Want to write a review? Start here.

[WhiteShark]

RPGHQ Game Review Guidelines

You may post a review draft at any stage of completion, but in order for it to be approved and moved to the public Game Reviews forum, it must meet the following criteria:

1. Reviews must be written in complete sentences and in paragraph structure. A review of only bullet points will not be accepted.
2. Reviews must be written with proper grammar and orthography. Please do your best to catch as many errors as you can on your own before requesting proofreading.
3. RPGHQ reviews are not impressions. A write-up based on a brief experience with the game is fine for posts elsewhere, but not for reviews in this section.
4. Reviews must be of the full game, barring exceptional circumstances. That is, the reviewer should have completed the game at least once—or have strong reasons for why he did not complete the game and mention those in the review.
5. Reviews must cover all major aspects of the game, both aesthetic and mechanical. Gameplay and rules are important to mention, but noteworthy aspects of the art, sound, and music should be included, too.
6. Reviews must include the reviewer's thoughts concerning the various game elements, not just a description thereof.
7. Screenshots are required. Not only do they give readers context, they are also useful for breaking up sections of the review.
8. Screenshots must be in jpeg or avif format unless there's a good reason to use a lossless format.
9. Reviews must be written by a human, not AI. Using AI for editing is fine.
10. Reviews must contain a statement near the end concerning whether or not the title is recommended.
11. If the reviewer received a free review copy, such must be noted near or at the top of the review.
12. Refrain from profanity ("bad words") unless it's a direct quotation from the game. Profanity looks unprofessional and tends to disrupt the tone of the review.

Review drafts are to be posted as new threads in the Review Approval Area. When you are ready to have it proofread, notify the @Game Review Reviewers in your submission thread. Requesting proofreading will, for the sake of expediency, be considered to grant us permission to directly edit your draft. If the draft is deemed too rough, you will be asked to clean it up before we proofread it. Once all feedback and revisions have been incorporated and the draft approved, your review will be moved to the Game Reviews forum.

Approved reviews appear on the Home Page. To make your review appear nicely, we recommend the following format for the top of your review:

1. No title in the post body! The thread title already appears on the home page.
2. Cover art or similar.
3. Approximately one medium paragraph or two shorter ones containing:
   • A quick summary of the game; and
   • A summary of your assessment: High Quality, Low Quality, or otherwise.
4. Avoid having another screenshot immediately following the above; prefer text.

You can see an example of the preferred format here.

More technical notes on grammar, punctuation, and formatting can be found in the Review Style Guide.

[Fuze]

Yeah, I've got a few review in mind, but my English grammatical skills are absolutely atrocious, so I'm probably going to need for someone to thoroughly proofread my unhinged rant, unless you're aiming for the Italian wine aunt public.

[rusty_shackleford]

Yeah, I've got a few review in mind, but my English grammatical skills are absolutely atrocious, so I'm probably going to need for someone to thoroughly proofread my unhinged rant, unless you're aiming for the Italian wine aunt public.

@Kalarion said he'd be willing to help, if that falls through I'll help out.

[WhiteShark]

I'm down to proofread as well. Are we handling that through PMs or with a hidden forum or what?

[Acrux]

I can also proofread.

[madbringer]

I've written exactly one game review in my thirty+ years on this planet. Is it okay to copypaste?

[rusty_shackleford]

I've written exactly one game review in my thirty+ years on this planet. Is it okay to copypaste?

If you think it's high enough quality, go ahead.

[madbringer]

I've written exactly one game review in my thirty+ years on this planet. Is it okay to copypaste?

If you think it's high enough quality, go ahead.

There she goes. I tried to edit it down but it was meant initially as more of a tour guide than a review. Hopefully it works either way.

[madbringer]

Yeah, I've got a few review in mind, but my English grammatical skills are absolutely atrocious, so I'm probably going to need for someone to thoroughly proofread my unhinged rant, unless you're aiming for the Italian wine aunt public.

**** are you talking about, your English is better than most bongs and burgers.

[Bertram_Tung]

one of these days i'm gonna write a review
you'll see

[Tweed]

I'll never review anything for this place due to endless abuse and mistreatment.

[rusty_shackleford]

@Game Review Reviewers, I've reworked how reviews are done. There is now a staging area where you may give feedback on a review, and once you believe it is 'finished' you may move the review to the game review forum. Don't move the entire topic, you'll want to use the 'Split Topic' moderator feature to cherrypick only the review post.
The only threads users will be able to see in the review area are their own threads. You guys should be able to see all threads.
Let me know if there are any issues with this as it's a complex system of permissions and something may not be setup correctly.

[rusty_shackleford]

@Game Review Reviewer added this:

Reviews should contain a short blurb near the end stating whether the title is recommended or not.

