. You want to flex your vocabulary as much as you can, to prove that you’re more than just another insignificant hack.

So you craft dizzyingly complex ‘concept’ reviews, or litter the copy with unnecessarily esoteric references. But nobody cares how clever you are, or how many off-beat Japanese games you’ve played. All they want to know is how good the game is, and whether or not they should buy it. And your job, as a critic, is to tell them.

That doesn’t mean a review has to be formulaic or devoid of character. Toying with language and structure is fine, if you’re talented and confident with the basics. But if it gets in the way of being succinct, you’re wasting your time.

I’ve read so many reviews where the opening paragraph is a meandering, nebulous anecdote about something barely related to the game. If a journalist is doing this, as far as I’m concerned, they aren’t doing their job properly.

I battle with my ego every day. The writer in me wants to fill my articles with smartarse references and sagacious wordplay, but the journalist – the voice of reason – always stops me. Because a critic isn’t writing for his or her self, but for other people.

AK