What makes a good game review?

Ever since I came up with the concept for the web site, I’ve always had the intention of writing my own reviews of all (well… as many as I can) of the video games out there. However, when you come right down to it, I’m no professional journalist and at this point in time, very few people would actually listen to what I would have to say over any number of more mainstream reviewers out there… that’s okay though, considering that with every game review those in the mainstream media lose credibility.

…After all, how many of us laughed our asses off when we saw Grand Theft Auto IV and Metal Gear Solid 4 score 10 out of 10s at various web sites? For a time it seemed like everything was going to be scored 10 out of 10 across the board. The worst part is that those games don’t even deserve a perfect score. I agree that both of those games are very good in their own ways, but there was still a lot wrong with them to be scaled in such a way. I feel as though every review score posted lowers the collective IQ of the reviewer and their audience.

A lot of game sites seem to take pride in the fact that they rank one game with a 9.4 and another game a 9.5. What is the difference between those two scores other than a 0.1 value? How are those scores related to each other? Does this mean that I should not buy the 9.4 scored game over the 9.5? In a lot of ways it’s become more of a match of “this game is better than this other one” rather than “this game has these key points you should be aware of”.

I also feel that some game sites have it all backwards. They give you a page full of text and then show you the key points and the score at the very end. I find a lot of people just want to get the gist of it at first and if they’re really interested, read further into the review for more details. Therefore the smart thing to do would be to put the final points and score at the very beginning.

I’m sure many of you can come up with many other ways to improve video game reviews. I’d like to hear your thoughts. What makes a good game review? And furthermore, how would you like to see the reviews done for Twilight Lynk?