Path of Exile Beta Review.

If I'm being honest, there were several grammatical flaws as well as poor word choice that broke my enjoyment of this review. It seems like you were trying to use a large vocabulary, which is good, just ensure you know the words you're using. I'm sometimes guilty of this myself, as I try and appear smart/refined while writing, but I try to look up the definition of any word I'm not 100% sure of when using it. One word that I recall from the review that I'm 99% certain you didn't mean to use was "engorge", given that the dictionary defines engorge as "Verb - 1.Cause to swell with blood, water, or another fluid. 2. Become swollen in this way."

There were several other issues of that nature, along with what I believe are conjugation issues (I know what looks right, I don't know the official name for some of the rules.) The one instance I can cite here is your phrase "Disappoint comes with the labelling of objects" - in this instance the word disappoint is flat wrong. I'd suggest rephrasing in that instance to something like "Labeling of objects is disappointing" or "Disappointment comes with".

Also, spell check is your friend. In my above cited phrase you have spelled 'labeling' incorrectly.

Sorry, just trying to be honest. I'm a grammar nazi and aspiring writer myself, so little things tend to jump out at me when reading.

@deadcult - Thanks for the feedback! I have a channel where gameplay of the games I review is posted (The gmaeplay for Path of Exile will be uploaded by tonight). Thanks for all the feedback you have given me :)

@CrystalisQualinthi - Thanks for the honest feedback, it means a lot. With the word labelling, it can spelt 2 ways; Labelling and labeling. I think one must be a US spelling and the other a European spelling (Similar to colour and color).

Some feedback for you....

a) You have not played the game enough to fairly review it (assuming you started last week at Open Beta). This is an important point and one of the most annoying aspects of game reviews. Diablo 3 is a prime example. It is actually very deccent for your first playthrough to Inferno and many reviewers gave it 9/10 or other undeserved scores. Play past that and the rot sets in and it soon becomes a subpar <5/10 average game.

b) As a reviewer it is your job to address the controversial issues of the game, or at least describe them. The community is very split between hardcore and casual, and consideration such as no Full Respec, and no instanced Loot etc should be discussed because no new player would expect either in this day and age.

c) I was surprised you cited the labeling of loot as the thing that blew the otherwise grim and dark atmosphere for you. For me the multi-coloured, fit-inducing, over-the-top neon firework display that occurs whenever players spam their abilities is far more out of place in the game.

Yeah I'd say play the game more before reviewing it and go into a lot more depth about the gameplay. Having said that usually this review would be fine and your rating would depend on how much the game company pays to advertise to the company you work for so for the typical review site the shallowness of this and the fact you barely touched the game before giving it a review would be fine.

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broooksybearx wrote:

Hello everyone!

My name is Jack and I am an aspiring game reviewer and having played Path of Exile since it was released for open beta a couple days back, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to test out my creative writing skills and help gain some exposure to my website.

You can find the review at http://www.brooksreviewsgames.com/ - I would really appreciate as much feedback as possible on the review to help me improve! I aim to make reviewing games a viable career path for myself but can't if no one knows I'm out there!

Thanks for reading and I hope to see your comments on my review!

Yours,

Jack.

Constructive critism:

-First sentence is a run-on sentence.
-You need some sort of transition to lead into the review. You have one small paragraph about your experience with ARPG's and then dive right into Leagues.
-"Riddled throughout Path of Exile are other leagues that aim to do nothing but increase how difficult the game is for you." Not quite sure what this sentence means.
-"Although I enjoyed not dying as much due when getting to grips with the game thanks to this feature" Find the error
-" I adore the crisp sound of fireballs hitting flesh and the brutal pounding onto bones from a variety of weapons and GGG have mastered this to make for an earful of glorious pain and suffering!" Replace 'have' with 'has'. Could be wrong but it flows better.
-"When clicking to attack an enemy, it will not follow them and will attack thin air from time to time as well as continually missing point blank hits over and over until you disengage and then re-engage the same creature and if you fail to differ between an enemy dodging an attack and the combat bugging out, if you’re in the hardcore league then dying to this unfortunate bug could prove frustrating." Run-on sentence.
- Try to review games from an objective point. When you read other reviews you can never feel that the company/reviewer is biased for or against the company/game. At times it does come off that you are biased for the game.

I hope you dont take my criticism poorly as I was just giving you feedback.
Keep up the reviewing and you will get better!

Could use a little bit of paragraphing in the future, but overall a solid read. You did manage to convey your personality via the way you wrote your review; that's a good thing ;)

Cheers.

@EwokVillage - All I wanted was feedback regardless of how much or how little or how time costly it would be to fix. Thank you for reading the review fully and highlighting key points. It has really helped me spot errors which I can avoid in the future! :)

@Lyralei - Paragraphing is something that I definitely need to improve on to allow it flow smoother when reading and to make it visually pleasing on the page! Thanks for the feedback :)

You apologize too much before and after making an opinion.

You aren't chronological when you're trying to be ("The opening gameplay peaks with mood setting dialog and giving you your first taste of blood for your new character. With 6 different classes to choose from"). That'd be better if those sentences were flipped and reworked.

Gameplay heading is a wall of text.

Don't tell us what you liked; tell us what happened.
"Although I enjoyed not dying as much due when getting to grips with the game thanks to this feature, I find it a feature that can allow players to blitz through the content and grind levels without putting too much effort into it."
Maybe "The potion system in this game easily keeps you alive at the earlier levels due to their regenerative properties. It eases players into the system by being very forgiving during the early grind; but does XX later on."

Don't make suggestions unless its in its own heading (" Having it for a set amount of levels, such as 10 levels, I feel would benefit the game by making it far more challenging for later levels yet still enjoyable." That makes reading the post slightly more confusing, especially since the sentence didn't start out with a phrase like "If I were making the game..."

There are at least 5 typoes on Graphics and Sound. Also a wall of text.

Verdict should be resolute. Don't use "but" to start it off.

Try to get something going on with the site as well. It's a nice sleek look, but a little too spartan. Also the lime green 9/10 is horrid. Different color, maybe design a little box for it to go in.