How We Actually Review a Game

People sometimes assume review sites blast through games in an afternoon. We don't, or at least we try very hard not to. A review here usually means a week or two of real playing, spread across different moods and moments of the day.

We test on ordinary phones, not top-tier flagships, because that's what most people carry. Battery drain, load times, how hot the device gets — all of it goes into notes before anyone writes a paragraph. A great game that cooks your phone still gets flagged for it.

There's no secret scoring formula. The rating comes from a simple question we ask at the end: did we want to keep playing, or were we relieved to stop? Everything else is context around that gut answer.

We also sit on reviews if we're not sure. Sometimes a game clicks in week two, sometimes the shine wears off. Rushing to publish helps nobody, so we'd rather be a few days late and actually right.