How we actually review a game

People sometimes ask how long we spend on a game before writing about it. The honest answer is: as long as it takes to form a real opinion, which varies a lot.

For a short casual game, a few evenings might be enough. For an RPG, we'll push well into the campaign before committing a score. We don't review anything we only sampled for ten minutes.

Our ratings come from how a game feels after the novelty wears off. Plenty of titles are fun for an hour and tedious by day three, and that gap is exactly what we try to catch.

We also sit on scores for a day or two before publishing. First impressions lie, and we'd rather be fair than fast.