Very odd.

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It's not about "how to write reviews" or even "how to write better reviews", it's a question of what you mean to write in the first place. If the point is to write a review, then I agree with this guy, the ones we have now are fine. But if the point is to write a critique (which is the root of the word 'criticism' after all), then I'd argue that yes, there needs to be a discussion of that. Because real video game critiques are few and far between.

Of course, the funny thing is there are plenty of schools out there that will give you a very good education in how to write a proper academically-oriented critique of anything. (I have a degree in cinema studies, which is basically exactly that, so I'm saying this from experience.) So all this debate that basically boils down to "how do we do write critiques??" is pretty ridiculous - you do it the same way as anything else, by getting an education and actually learning how to do it. On the one hand, these guys aren't the first guys to ask this question, by about 200 years. On the other hand, there are no short cuts to being a good critic. No roundtable is going to teach someone how to write a proper critique, or how to think critically about their subject to begin with.

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It's just kind of a pointless debate. It's like debating on whether someone else should like tea or coffee better -- every publication decides what their reviews should be. The criticism of those reviews should be whether they are sticking to their own policies and being consistent.

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