How We Actually Review A Game

People sometimes ask how long we spend on a review. The honest answer is longer than you'd think, and most of that time is unglamorous.

It starts with one of us installing the game and playing normally — no guides, no cheese strategies, just experiencing it like a new player would. We log where we got stuck, where we got bored, and where something clicked. Those notes become the backbone of the review.

Only after at least a week do we sit down to write. We deliberately push past the honeymoon phase, because almost every game is fun in the first hour. The real character shows up when the difficulty spikes or the loop starts repeating.

The score comes last, and it's a conversation, not one person's call. If two of us disagree hard, we say so in the text. We'd rather give you an honest 'it depends' than a confident number nobody believes.