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What’s a good review made of?

4 November 2009 266 views 2 Comments

While doing some research in preparation for the launch of 2D6, I had to consider what I tend to look for, and distinguish as, a “good” board game review. More over, how could I take what I consider a thorough examination of a board game, and extrapolate a reusable formula that can exist within the confines of a 8-10 minute video. Given an examination of a couple of hundred reviews that I’ve read over the last couple of years, I came up with the following generic criteria that I believe will suit our purposes nicely.

1. Overview:
- Title of the game and publisher.
- Theme
- Type of game
- Game Mechanics
- Play time duration
- # of players

2. Review Criteria:
- Craftsmanship – How is the quality and sturdiness of the components?
- Presentation – Does the theme work or does it feel pasted on? If there’s a story, is it any good? Do the components work well with the game’s theme and overall objective?
- Accessibility – Is the game easy to learn? Is set up and play time manageable? Is the theme an audience deterrent?
- Gameplay – How is the player interaction? Is the game more strategy or luck based? Most importantly, is the game fun to play?
- Replayability – How is the overall replay value of the game? Could the game see allot of table time?

3. Overall: Is the game worth the price tag?

Given our mission as a video-based board game review site, we believe focusing on this formula will allow us to convey valuable review information, demonstrate the basic elements incorporated during play, while still adhering to a reasonably short video time duration.

What do you think? If we left out an area that you would like to see in our reviews, tell us about it.

-Nick Cassidy

2 Comments »

  • noah7979 said:

    Hey guys,

    Great job so far! I stumbled across this site looking for info on Pandemic which I was considering picking up. Your reviews seem exceedingly high quality, well-edited, and the opening motion graphics are AWESOME! You all seem really cool, funny, and knowledgeable about games, and I look forward to more of your opinions.

    I like how you’ve identified these 5 areas for review and hit those areas in succession and the technique gave me a good overview of the game. For me a good review shows me how a game works. From your reviews, I had a hard time picturing how the games actually played (I’ve played Dominion so I know, but I wanted to see examples of the strategies you were mentioning). Board Games with Scott does an excellent job of this – I actually used his review of Agricola as a primer to get up and running on what was, for me, a complicated set of rules. You probably dont want to go the full tutorial route as he seems to do, but examples of specific gameplay examples might help build that mental picture.

    Anyway, keep up the good work, it looks like a lot, and thanks for the reviews. I’m subscribed and look forward to more!

    # 25 November 2009 at 5:59 PM
  • ncassidy (author) said:

    Thank you for the feedback, Noah.

    We’ve talked about adding in a tutorial overview to each review, but our tutorial footage ended up extending the length of the video to the point that it exceeded what we thought would be a concise, yet fun review. Instead, we will try to very quickly cover the goal of the game and flow within the gameplay section. In the interest of time duration, it will not be as thorough as Scott’s tutorials are, but we hope to provide the bare essentials so that we can focus on the review while remaining as entertaining as possible.

    Thanks again for the feedback!

    -Nick Cassidy

    # 28 November 2009 at 6:12 PM

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