RE: Advice On Being A Game Reviewer, how to set yourself apart from others and make quality content.
Playing games makes you a better reviewer. Yes, yes, yes, a million times, YES!
There is no more important piece of advice than this, and you nailed it. There's a reason why the most common answer to, "How do I become a better writer?" is, "Read more." The more interaction you have with the medium you wish to critique, the better-informed your writing can be.
Any random writer can say of a game that "The graphics aren't up to par," but if that writer cannot follow up with an example or two of what was "par" at the time the game was made, they've only done half their job.
Were the controls shit? How do you know? What would have made them better? If you decry the original Resident Evil on the PS1 for having shit controls because you don't like the 'tank-style', are you well-versed in the genre enough to know why Capcom went with that scheme (to compliment their engine), or are you disappointed because it didn't control like Dead Space, a game which had the luxury of building on ten years of survival horror control setups which came before?
One cannot review games (or anything else, really) in a vacuum. Know your history, know what came before, understand what came after (assuming you're not reviewing bleeding-edge software), and play the crap out of multiple titles in that genre. And especially play games you don't like, or don't think you'll like. I hate sports games, but if I blew off everything with a sports-related theme, I'd have missed out on some great titles like California Games, Ice Hockey, and Mutant League Football. If you're a guy, play games targeted towards girls. If you're an adult, play games targeted towards kids. Step outside your comfort zone, expose yourself to new ideas, and you'll be better-equipped to review the things you do like, because you'll come back to them with a new appreciation.
Or, who knows, you may just find something hellaciously fun that nobody else knows about. Then you can review THAT, and really step outside the box.
Damn good post, @cryptokrieg! Keep up the good work. :)
Man you should of turned this into your own post hahaha, i fully agree with what you're saying about being able to draw parallels between the past and the present, that's why when i review graphics specifically i try draw connections between the different aspects of the graphics, such as fluidity, flow, transitions and aesthetic appeal.
The Witcher 3 was a perfect example of that where pushing it past the ultra settings(with mods) could give you a too realistic experience that detracted from the game, however a lot of reviews i see of Witcher 3 never went past "It's the best looking game ever" even though it's kinda true it doesn't really add anything more to say, putting a bunch of screenshots up and calling it a day.
Thank's a lot for the comment though my dude, i'm happy to see that other people have the same perspective that I do when to gaming and reviewing, the mainstream gaming "journalism" has always pissed me off because people eat it up but I think slowly, people are starting to getting a taste for better material.