Feel free to edit it as you see fit as long as there's some sort of summary where the author either recommends the title or not. This is mostly just to fit within the Steam review system.

[rusty_shackleford]

FYI, Steam allows you to take notes now with its overlay. Very handy for taking notes for a review. Also consider recording your gameplay if your PC can handle it(or it's an old game), allows you to remember things easily and grab screenshots you missed.

[SoLong]

Question: Since I'm thinking about writing a review about a game that'll soon be out I'd like a clarification on rule 3.

The game is an open world online game and will be released in chapter format (story parts and locations are added in patches). So it won't actually be "complete" in a meaningful sense for several years at least.

I assume it's fine to play what it currently there and just put up a disclaimer with the game version? Because everything else would be very impractical.

[WhiteShark]

I assume it's fine to play what it currently there and just put up a disclaimer with the game version? Because everything else would be very impractical.

Yes, that's absolutely fine. The game itself being incomplete is definitely a strong reason for having not completed the game.

[Tweed]

Don't forget, everything you upload becomes the property of Rusty.

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't forget, everything you upload becomes the property of Rusty.

No.

You are granting "RPGHQ" with a non-exclusive, permanent, irrevocable, unlimited license to use, publish, or re-publish your Content, including any Content hosted on "Vault" that you link to within the forum. You retain copyright over the Content. You acknowledge that "RPGHQ" is not responsible for the Content hosted on external services and that linking to such Content does not transfer any ownership or additional rights beyond those outlined in this section.

We retain a license to publish & republish the content, otherwise the forum could not function — people could merely demand we take down their content when they decide they no longer want it here. We've even seen these demands multiple times in public(and many more in private.)
You retain ownership of the content.

---

I don't consider this to be 'unfair', either. We provide a platform that reaches 60k unique users & 1.45 million visits/30 day cycle, these numbers have been steadily increasing since I began recording them. This isn't the largest platform, but it's more than just shouting on a random blog into the void.

To be clear, I have taken down content in the past at reasonable request and will do so again in the future. I like to think I haven't been unjustly unkind towards anyone and have gone a long way towards building trust with the userbase. These terms are to protect the forum which we all use, not to unfairly punish users for sharing content.
And as per usual, I welcome all criticisms on any policies.

[rusty_shackleford]

@Game Review Reviewer you guys might want to have a discussion on what content to place at the start of a review since that will be featured prominently on the homepage.

[Finarfin]

Hi, so I was kinda interested in doing a review of a game I used to play quite a lot. Can I preview it anywhere here, so I can do the formatting and stuff?

[rusty_shackleford]

Hi, so I was kinda interested in doing a review of a game I used to play quite a lot. Can I preview it anywhere here, so I can do the formatting and stuff?

Just create the review in the approval area: viewforum.php?f=41-review-approval-area
Only the editorial staff & moderators can read content submitted there.
Make a note at the top that it's not yet ready for being reviewed.

[rusty_shackleford]

I guess I didn't make it clear(?? I know I posted this somewhere, but I can't find it), but the @Game Review Reviewers are allowed to enforce a minimum quality standard for reviews. I had one of them ask me about this, and the answer is obviously yes. If you feel reviews are not high enough quality, you may ask for improvements and/or reject them.

[WhiteShark]

I've updated the guidelines based on our internal discussion, @Game Review Reviewers:

• Added criterion 2;
• Changed most instances of should to must;
• Added a note concerning the ineligibility of very rough drafts for proofreading;
• Added a recommended format section with regard to the appearance of reviews on the Home Page; and
• Various rewordings.

[1998]

How do I actually view or edit my draft?

[rusty_shackleford]

How do I actually view or edit my draft?

Make sure you actually submit the thread, and not 'save draft'(which is a generic phpbb tool to uh, save your draft). You can edit it afterwards, only you & the editorial team will be able to read the thread itself.

[WaterMage]

notify the @Game Review Reviewers in your submission thread. Requesting proofreading will, for the sake of expediency, be considered to grant us permission to directly edit your draft.

How I mark him?

Submited a review for Lords of Fallen 2023.

[WhiteShark]

Added the following criteria:

6. Reviews must include the reviewer's thoughts concerning the various game elements, not just a description thereof.
10. If the reviewer received a free review copy, such must be noted near or at the top of the review.
11. Refrain from profanity ('bad words') unless it's a direct quotation from the game. Profanity looks unprofessional and tends to disrupt the tone of the review.

[Tweed]

I said a bad word, I did that.

[rusty_shackleford]

@WhiteShark make sure the images are in either jpeg or avif format, unless it's something that warrants lossless compression.

[Vergil]

11. Refrain from profanity ('bad words') unless it's a direct quotation from the game. Profanity looks unprofessional and tends to disrupt the tone of the review.

Where do you think we are?