A couple problems came up every time I reviewed this way. One problem was the lack of a hook. Normally I just went straight into why the game was good or not, maybe talking about some of the game's features. Future reviews will have something to ease the reader into reading the rest. (The Empire: Total War review did have a hook, but it wasn't a very good one)
Another problem was that the reviews seemed to be a little longer than they should be. Structuring should get rid of this problem.
So from now on I'm structuring reviews. Now they're going to be more like essays.
And now that I'm doing these more like college essays, I think I should note the following to myself (on the blog, so that you can hold me up to this) that I should avoid writing things like, "You the player should or should not get the game." Indeed, that's what the rating at the end of the review is for (at least, before the rating became about being considered a legitimate games journalism outlet). Not writing such a thesis statement is not just about not writing a thesis statement. It's also about not telling the players what to do with their lives. I really don't want to be bossy. The review should humbly be about why I did or didn't like the game.
Also, I've decided to use the star-rating system (I like stars). I've thought about what each star, out of five, will be worth, and I gave up. So for now consider the following as my ratings policy: one star means the experience the game provided me was almost entirely bad, two stars means it was merely mostly bad, three stars means it was merely mostly good. Four stars means it was an almost entirely good experience. And five stars means that, if you can, you owe it to yourself to try it out. Therefore a five star thing is rare. And zero stars means the game was absolute shit.
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