There are some who call me… Tim?

So I was thinking about the blog last night, and I decided that a step in the right direction, no matter what I do, is to come up with some criteria.

The most obvious one I that works on much less subjective terms is the games review idea. And so, I have a preliminary set of criteria on which I will judge games by, if I so choose to.

They are as follows (list, than summary):

Story

Visual Appeal

Interface

Gameplay

Difficulty

Replay Value

Summaries:

Story will include a short summary of my feelings of the plot, but will not include a synopsis. Maybe a teaser, if it is particularly good, but I don’t want to do any spoilers. I plan to write about the quality of the overarching plot, as well as the quality of the dialogue. This category will also be where I comment on the quality of the fluff, that is to say how thought out the world is. All games with a plot have a background to the world, but a few go above and beyond, including details that you don’t interact with but reflect the programmers and writers attention to detail.

Visual Appeal is obvious. How good are the graphics? I will also include the visual appeal of any menus or windows here, as well as loading screens. The artists, basically, get their own little category so I may judge them. Judge them and sentence them.

Interface will include everything from controls to the intuitivity* of the  menus. In a lot of cases this can make or break a game. A game with wonderful graphics and a good story can be turned into a chore with difficult to understand or convoluted controls or menus. *Intuitivity isn’t a word. I know that, thanks.

Gameplay will be my subjective category of “fun.” This category may be phased out because it is essentially a quiet combination of the interface, story, and difficulty. May move this to the top of the list as a brief summary of my feelings to be followed by the other categories.

Difficulty is a ripe category, swelling with information. Hopefully, this will include: a measurement of the difficulty of the later levels of the game, a measurement of the learning curve the game presents, and the length of the game, etc. Once again, this will be skewed to a subjective angle, as my personal skill at the type of game will matter. Racing games, for example. For God knows what reason, I am generally very good at them. On the other hand, First person shooters, I am not quite as good. Alright, pretty awful.

Replay Value is an important category in understanding any game. Is this a renter or should I actually bother buying it? This category will include both the replay value of the main story line, as well as an minigames it may include. Example being Starcraft (which I’m sure everyone reading this has played). The Main Story mode has a replay value of x, while the skirmish mode has a replay value of y. I imagine I’ll also include any multiplayer replay value in here too, but that again may vary because I don’t always take the choice to use the multiplayer mode. Though I suppose if I am going to write reviews, I may very well have to.

The overall score of the game will be an average of all of the above 6 categories. I might include a short little summary of my feelings, but wait, I already did that in gameplay.

I may just have to review a game to get an idea of what I need to do.

Anyway, if you have any comments or suggestions, I encourage you to speak up. Just use the comment button below.

.. Do it.

Jumble, End Post.

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Alright, so, this is my very first post in an official blog. Ever.

Never had one before, never really intended to. So, here it is. I’m part of the blogosphere.

Not sure really what I want to do with this space yet, though I’m going to try to keep whining to a minimum. I’ve sorta wanted to do game reviews for awhile, so I might start doing that here soon. Got a few ones I could do, including: Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, Rollcage, the original and stage II, Fable, Dawn of War (got all of them).. anyway, thats a possibility, and it might also be sorta, maybe constructive.

I also remember Katherine mentioning she wanted to create a blog about a “hero of the day,” aka: someone who she noticed that just went out of their way to make someone else’s day a little better. Not like running into a burning building to rescue someone, but the little things in life that we never get credit for. Would also be interesting, and, as it were, upbeat.

Either way, my audience is presently 1 2, and I’m not sure how often your you guys will be actually going to checking this, so I’m going to do what I want! Hah!

Jumble, End post.

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Just leave Britney Alone!

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