As a video game reviewer, I am often in the unenviable position of serving two masters.

Should a game's worth, reflected in my review, be based entirely upon its excellence, the mastery of the medium, or must I take relative value into account?  If the best game ever made cost 200 dollars, would I be remiss if I didn't inform my readers?  More broadly, ought I consider an experience as a whole, ignoring small flaws if they don't detract from the overall experience, or is it a duty to my readers to inform them of every misplaced save point, every tiny graphical glitch, every moment of unbalanced difficulty?

In other words, am I reviewing the latest film or the latest version of Word

One side of me recoils from the idea of treating games merely as a consumer product.  How can I, one of the staunchest proponents of video games as art, willingly participate in the debasement of my championed medium? Am I not doing a great disservice to the great luminaries of our medium, the Will Wrights, the Shigeru Miyamotos, by treating their work as mere product?  In merely going down a checklist of functionality, controls, graphics, and others, am I missing the forest for the trees?

My sense of journalistic integrity urges me to the opposite extreme, however.  I have a duty to my readers, and most of them are reading my reviews to inform purchasing decisions.  How can I claim that I truly have discharged my obligation to the reader when I leave out the facts that will impact their decision most?  If a person drops sixty bones on Heavenly Sword based on my recommendation, only to feel burned 5 hours later as the game comes to its conclusion, have I not failed at my job?  Have I not failed my readers, and violated their trust, especially important in something as subjective as video game reviews?

Or is it truly impossible to serve both ends?  Can I inform my readers in both fashions?  That's what I've attempted to do, but as this article indicates, I'm unsatisfied with the results.

I have no answer, but ultimately everything we do here at game-spectrum.com is for the benefit of you, our readers.  So I'm throwing this question out to the community at large.  Where do you want to see our reviews go?  What do we need to do?

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