A reviewer’s job is to inform us about the positive as well as the negatives of the thing they are reviewing. In the example of a video game review they must tell us why we should buy the game as well as what the problem is. I read a review for Shadow Cities by Seth Schiesel and one for NCAA 12 by Lang Whitaker. I thought that Schiesel’s did a much better job of reviewing his game.

Whitaker started his review off with a story about his gameplay that left me very confused while i was reading. I actually had to pause to see if I was reading the right thing. When he finished his whole story he didn’t even explain what feature of the game he was talking about. He went on to just list a bunch of features of the game that I could have found by going to the games website. However the biggest problem I had with Whitaker’s review was that he never said anything negative about the game. I have played many video games in my life and know that none of them are perfect, Whitaker however failed to mention any specific problems with the game.

Schiesel on the other hand did a great job of explaining what the game was. He explained exactly what was going on and what your objectives were going to be. He talks about how the game is really the first of it’s kind. Schiesel also does his due diligence and explains to us some of the faults of the game. He gives you some reasons to be cautious about buying the game but then reminds you that the problems he described are things that will probably be fixed and even if not are not good enough reasons to stop you from buying the game.

When reading a review for a video game I would like to know that i am getting an unbiased opinion of the game from people who just love to play video games like me. While reading Whitacker’s review of NCAA 12 I felt like i was just reading a promo for the game. On the other hand when I read Schiesel’s review of Shadow Cities I felt like if I bought the game i could know what to expect both the bad and the good and thats what makes a good review.