Other than that and the geometric environment’s affect on squad orders, I love the game style, combat, story and delivery.

LdySabella & Hawkeye: I agree it is not going to be used for every review. But I think some titles lend themselves to entertaining perspectives. One drawback is that is might not be a good format to introduce a game to someone looking to make a buying choice. Its hard to explain to a character who already knows something a fact a neophyte reader might want – like in this review who the Geth are. Shepard already knows, the readers might not.

Adobe: I think you could do a negative review if you framed it right but maybe it is too subtle a tactic. I don’t think if I hated a game that I’d put the effort into writing this sort of piece.

Snake: I played through the game without ever knowing you could hit the X button. Please explain to me where that was demonstrated or explained.. I’m glad its there but one of the shortfalls I didn’t mention was the lack of guidance for players who may not have an intuitive grasp on the interface or controls. I found my way around easily because I’m used to RPGs and Bioware games – the interface was cool but by no means was there a real tutorial to teach me or anyone how to play.. That said I had a few times where I hit X and did not get to skip the cut-scenes.. not normal dialog.. but the cut-scenes like LdySabella mentioned above.

So this brings up a bigger questions then – with gamers complaining often about the staid nature of game reviews.. what do you guys want to read that would be informative and entertaining? Do you want formula with “X’s Graphics are good, Y’s controls are bad..” style? Or do you want something more narrative or experiential? Of do you just not care one way or the other and want a buy/no buy recommendation?

Basically, we thought we’d try something different just to mix thing up for the basic “I played it, it looks like this” review formula. Sure it works, but people have to be getting sick of reading that by now.

I’ve played a few times through and chosen different options only to have the end results always be the same inside a certain scenario. For instance when the scientist in the hot labs or the computer VI talk I got tired of listening to dialog and chose contrary options a number of times after being killed by the rachnar or whatever they are called – none of the dialog choices changed my character nor did they result in a different outcome. I can see what he’s saying about the dialog not having the impact you might expect in a “natural” dialog system.

@Adobe: I think you have a point there. Though I took some of what the author put in the above character piece as a negative.. he mentioned the obvious lack of objects – other than weapons – and how little real difference there was from a character perspective. Maybe it was too subtle.

I enjoyed the different approach because I’m getting tired of the same formulaic reviews on every site rehashing the same information over and over. I want to know what the game is like, to some extent I want to know how a game will make me feel and what the world is like. I agree this format won’t work for every game.. I can’t imagine this technique being used to describe Tetris DS for instance… at least they are trying something different, I just think it has to be done sparingly.

First off, there is the ability to skip dialouge, during the conversations, all you have to do is press X to get to your part of the conversation, choose your action, then press X to keep skipping.

Also, the dialouge does have certain reactions to the game itself. If you make the wrong decision, a certain path may no longer be open to you as is it may have been if you said something else.

I would only say that some may need to do a little better study of their game before the review it. On the contrary, they did cover most of the elements that are lain throughout the game, so its not a way off review. It just lacks a little more research into the game is all.