I thought we might need some sort of review policy here on the site. There will always a question about the integrity of sites or magazines that depand on reviews for clicks or revenue and who receive exclusives or early copies of games for review. (The Gamespot Kane and Lynch incident springs to mind.) Luckily for us Gamezbox.ie is a community site. But now that we are receiving review copies I thought it would be a good time to point out that no matter how we get the games, what system they’re on or what publisher is releasing them the same rules apply and we’ll put together an honest description of the title to let people make up their own minds aboutwhat they should or shouldn’t spend they’re money on. Below are some thoughts on how the reviews are structured and about the one to ten scoring system I’ve been using. These are bound to change over time and others writing for the site down the line might have their own ways of doing things. Everyone is welcome to write up their own reviews whatever way they like here on Gamexbox.ie so this is just to let everyone know how I’ll be doing it but I'd be interested to hear people's thoughts.

First of all here’s a breakdown of the scores:

10 – This game deserves to be played by everyone and everyone deserves to play it. It pushes the limitations of its system both in terms of gameplay and presentation. Its story is strong, its gameplay is polished and something you haven’t seen/felt/expected in a game before is waiting for you. If games can be works of art this is one.

9 – Highly recommended. Sure, the story may grip you; the graphics may take your breath away; but without a doubt this title has some of the best gameplay available in its genre. A must have title.

8 – Something is letting down an otherwise outstanding title; maybe it has recycled one too many ideas, maybe the controls are overly complicated or the camera is problematic but it’s fun and that’s what matters. You’ll love it.

7 – This game may not change the way you think about games but it achieves everything it set out to and the final product is still a cut above its peers. If you love this type of game, or if you’re willing to put a bit of effort in, you’ll be rewarded.

6 – Minor irritations let down an otherwise good title. Are you a fan of the developer, series or genre? If the answer is yes then this is definitely worth your time and money.

5 – A perfectly average title. Again if you are a fan then this game might just be right for you. Play the demo or rent and make your own decision. It’s not exactly recommended but don’t rule it out.

4-1 – Below average. If a title gets below a five then some game-breaking feature has probably meant that we really can’t recommend it. A one is a crime against gamers, a four is just disappointing.

These are a few things I do when reviewing a game:

Finish the game: Before any review the single player aspect of the game should be beaten. If some 100 hour RPG proves impossible to finish, the review will state that, but at the very least enough time will have gone into the game to get to grips with it fully.

Research it: Finding out something about the people who made a game (whether it’s the studio or the director) will tell you a whole lot about it; once you know that Hideo Kojima studied as a film director, that Ken Levine is a playwright or that Fumito Udea is trained in fine artist then their approaches to game design begin to make more sense.

Score single and multi-player separately: There may be games that you are only interested in for the single player for example so to make things clear we’ll give a separate score for each. These days almost every game has some sort of multiplayer component, whether it has been tacked on to extend the life of the game or is a well made fun experience in its own right, it’s important that we cover the details. This holds for any major console release; for downloadable or handheld titles we’ll provide a shorter straight-up review with a single score.

Score games based on the system they’re being reviewed for: There’s no point comparing an arcade or handheld title (no matter how good) with a major console release. A good example of this difference would be God of War: Chains of Olympus on PSP; the graphics and gameplay are some of the best on that system. In fact, if you have a PSP it’s a must-have title but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s as good as GoW on the PS2. If it were a console release then the length of the game and the controls would make it hard to recommend over the original two games in the series. Therefore a Gamezbox review will consider the limitations of the system a game is released on when deciding a score.

Give 10/10 where it’s deserved: Some sites score every game between 6 and 9 and seem to be afraid of low or high scores in case someone will disagree and complain. Ten out of ten does not mean a game is perfect, it means the developers have done the best they could do on their system and made something original and interesting; it’s rare but it can happen.

The more reviews on the site the better too so if you’re interested in doing one or want someone to have a read through and edit one before you post just let me know.