Writing a Video Game Review: A Guide for Gamers

The gaming industry is humongous, and today, it encompasses much more than the games or consoles themselves. One aspect that is almost as popular as the games themselves is game reviews, whether written or video. A lot of fans appreciate the reviews, and they can be really influential for fans when they’re trying to decide whether or not they want to buy or play that game.

That’s why so many gamers curate reviews, so that they can help fellow games make a decision on if a game is for them or not. If you have ever played on Steam before, then you will be familiar with how the community of reviews works here! Some will be funny, some will be serious, but they all offer an opinion. If you want to leave a review for a game, but don’t know how to get started or what to think about, then this posting will be ideal for you!

Playing the Game

Before you start writing anything, it will be ideal to actually play the game first! How else can you offer an opinion? If you haven’t already given it a go, then you should really get to it. If you manage to make a name for yourself and write reviews professionally, then some developers do give their new games to reviewers before they are released to the public.

Ideally, if you want to carve out a niche, you should try to choose a game that hasn’t already been heavily reviewed and debated online. To craft an honest and informed review, you should spend at least ten hours playing; you need to make sure that you have really given it a chance.

Collecting Your Thoughts

As you play the game, you need to start collecting your thoughts. Try to take regular breaks to write down your findings. To be unbiased, you’ll want to include both negatives and positives. It is really easy to get lost in a good game, and in fact, doing so is often the mark of a good game, but if you do, you probably won’t have a whole lot to say.

It’s important not to let your emotions run wild here, and you should try not to be too reactionary. It’s best to think about the game as a whole, including the visuals, dialogue and sound effects, rather than just focus on one little bit.

You might also want to take screengrabs – if you can – to illustrate your points. Be mindful of leaving spoilers in your review. It is also worth thinking about whether there is any other pertinent information that you should include. For example, if you are reviewing a casino game like the ones from Jackpot, you will definitely want to include these promotions in your review.

Writing the Review

The next step is obviously to start writing and compiling the review. For the most part, you’re going to want to start with an introduction which outlines the game and provides a bit of background. If you are writing for someone or something, then they may have a word count that you need to adhere to; otherwise, you have free reign.

You might want to start by just looking over your notes and beginning to give them some structure. Then you will need to do the first draft, whereby you go back over it and flesh out all of the points that you have made thus far. After you have the first draft out of the way, it is time to go back over it and revise and redraft it. When you are going back over your review, you should look for spelling and grammatical errors, as well as check the content itself.

What Next?

If you have ever written before, you will be familiar with the dread feeling of re-reading your draft and doubting yourself. It could be best to let someone else take a look, just to get reassurance, if nothing else!

After all is said and done, you can go ahead and post it! It doesn’t matter whether you are simply sharing your review on your social media platforms for your friends and family, on a forum, print publication or wherever else; just getting your work out there can go a long way in building your fan base. It can be rewarding in and of itself, too, even if game reviews are only ever supposed to be a hobby for you.

If you are only just getting started with video game reviews, then the above advice can really help you to get started. Identifying your audience should really be common sense, but it isn’t something that a lot of people think about. In order to write a review, you also need to have dedicated a significant amount of time to playing the game – you can’t write a review after an hour of gameplay.