On this Gamespot account, the first text review I posted was on April 5th, 2006.
I've been looking back at some of those old reviews, and wow I couldn't write or critiqueto save my life. Definitely not as bad as some reviews I posted before this account, but I'm not even going to get into that.
Some of my opinions on a few games were pretty unpopular back then, but I'm surprised to report that I pretty much stand by everything I've said in these reviews. I seem to have more reviews with down thumbs than up thumbs. I'm not sure if that's just a disagreement with my opinions, or just downthumbing for the sake of it.
But that said, some of my reviews have gotten great responses as well. I'm especially happy with my responses for the Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier review, A Bug's Life, and Zoey 101 for the GBA (a game I plan on buying a new copy of pretty soon!)
I love writing reviews, but my least favorite aspect of reviews is talking about graphics. I always did it, thinking it added something to the reviews or something. ButI always glossed over it because of my lack of passionfor the subject. I finally decided that I wouldn't betalking about graphics at all in any of my futurereviews, unless I reallyhave something to say about it. That should also make my reviews a bit shorter and easier to read.
Other than that, reviewing games has lent me the opportunity to practice my writing,which I think has gotten better over the years.
The biggest piece of advice that helped me in my review writing is this. The best way to improve your reviews, is to read more reviews. Not that you should copy peoples' writing styles, but reading a good review is a good way to learn how to write one. You know the old saying. When you steal from one person, it's plagiarism, when you steal from many people, it's research.
Once you know how to write a good review, then you should focus on developing your own style of writing. As for me? Well, I'm still trying to learn how to write a good review.
I thought I'd have more to say, but I guess this is about it. I encourage everyone out there to write more reviews, especially of games that don't get reviewed much. If you find a game that you own, that doesn't have either an official Gamespot review or any user reviews, definitely write a review for it. You'll be making the world a better place.
My 3 favorite reviews:
Zoey 101. My first review to get a decent response.
Spongebob Squarepants: Battle for Bikini Bottom. A surprisingly great game. Every PS2 owner that likes platformers should play this!
Jak & Daxter: The Lost Frontier. My highest-thumbed review, probably because it's the first time since 2007 when I posted a review of a basically brand new game at the time.
My 3 worst reviews:
Donkey Kong 3. I could've put more effort into this one.
ToeJam & Earl in Panic on Funkotron. Again, could've put more effort. One of the biggest problems was I didn't put enough time into the game. I could have played it for a lot longer, but I hated it so much that I couldn't stomach it.
Art Alive. Basically a failed experiment.
More reviews coming.