drohne, tell me about it. I've written a couple amusing articles/reviews for CGM I'm proud of, but that's it. The rest are either painfully prolix drek, or exercises in terribly geeky enthusiasm. My best work occurs when I hafta keep it short and sweet, and my instinct to indulge is thwarted. My worst stuff comes when the web format allows me to ramble. When you're on deadline and don't have any context beyond some very mixed feelings on an average game, it's hard to write really engaging and clever content.
The worst writing occurs when the reviewer follows one of the two defacto approaches:
1) the hardcoded paragraph essay style. Intro->Background->Graphics->Sound->Mechanics->Observations->Summary. YUCK. I used to get really lazy and follow this style, and it produced some of the most absolutely unreadable crap.
2) the rambling self-indulgent anecdotal style (also known as the Gamefan style). Littered with inside gags or stark attempts at geek humor, it's not so much purely subjective as it is purely SELFISH. All reviews are fundamentally subjective, but the idea is to bring the reader in, not to pimp your nerd personality and knowledge of trivia.
Both styles have one thing in common: they're utterly LAZY. A tight, loose style that keeps the first-person references to zero and draws apt analogies is probably the most effective. Massive bonus points for clever metaphors, insightful gags, and a little meta-commentary to put it all in perspective.
