Who the hell are you anyway?

Just some dude in his 30s who likes playing video games. I don't have a competitive background and haven't achieved anything in a game that's worth bragging about. I write code for a living but I've never been interested in developing video games. All I can offer you on this site are my unfiltered opinions on mostly single-player games.

I don't really have an online "presence", but I rate music sometimes and I'm on discord (factsfromspace) too.

What is this website?

As the name implies, this "gamelog" idea came to me when I was looking for a way to keep track of the games I've played. Mainly for myself but also for other people to know which games they can talk to me about. I'm not sure why I didn't just use something like Backloggd, guess I just wanted to have my own thing. At first this site was just "Games" and "Stats". Reviews were added around 2 years later.

I'm browsing your website from my phone and it looks like shit.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why are your reviews so negative? You always complain and never talk about the things you like.

This is true, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why, but the more I think about it the more I realize it might really just be a personal thing. Whether you are focusing on the positive aspects of a game to highlight its qualities or are attempting to deconstruct it by exclusively pointing out its flaws - both can still be constructive criticism at the end of the day as long as your argument is well-reasoned. If you can explain why a certain aspect of a game works in favor of its overall design and your argument doesn't boil down to "I like it because it's fun", then your point is just as valid as mine.

Of course, most games aren't either/or. Even games that I review very harshly still have some positive aspects to them that kept me playing, and vice-versa. Here is where my personal preferences when writing reviews come into play.

First off, I hold all the games I play to a very high standard - I tend to get bored very easily when a game is making me do the same thing too many times and I put a lot of stock in finding new and unique experiences that I haven't seen before. A game with unorthodox ideas that affect its gameplay in a meaningful way is very likely to make me overlook some of its flaws. There are games that I actually enjoy playing even though I have nothing positive to say about them. Sometimes being a critic means that you have to separate your own experiences from the facts.

My (very personal) opinion is that mainstream critics have set the bar for video games waayyy to low. There are so many AAA games that get decent scores just for doing what everybody else is doing, for checking all the boxes. Refinement has taken precendence over novelty. I don't know, man. I can only play so many games in my life. How am I gonna know what to play when almost everything is considered good now? More games deserve to be scrutinized for being unoriginal and especially for wasting the player's time. Who cares if a game has 'x dollars worth of content for every hour of gameplay'? Art has no monetary value. I just want to normalize giving games average scores again, so we can better separate the real masterpieces from the imitations. Both positive and negative criticism can be applied to reach that goal, but if we actually want to discourage unoriginality - and give proper credit to the games that first introduced these ideas - we need to be willing to be more critical (read: negative). Even if it's just to offset the relentless positivity of mainstream games journalism.

Secondly, when I'm reviewing a game, I normally try to focus on the stuff that stood out to me, rather than painstakingly go over each aspect of it. Some lesser important bits might get omitted as a result, and for games that I have some serious problems with, this usually means the positive stuff is left between the lines. And while this may sound a bit mean, I also expect my readers to have at least a modicum of literacy to understand that a review does not have to be a weighted assessment of gameplay, graphics & sound. I'm not trying to sell you something here. Best I can do is give you a unique perspective on a game, or at least move the spotlight to where I think it belongs. Even in my longer reviews I try to have one central point that I can always circle back to. Sometimes I just write a review because I thought of a funny joke. Whatever man, anything goes.

What's your favorite game of all time?

No idea.

Why haven't you reviewed game XY yet?

Pick one:

• I have nothing interesting to say about it. This usually means the game sucks / is boring / too much like other games I've played.
• The game has already been discussed to death and I can't think of anything interesting to add.
• I beat the game a long time ago and don't remember much about it.
• I forgot.
• The review is done but you may need a Gamelog Premium membership to read it.

Anything else I should know before browsing your site?

Well, first off: If you're a real person and are taking the time to read some of my reviews - thank you. It means a lot to me, seriously.

Please note that English isn't my first language, so some of this stuff might sound weird to a native speaker. I generally try to keep it simple, though.

I may edit some of my reviews from time to time. Usually to correct typos or similarly minor stuff. Sometimes (but not very often, I swear) I make bigger changes, like adding a new game to a multi-game review. I try (very hard, I swear) not to delete anything, ever. Major changes are reflected by a "last edited on [date]" note. Minor edits (e.g. for grammar reasons) are not highlighted like this. They just happen and you will never know that they did.