How to write reviews on Gamer.ru, or 'we don't need silver'
Hello everyone. I decided to whip up a small guide on writing medal reviews on "G.руше" considering the specifics of the portal. It will mainly help new authors, as the "mastodons" of gaming writing already know how to earn high-quality medals. On the other hand, any information isn't superfluous, and someone might glean something new. And again, there are plenty of ways to earn medals through reviews – every experienced author has their secrets, so this post in no way claims to be titled "How to write and how not to write, info 100%." So, I'm sharing my own experience.
Headlines
Every game review should start with an interesting headline. At the same time, several points must be considered to attract potential audiences not only from the portal but also from external sites. It’s nice when your review is in the top five search results. You can check the visit statistics using the spells "Eye-Almas" and "Third Eye." So, let's talk about headlines. You shouldn't write long and convoluted sentences a la "My perspective on the game I liked, which I decided to write a review on, and by the way, the game is called Pony Quest." Firstly, such headlines will be poorly indexed in search engines. Secondly, they may simply not interest Gamer.ru users, who will not read the headline to the end and will go looking for more interesting and "understandable" materials. Thirdly, it just looks unattractive when the headline takes up several lines. Therefore, you need to do everything possible to make your review’s title short, concise, engaging, and informative.
Sometimes you can rephrase well-known sayings for a specific game, sometimes play with words or pull a memorable quote from the game itself, or even make a title with a "double bottom." A quick example: "Scary? No, terrible. Review of the game Afterfall" (you can swap these sentences – Review of the game Afterfall, and so on). Some may think the game is not only scary but terrifying, downright terrifying. Others will come to a different conclusion – Afterfall is not only a not scary horror but also a terrible, mediocre game. In any case, the review's title will "hook" the user. There’s the word "review," there’s the name of the game, and you have your own idea – a good start for any review. A few dozen pluses to your post.
Volume and Text Structure
Writing a proper and "readable" text is fifty percent of success. Why only half is given to the text? I will explain further, but first, let's go over the main points. The basis of any review is the number of characters (Reviewing – Statistics in Word). In my opinion, anything less than 4,000 characters is not a review but a small essay or a detailed comment. It’s very hard to fit all the information one could tell about a game into this framework. Of course, unless you are a master of short notes or don’t want to make the review a listing of pros and cons point by point. The average volume for budding success is 5-6 thousand characters, and the maximum – around 10 thousand. A larger number of characters simply will not be read, and if a person sees a long "canvas," the maximum one can expect is a skim read of your review at an angle. A golden mean is necessary, and this should be taken into account. There’s one point – the audience on Gamer.ru, for the most part, is grateful, and if users see that someone really worked hard and wrote such a volume of text, they will surely throw in an extra dozen pluses. Even if they only read a few paragraphs of the entire review.
Don’t make your text a monotonous and boring "papyrus." It’s better to break it down into 5-10 parts. Better structure paragraphs by meaning so there are no abrupt breaks in the text. A special touch is to decorate the review at the "release" stage by highlighting certain words. For example, highlight in bold the name of the game (even though the game is automatically highlighted, it will still look prettier), the name of the developer or publisher, or even some phrases and sentences (thus emphasizing the importance of this part of the text, you are making an accent on it).
Grammar, Punctuation, Stylistics, and Other Rules of the Russian Language
This is obvious, but you must carefully monitor the internal content of what you’ve written. After writing the review, step away from the text for ten minutes and do something else. Give your eyes and brain a rest, and after the break, look at your creation anew. With a high degree of probability, you will notice some mistake or oversight, or maybe even more than one. Some sentences may seem hard to read or overloaded with punctuation marks – all this is easily noticed after several such editing sessions. Sadly, there are individuals who (due to their youth or simple laziness) completely ignore punctuation marks and produce a disjointed stream of consciousness. Such texts are impossible to read, at least for me. On the other hand, sometimes people can overdo it and put commas where they may not be needed. Example: "In order to play as the Guy from Postal 3, it’s interesting to choose the police side, where he will then have to fulfill funny and amusing tasks." If, for certain reasons, you are unsure about a punctuation mark’s placement, don’t overthink it, just put them where they are most needed by meaning. Nobody will scold you, "grammar nazis" won’t swarm you, and you won’t be trolled to death. Of course, unless you make four mistakes in the word "hedgehog."
Timeliness and Its Drawbacks
Timeliness in writing a review is very important. With all this, you shouldn’t rush; often, you can't make a quality review in a couple of hours. Yes, someone might be faster than you, posting a review of a game with a few thousand characters and two or three screenshots, getting their share of pluses. But then your review will come – substantial, quality, beautiful, and interesting. Soon, everyone will forget the "speedster" post, and medals will be hung on yours by the editorial team and the viceroy. There was a situation when previews and mini-reviews poured in on the demo version of [Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning](/games?search=Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning) like a cornucopia (probably due to a contest). And what was the outcome? Some of them didn’t even reach 40 pluses because reading them was impossible. Apparently, people were in such a hurry that they forgot about the text’s stylistics and grammatical-punctuation components. You can't do that – if you’ve taken on something, be~~ kind enough to do it properly. On the other hand, there’s no particular sense in writing a review for an old game (one that's already been out for a month or two) – you're unlikely to reach "gold."
Screenshots
If 50% of success is a good text, then the rest of the percentage space is occupied by high-quality and abundant screenshots. It is highly desirable that the screenshots are your own and not borrowed from Google or Yandex. Of course, we have a social network and all, but originality and novelty are always appreciated. The more screenshots in the review, the better. Just don’t overdo it and avoid inserting them after every other sentence. For example, for a volume of 5-6 thousand characters, ten screenshots is the optimal number. For beauty, you can "frame" the screenshots and write comments under them (Table – Number of Columns (1) – Number of Rows (1)). It looks beautiful, and users are likely to read what is written under each screenshot. Naturally, you shouldn’t limit yourself to a boring comment like "Here Cool Sam is jumping, hehe." Come up with something fun or provide information about what's happening on the screen (it might interest the users). Of course, making screenshots "randomly" is not recommended. It's best not to skimp on F12 (Steam) or the Print Screen key, make 30-40 screenshots while playing, and choose a dozen of the most interesting and worthy from the whole cloud of screenshots.
Editing the Post
When you're in the process of posting on the portal, have uploaded screenshots, and have decorated your future review in every possible way, don't forget to click the Save Draft button. There have been countless situations where my computer unexpectedly rebooted or the browser was glitching. It’s very frustrating when 30 minutes of work go down the drain, so don’t forget to save your work. The preview is a very useful button, and during the editing of the review, I use it about 20 times, if not more. Pressing the post creation button right away is not our method, since then you have to frantically fix minor flaws and errors: the screenshot is misaligned, the game title is not displayed, the link to another word has overlapped, there’s an extra word in the subtitle, etc.
Miscellaneous
What else can be mentioned? First, don’t forget to place tags that fit the post’s essence. Secondly, be ready to face a wave of criticism after posting your review on the portal. Don't be scared and don’t fall into depression over your review being terrible. Every person has their own point of view and may disagree with some thesis in your text. When writing a review, don’t focus on someone else’s opinion and don’t set anyone as your authority. If you enjoyed the game and can justify why, feel free to write about it. Every review is a subjective assessment of the author’s take on the game, and preemptively adapting to the already known opinions of the audience is sinful and incorrect. Another important point is discussion. Don’t let matters go slack and participate in the discussion of your review. The key in this matter is not to overdo it and not stoop to banal insults toward a critical opponent. Maintain a constructive dialogue, and people will be drawn in, seeing a large number of comments.