So the big moment has arrived and you decided to write your own game review.

Congratulations! Games2Play.net are giving you the green light.

Where do you begin? What should you talk about? How long should you play the game for? How much time do you need to write your review?

These and other questions are probably swirling through your head right now. But fear not! We are here to provide you with some handy tips for crafting a review that is both professional-looking and infused with your personal flair.

Time Limits & Commitments

We can confidently say that best reviews comes from real gameplay experience. That's why you should already have at least some of it. And since many gamers usually read a game’s review on the day it comes out or maybe a few days after, that means you’re working within a narrow window to play through the game, write the review, edit it, and get it to our site. Now, don’t panic, because we expect a game’s review to be up on our site no more than a week after the game has been released. Making a solid review doesn’t actually take too much time to write. You also don’t have to devote hours upon hours playing a game to form a solid opinion on it. Our practice say that 7-10 hours is more than enough.

One important habit to develop early is to take notes as you play.

Does a specific element of the game stand out to you?
Are there any glaring problems?
How well do the game’s unique features (if any) work for you?
What elements excited or bored you?
How does the game compare to its earlier releases or competing games?
Having a handy list of notes can help you quickly recall your likes and dislikes, and even certain emotions you had experienced during and after gameplay.

Word Length & Substance

Writing a good review is all about maintaining balance. You want to provide the reader with essential details and insightful opinions without bogging them down with unnecessary details and useless musings.

You’re not just reciting a list of the game’s features and faults, nor are you crafting an epic and immersive blow-by-blow recounting of the game’s entire narrative.

A typical word count for a finished review should be around 1,000 words. Several factors can determine the length of the review, two of which include:

• An expansive or in-depth game like an RPG or shooter. You’ll want to shoot for that 1,000+ word goal.
• A lesser-known indie game or a smaller game. You can focus less on length and more on substance, 400-500 words.

When deciding what to cover in your review, here's some major topics we want you to discuss: Even if you don’t normally pay attention to a certain element, such as a game’s background music, story or graphics, it’s important to mention what the game offers in those key areas as they could matter a great deal to the reader.

However, don’t force yourself into devoting more time to a subject than you feel comfortable doing. If you admire a particular part of a game, write about it! Readers always enjoy reading about how much the reviewer enjoyed a certain element of a game, rather than staring at a few stock paragraphs showing how “neat” or “interesting” the reviewer thought another element was.

Polishing Your Review

Once you’ve played through the game, jotted down notes, and crafted your review, the next steps are important:

• Step away from your review and wait a couple hours, maybe even a whole day if you can spare it. Give your brain some time to refresh itself and then go back and read through your review again.
• Correct any spelling/grammar/punctuation errors you find. Any error that you catch now is one less error we'll have to fix.
• Fix any sentences that look awkward. If a sentence sounds awkward when you say it out loud, then it’ll probably look awkward to your readers.
• Break up any paragraphs that are too long.
• When adding images into your review, make sure that they doesn’t contain another site’s watermark and it's free to use.

Submitting Your Review

When your review is all set, spell-checked, proofread, and edited, and you’ve picked out a few images if needed, now all that’s left is to submit your review and breathe a deep sigh of relief. We will look over your review, make changes that are needed, and then post the review for the world to admire. We may also offer some form of feedback, whether it’s advice, praise, or criticism. Just be sure to share your live review with anyone you know!

Submission Process

While writing a solid game review may seem like a daunting task at first, it gets easier the more you do it. You’ll also find that the more reviews you write, the better quality they’ll become. Just remember that a review is about more than just listing what’s good and what’s bad about a game. It’s an opportunity to delve in and express your thoughts through a medium that can reach millions of Internet users worldwide. Just remember, every great game reviewer has to start somewhere.