When reviewing games there's no definite set of what's right and what's wrong, a lot of formats can be helpful in getting the reviewers point across and what they choose is essentially up to how they feel comfortable. Two of the most widely use formats to review games however are through articles and through videos, the former being usually found in magazines or online on niche websites specifically for that sort of thing and the latter can be pretty much made by anyone and uploaded to a site such as YouTube for the world to see. Not only can the format be different but the formality of it can be too, a twinge of humour can be used to emphasise points or just make the review more memorable then simple words on a screen or paper. Let's take for example this Walking Dead review by Empire Magazine as our first example of a text and picture based review (as seen below) and pick it apart before comparing it to another review of a different nature.
EMPIRE
Format wise the review itself looks like a review, you can open the page and know it's a review without looking at the great big honking arrow that's at the top left hand of the page. The text is all neatly laid out at the bottom of the page - or pages, rather - and is in typical column format and in a rather trimmed formation to keep everything somewhat in unison and to not have words and text flying all over the place. The title itself sticks out and is distinct to grab the readers attention, the subheading is in bold to indicate where the review begins and there are pictures to go along with the text to further showcase the game and to also perpetuate some of the points raised in the article, which include a picture of one of the former survivors, for example, as the article makes notes that the actions the players took in the previous season will affect what happens in this one, a picture of Clementine, now that she's the main character of this season and the typical horror aspects one expects from the game, with a walker gripping onto someone's arm. Content wise the review isn't terribly long, only spanning about a third of the way across both pages, but for a shorter article it does cover a lot of points. The author leads in with a synopsis of the game and a little bit of background to the company and the first season knowing this is essentially a sequel, and then goes on about the fundamentals of the gameplay (surviving, decision making, all the drama) and then about the improvements that have been implemented (dialogue trees and combat), though they don't necessarily note any examples of this other than the specific topics, though they may be leaving the actual content itself for the reader and/or potential player to find out. The style of writing isn't exactly formal either, it's somewhat colloquial and easy going for anyone to simply pick up and read. At the end the review gives a list of what systems the game is now out on and essentially backs up their statements by mentioning that the first episode of the season is out, so anyone who is interested from the review can go about finding out how to download the episode if their curiosity has been piqued.
ZERO PUNCTUATION
Now we delve into the world of visual media, and there are a lot of things people can do with a video review. The most important thing to remember, however, is video reviews require visuals and audio instead of the simple visual aspect that belong to written articles. Not only do you need something there to keep the viewer engaged, your voice also can take on a different tone instead of relying on people to use their inside voice to narrate the review themselves. Turn your attention to Zero Punctuation, a review style set up by one Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw, a snarky british-australian reviewer who has a very distinct style of humour and an even more distinct way of reviewing games. As the name may suggest, Yahtzee rambles excessively on about the game with little to no breaks between, leaving them as one massive rant of sorts, though despite his tendencies to be harsh on some games he can be quite forgiving with others. Format wise it takes on a unique style of his, with having caricatures and little minions visualising his humorous points frame by frame in a sort of half animation, though everything else is much the same as any other review, with his commentary overlaying it, albeit it a quick one, though he doesn't show any actual gameplay from the game itself, possibly giving it a backseat to his animation instead. One thing to note is the animation is, uh, quite vulgar at times with certain pictures, and his commentary isn't exactly any better, but it does get the point across, it's not just for the hell of it. Content wise he goes into a lot of detail, though he doesn't make it entirely distinct when he's going into it, especially when he's on a roll. When the actual criticism of the game kicks in he first starts off with a synopsis of the game, explaining that it's more so based around the aspect of relationships with other people (who get along like 'six velociraptors in a tent with only one sleeping bag') more so then merely running around gunning every single zombie down in an apocalypse setting, and that all your decisions will have an impact. He does criticise the mechanics and the moral binary choice, however, and shows examples of the decisions that both he and his friends made, which turned out to be the same, and carries on to explain that there are puzzles but they're not exactly engaging ones, saying that 'they're more like devices to make sure you're paying attention'. Yahtzee picks apart the combat aspect and the controls by saying the typical way to move around (on PC) is the WASD keys and then the mouse initiates talking, so when any sort of combat happens it's time for a quick time event. Finally he does praise the game by saying that the core mechanic of the game is setting the player up for very hard decisions and the game does that very well, both the quick reactions and the slow planning situations equally. He does say the game is absorbing and tense but despite all of that he doesn't necessarily want to see how the rest of the episodes will turn out because he feels the genre has been overdone.
COMPARISON
It's sort of hard to try and compare two reviews that are in entirely different mediums but it can be done, but whether or not you prefer one or the other is entirely subjective. The Empire review does what it was intended to, to provide a quick review in a magazine that is potentially full of them to potential players in order to give them a brief oversight and an incentive to play the game. Yahtzee also attained his goal, which was to produce yet another snarky video for people to watch and laugh at, alongside actually learning aspects about the game. The Empire does go into depth about some things (synopsis, fundamentals, improvements) but considering the length of it there isn't much detail you can shove into that small space, but Yahtzee's review is around about five minutes long, and goes into the whole concept of the game, the mechanics, the pros and cons of this, the puzzles, the controls, the combat and the core mechanic of the game, but does also praise it. It's interesting to note that the Empire Magazine is on a neutral basis and doesn't exactly pan or praise the game too much in either direction, but Yahtzee's style has him taking the negatives to an extreme and yet the praise to a neutral level, possibly to keep in touch with his character of sorts as it's come to be expected of him. With the magazine one has to read it in their own voice and certain things may not be read the same way as the author intended, yet with the video you have audio, so Yahtzee himself is speaking exactly as he was intended to be heard. Accessibility wise the video is much easier to get a hold of then the magazine, though the video itself isn't to everyone's tastes. It's vulgar and of course there's swearing, so those who want a more formal review might want to take the magazine option over this one, though I prefer the video itself.
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