My critique of greenlazer's review
This review is totally BAD !!!* Kidding aside, here is my review of greenlazer's review of Tony Hawk: RIDE.** First off, the easiest part of his review to criticize is the lack of structure. Sure, many people on the internet write articles, blogs and reviews without giving it the basic structure it deserves, but that does not make it right. Everyone has, or has had - trouble with grammar. But to make one, giant paragraph is just unacceptable.
Anyone can be a "Grammar Nazi," so I shall stop commenting on it for now (or at least I'll try). The biggest flaw I can see in this review is that it is too personal. Yes, reviews are based on opinion, but that does mean the reviewer can make it all about him/herself. For instance:
"All three of us fell down multiple times but never hurt ourselves we were all pretty drunk at the time though we may not have fallen as much if we hadn't all been tanked." - greenlazer
No one truly cares about this. No one. Not a single person, save him and his friends possibly. When making a review, you don't want to delve into personal experiences that have too many - or one HUGE - variable that others may not experience. At least he admitted that him being inebriated was most likely the cause of such a flaw. Still, no one inherently CARES that he was drunk and fell down.
Another glaring problem with this review is his way of mentioning a feature, but not fleshing out its quirks. For example:
"That being said it took us somewhere between 7-9 hours to complete... The one event we did not play was s-k-a-t-e which is the equivalent of Horse in basketball it is f*ing stupid and I suggest everyone just skip it..." - greenlazer
For one, he mentions there's events. Fine, what are these events exactly? What makes them fun? What are some things the developers could have improved on? Were they challenging, and if so, was it because of the controls, the fact that he was drunk, or because the game is genuinely challenging? Secondly, he mentions an event he doesn't like, but stops there. Why did he not like it? Calling it f*ing stupid is not enough to persuade us, the reader, why the event should be skipped.
He has updated the review, but there's one problem:
"I have played the game on Confident it is a little harder but the controls still feel tight and responsive it just requires a little more balance." - greenlazer
He did not mention in his original review that the controls were tight and responsive. He said the board "responds pretty damn well" but that is NOT descriptive enough. If he had used "tight" and "responsive," the original review would have been a tad more helpful. Did I say there was only one problem in the update? I misspoke, since there's one other problem, namely:
"AS far as the board I dont know if people have been getting messed up, broken skateboards or people aren't playing it right." - greenlazer
Yes, it has nothing to do with the game itself. It's either the board or the player. Confirmation bias at its best, folks.
There isn't much more to delve about why this review is awful, except for the many grammatical errors I did not mention in detail. I hope this reviewer puts more consideration into writing a review next time, because it's obvious he's passionate about video games.
*NOTE: The idea for this review stemmed from the user lolgreg's comment on greenlazer's review.
**NOTE: I have not played the game myself, so I refrained from critiquing the game itself, and focusing mostly on his review.
