There's been a lot of talk recently about the state of videogame reviews and the editors of Tom's Games want to know what you think. Answer the poll question and post your ideas or suggestions in the thread.

First, I want to say thanks for giving us honest reviews. I see you guys get involved in the forum all the time and its good to see you guys aren't just people behind the seen.

I like the types of reviews where you have an overall score. However, its nice to see a breakdown of those...for instance: Story, gameplay, Quality of the product (finished or buggy and unfinished), graphics, originality (New ideas introduced in gamplay), etc.

As we all saw, a simply overall score can lead to misleading or unsatifaction for the readers.

My 2 cents,

Alex

Oops what I ment was each category should have their own score as well.

I like seeing an over all number score, but there should be a break down or expaination why it is rated what it is. A good discriptive reveiw helps a lot too.

One thing I was considering was doing second opinion reviews so that readers can get an idea what some of the other writers/reviewers think of a particular title. Everyone had different tastes -- I prefer single player experiences, whereas others may put more value on multiplayer -- so having two or even three different opinions might help provide a more well-rounded view of a game.

That's a great idea! Each game good have its own Editor's review and an average user review. Users would get a chance at puting their own score.

Would users be able to score each categories as well (i.e. Graphics, gameplay, presentation, etc) ?

I personally don't like scoring formulas such as those. In some cases, we may put a greater emphasis on certain aspects of a game -- story or audio, for instance -- than other aspects such as graphics. I think it's much more insightful to read about the author's own views, i.e "Where I'm Coming From," "What I Compared It To," etc.

Also, I like the idea of user reviews, but I'm just not sure if we'll be able to implement a system that's fair and won't lead to abuse. Still, it's a good idea.

Is this thread intentionally cynical, or is it by accident?