Yudhishthira’s Dice

As you can see, no Dog’s review yet.

My computer died, it ate the review, it made me cry.

Maybe someday I’ll rewrite it.

So I’m going to start doing some game reviews. I’m going to start with Dogs.

I’m doing Dogs first for several reasons. First, I’ve now been playing the game for years and have played dozens of sessions with dozens of different people, and have talked with a lot more people about the game. I feel I have a good handle on what the game does, how it does it, and what the strengths and weaknesses of the game are. I feel that I can really review the game critically and honestly, and have a good chance of being accurate and possibly even insightful in what I say.

Second, its well known that I love Dogs. I’ve repeatedly gushed and raved about it, and so everyone knows about where I stand on it. I think it is a very strong game, and I want to talk about why that is in detailed terms — sort of creating a bar for discussion. However, I also don’t think it is a perfect game, and there are some issues with it that I will be talking about. This too is a bar for discussion.

Which leads to the third reason: there are many ways in which the future reviews are going to build off of the Dog’s review. I won’t just be reviewing games in isolation, I will be comparing them to each other and talking about how they reflect, progress, or assume upon conventions and paradigms of game design. This is because, in my not humble opinion, reviews should be more that “do/do not buy” guides or lists of one liners and snark designed to show how clever the reviewer is or how in with the crowd and down with the hotness they are. Good reviews should help form a community of discourse that can help consumers find the right material, but also to help push and spur the community and designers. They should also give enough material for consumers to decide on their own about a game, rather than looking to the numerical score so as to rely on the judgment of others as to the report card grade of a game.

I have to admit I’ve been spurred in this by several recent articles about book reviews and their import. From Salman Rushdie talking about the importance of book reviews with Stephen Colbert to my personal reflections about Walter Pater, to opinion pieces about what’s gone wrong with reviews, there has been much entering my mind of late about the way that reviews and criticism, when done right, are actually constructive and promoting of a community. I do not think that the majority of RPG reviews in the past have come up to that level. Some have, and there are a small handful of people whose work I will be using as inspiration, but looking back on my own work in reviews in the past I’m disappointed. I want to do something better. Maybe I fall on my face, maybe not.

So… first: Dogs. After that I’ll try to do one or two a month. Beast Hunters and Polaris will probably be the next couple, with TSOY and Trollbabe coming close after.