Framework for a Video Game Review
One of the biggest challenges of reviewing a video game is providing a fair critique. Reviewing an art form that is built off various creative mediums can be challenging. As a creative individual, being able to make one masterpiece is a daunting task. To make a masterpiece filled with different mediums and have them harmoniously sing until the end of an experience is an otherworldly demand. Developers are noble in their pursuit to bring us those otherworldly experiences, and it’s important to recognize that as we form opinions.
What is the gaming experience? From my current point of view, gaming is the art form that looks to take our three of our powerful senses: visual, tactile and auditory and forms a reality around them. Then our oldest and most powerful tool comes in to connect these senses with the what, when, where, and how of it all. That tool being story.
Story engages our auditory experience with promises of a thousand faces being taking on the hero’s journey. As we grew to be more than just a vibrating hum within our universe, we put the words, the incantations, onto stone. We altered the physical reality to form the representation of our beloved stories, creating the visual representation. Generations practiced bearing their souls onto solidified elements for others to see what truly lies within. It was not until video games where the art powered by primordial forces of energy fought back from its creator’s perspective, creating the tactile feedback that we deem gameplay loops.
There are Four Major Principles,
Visual / Tactile / Auditory / Story.
Each of these categories can have a maximum point value of 25. To determine that value, each category will contain a five subcategories that will receive a number value of 1 to 5. Adding up those values will determine the score of a full category.
Gameplay Systems
Points accumulate based on rules, core mechanics system effect on the in-game world and its end goal.
Gameplay Loops
Loops are based on the stacking of the gameplay system. The score in this category considers the loop’s duration before becoming tedious. How unique the gameplay loop is for its given genre and how the loop expands throughout a play through.
Feedback & Progression
A player should feel rewarded for the effort they put in for the game. Allowing for a higher skill ceiling while keeping the entry into the game low is key. Keep placing a new shiny object for me to continue with the experience.
Controls & Accessibility
Controls define the playability. Button mappings should make sense for the players’ initial play through. The controls should feel as if they are mastering a new instrument. The game should also allow people to change how they play the instrument. To account for personal preferences or disabilities.
Level Design
While environmental design is about getting the players lost within the world. Level design should seek to place roadblocks in front of the player to test skill, intelligence, and creativity. It’s the reason people play games to be tested in fun ways.
Graphical Aesthetics
Graphical design is based on its art direction regarding color palette and art style forms its attempting to utilize.
Character Design
The score is based on encompassing factors such as the characters’ age, gender, body shape, facial expression upon introduction, attire, accessories, and any other defining characteristics. Characters should fit in this world, not simply look fantastic.
UI & UX Design
The design should aim to enhance the user’s interaction with underlying systems. The goal is clarity that is imbued with its world style. This would include all menus, dialogue boxes, subtitles, tool tips, trackers, status indicators, world maps, loading screens, etc.
Animation
Every animation should emphasize dynamic movement and visual effects applied to characters, objects, environments and even menu transitions.
Environmental Design
The environmental design should make the player get transported to another reality. To gain points in this category regardless if it matches the setting of the story. Work quality is paramount. This would be the formations of the terrain, architecture developments, lighting and atmosphere, textures and materials on objects.
Music
Music is a powerful tool to get a player hyped or get someone on the verge of tears during dramatic cut scenes. The track’s purpose will determine how many points this category receives.
Voice Acting
Voice actors should replace my inner voice for dialogue. They are the living part of the character. When pondering a character, their voice and tonality should echo within my mind. My desire is to be fully present with these characters.
Sound Effects
The chime when you click a button, the scroll sound when going through a menu. A swing of a sword crash onto a breakable object. All these little details are important. It should be so satisfying that if you play a game with no sound on, it feels similar to committing a sin.
Ambient Noise
This category gains points based on the noise created to satisfy the narrative atmosphere. These sounds can be dripping water, echoing footsteps, clanking machinery, urban activity. Without the player’s interactions, these sounds would still exist.
Environmental Noise
This focuses on specifics rather than broader categories of ambient. These sounds associate to players’ interaction. This could be footsteps on a gravel road, creating a crunch. A player talking within a cavern carrying an echo. A vehicle’s engine rumbling when the player pilots it.
Plot
What determines a good plot is the choices. The characters’ choices dictate the plot. The plot should force the player in hearing more. I desire to witness the consequences of characters’ decisions or their subsequent actions prompted by those decisions.
Narrative
Building off the plot category, did the scenes you include expand the story in a way that hurts it or improves it? Did the narration leave enough clues for me to predict the end? Did any narration outside the main plot serve a purpose?
Characters
The main characters and support characters should feel well thought out. Existing to just exist in a video game world can fall flat. The characters’ story arcs should push the plot points or crumble under the weight of other characters trying to accomplish theirs.
Theme
Overarching concepts or repeating concepts should have double or triple layers’ worth of meanings. The more themes woven together and relate to each other, the higher the score.
Setting
Does the societal and historical contexts have density? Does this time period make sense, given its history? Do characters dress and act based on their settings? What is the impact of customs and cultures on this world? Will our desire for more of this world grow after we finish the story? These questions lie at the heart of this category.
