Why Do I Review Games?

I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about my game-reviewing process. Given the reach that Strategy and Wargaming have managed to garner in the last year, and the comments of people telling me, and emailing me that they have decided to buy (or not) a game based on my opinion, I started to feel the weight of responsibility in a way I haven’t felt before having this exposure. So, I think I owe you guys to explain the process behind my game reviewing process so that you can better decide if you want to buy a game based on what I think about it.

The fact that very few websites cover the kind of games I play is even more important because you and I might have similar tastes—or not.

I like to review games just for the fact that I have a lot of fun doing it. I have reviewed games for myself, even before I started this weekend venture of mine, just because I enjoy dissecting why I like something. I do the same with books, movies, and songs. It’s an interesting process of trying to organize my thoughts on something that is, for the most part, very subjective to every person. Over several years, I have developed my own unique way of analysing games in a way that works for me, and apparently for some of you. So I’m going to go over the main things that I look for when taking a look at an up-and-coming game.

Only Review Fun Games

I have a rule on this website: To only review games that I think are good, and deserving of being shown off. This means that I don’t publish as many reviews as I can, but the main reason for this is that games are supposed to be fun, and if I’m not having fun with it, I’m not playing it. This doesn’t mean that one cannot be critical of something that one enjoys, take Age of Darkness, for example, despite having a lot of fun with it, it’s still very much an average game, with a lot of problems, but it was fun in its own sort of way. Life is too short to play games just to write an article. Another reason is that I try to keep things positive around here, and I find no pleasure in trashing a game. Hopefully, other people will fill this gap, because I don’t think I ever will. So if you don’t find a mainstay release of a strategy game not being shown here, there’s a chance I didn’t enjoy it, with Civilization VII and Company of Heroes 3 being two high-profile examples where I could have gained a couple thousand extra views, but I do this for fun, and I wasn’t having fun at all.

Dissecting Themes and Mechanics

After thinking quite a lot about what makes a game great, from controls to graphics to user interfaces and multiplayer features, I realized that games are, at their very essence, the sum of two things: It’s themes and the mechanics that bring those themes to life.

“How do mechanics and themes work together?”, is the question that’s always on my mind. Those the mechanics fit the theme the game is trying to portray? As an example, let’s take a game like Company of Heroes, whose main theme is a Hollywoodesque portrayal of World War 2 tactical combat. What made World War 2 tactical combat special? The idea of the 4Fs (Find, Fix, Flank and Finish), so the mechanics should be built around scouting, suppressing the enemy, and finding a way to get a superior tactical position to win, and Company of Heroes translates this real-life idea into game mechanics that work, with a dynamic cover system, the fog of war, suppression bonuses, flanking bonuses, and a lot of others. The thing is, when everything is put together as a package, it comes together to present a cohesive package.

This leads me to my second question: “Can the theme or the mechanics live on their own? And how?”. Let’s try and and apply the same logic with did in the last paragraph to Company of Heroes again, but instead of being World War 2, is Ancient Roman warfare. The mechanics are still really tight, but they no longer fit the theme, leading to an inevitable dissonance between the two. You can extend these logical foundations to any game, and start to see how the pieces join together when the games are great, and how disjointed they feel when the games are really not at all that great. Another example is Total War. Ever since Rome II came out, every Total War has been basically the same, but what are the most successful ones? The ones whose mechanics are built around the theme they’re supposed to support: Three Kingdoms, and Warhammer, being the two most successful entries on the series at this time. Would the Total War engine work in World War 1? Or World War 2? Most likely not without major alterations.

An example of a great theme drawn by poor mechanics is Dawn of War 3, which still has the great characters, storylines and lore from the Warhammer 40,000 universe, but whose mechanics failed to portray the setting properly, despite two successful (and very different) RTS preceding it.

To close out this chapter, theme and mechanics should work in tandem with one another to bring out a cohesive experience. On the surface, this sounds simple enough, but it’s a complex combination that very few game developers can properly pull off, there’s no formula to success, and I won’t be the one attempting to explain it.

Graphics, Sound, and User Interface

If the themes and mechanics are working well to provide a fun experience, then I like to look at other, arguably more superficial aspects of the game, like the graphics, the UI, the sound and music, and the overall flow of the player experience. While I can see some aspects of objectivity when looking at themes and mechanics working together, these are exclusively subjective topics.

