Bad Review: IGN
Longwinded. Reads like a disgruntled programmer who wishes he was developing for this game. The review is too nitpicky with relatively minor features, or small glitches in animation and display. It spends too much time on features the reviewer personally feels should be fixed and updated, rather than the progress made in development. I don’t need a play-by-play analysis of every thought the reviewer had as he played through the game. The review even ends saying it’s a nice bridge to ’10 the Show, which at best is in the beginning stages of design. It fails to address the features mentioned in the ads for the game that might have drawn a reader to the site to read a review on it until the third page,when most readers have either already decided what they think of this game.
Good Review: Gamer 2.0
This is medium sized review that specifically compares this year’s game against last year’s, which is a major part of a buyers decision to buy basically the same sports game every year. It can be too easy for developers to focus on one small improvement, and basically release the same product. The review provides a fair comparison, and suggests that the developers did a good job on making a game that is better than the version already collecting dust on your shelf from last year. It does hit on some of the less polished features too, but overall comes out positive. The review doesn’t contain overly flowery writing with silly references to MLB like “MLB ’09: The Show hits it out of the park!” Readers, even baseball fan readers, are reading this review for it’s gaming aspects, not for another jab about A-Roid.
Synopsis:
The first review had my eyes glazed over before I got halfway through. It felt like I was reading the transcript of the reviewers thoughts as he played the game. The Gamer 2.0 review was much better, hitting the major points of interest of the game and comparing it to past versions so I could make a proper decision on buying it.
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