? About Negative Review Ethics

Totally not true, CD. All reviews are helpful if they're honest, readable, and most importantly, tell WHY you thought a game was X.

I like the use of the word honesty. I might be completely wrong but some people come across to me as not being honest, i.e the writing feels like they're more interested in almost advertising themselves as Professors of Game Analysis rather than being brutally honest about the game. I get the need for an objective and detached lexicon and vocabulary to be able to describe a game without getting caught up too much in subjectivity (though as Michaels article pointed out, is there much point in that, really?, at the end of the day the game WILL be played by real people who WILL contribute their own subjectivity to it), it's just that some people seem to want to use this to look down on everything else, and worst of all, seem to think they're special elites who can figure it all out on 3 plays of a preview copy.

But then there's definitely a difference between a review (consumer oriented) and analysis. I just don't think the latter should be elbowing the former out of the way with its nose in the air when in reality, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, nobody will be talking about Ground Floor next year. Rinse. Repeat.