Graphics and art styles vary widely from title to title, and while I believe that there’s some sort of subconscious understanding of what makes good graphics good that’s widely accepted by the gaming audience, it’s still extremely subjective. Some folk just fawn over pixelated graphics, others can’t get enough of cel-shaded games (Jet Set Radio, anyone?), and a big portion of us love realistic-looking games. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a lover of isometric games with pre-rendered assets from the likes of Age of Empires, Commandos, Stronghold, Hades and Sim City 4. For the unending variety of art styles, there’s an unending number of tastes. The best way to analyse if you’re going to enjoy the graphics is simple, just have a look at screenshots or the way the game plays. What else would you do? Sounds and music are very much the same, except for the fact that I’m a complete outlier here because I always turn off the music in every game.

In 2025, one thing there’s no excuse for is having a poor User Interface, and this can completely ruin what would be an awesome game. Poorly presented or hidden information; Too much information; Menus inside other menus inside other menus; Too much clicking for simple actions; Too many similar options with virtually no distinction between them; No tooltips; Or the UI just being ugly are just some of the worst UI sins. Now, there are great games with terrible UIs (Hearts of Iron III, I’m looking at you), but imagine how amazing these would be if they were easier to get into.

The whole presentation should be built around the idea of making the player experience better, easier, and more compelling. Look for games like Dead Space, Hearthstone and Mirror’s Edge for amazing examples of presentation, UI, and player experience.

Innovation and Novelties

One fascinating thing about video games is how innovative the best of them manage to be. I highly value innovation and novelties, and love the the curiosity that comes with the hope of exploring these new systems and ideas. If a game is promising a new experience of any sort, it probably has my attention. A very distinct example that comes to mind is the upcoming Burden of Command, the first game that I know of that’s attempting to be a World War 2 role-playing game, focusing on the fascinating theme of leadership.

While innovation is fine on paper, it must make sense in the context of what the game is trying to be, and not every title needs to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes, honing and perfecting existing mechanics, themes and systems can be as good as creating something totally new. Just know that I might favour games that attempt to do things differently.

Tutorials

Never underestimate the power of a good tutorial that takes the player through its paces without being overbearing. Just teach the essentials and tease the underlying depth of the game’s systems, but let the player explore and figure those on their own. Please stop with the whole “real the manual” or “look at page 300 of the attached PDF”. Look, I love a good, thick manual as much as everyone else, but reading 150 pages of modifiers is something that I cannot wrap my head around. Some examples of memorable and useful tutorials are Dark Souls, Pokemon, and Half-Life 2.

Keep It Simple, Studip

After doing my rounds on the aforementioned topics, I usually read my reviews to make sure they are simple enough to read for people with both knowledge of the genre, and for people with no idea what a strategy game is. I problem I usually see with similar websites is their authors trying to sound a bit too smart without having the proper knowledge and talent to do so. Won’t be naming names, but they are out there. I don’t want my reviews to sound smart to a couple of people, instead, I want them to be easily read on the go, accurate, entertaining, and helpful in decision-making, which is their only goal.

Personal Tastes

Avid readers are a bit more acquainted with what I enjoy, and what I don’t. And personal tastes are something that everyone should take into account when looking over a review. Ask yourself: “Do my personal tastes align with this person? Is his experience representative of what I’m looking for? Or is it tainted in some way?”. So I try and make my interests clear over every piece I write in Strategy and Wargaming, but to summarize: I play a lot of different titles, from a lot of different genres, despite just writing about strategy. You can find me playing Marvel Rivals on one day, Counter-Strike on another, and Stronghold on the next, followed up by sessions of Hell Let Loose, Brothers in Arms and Dark Souls.

On strategy, I love turn-based strategy, RTS and more traditional wargames, alongside some business sims. I love historical titles, particularly Medieval and World War 2. Examples of genres I don’t enjoy are JRPGs, sports games, and survival. I love to try out new games, and novel ideas. You can find more about my favourite titles all over my lists if you wish to know more. That’s basically it.

The Thing That Matters The Most: Have Fun!

You might have noticed that during this article I have mentioned a lot of different games, not only strategy titles, and that’s simply because I love playing all kinds of games, despite the only visible facet of my gaming existence being just strategy titles. All of this is to come to a simple conclusion, I review games that I think are fun in some way, and this can come in several forms: from the challenge, the story, the themes and setting, its replayability, its systems and mechanics, being novel or innovative. Remember, the most important thing about video games is how fun they are to play. Never lose track of that. That’s why we are all here.

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