It's taken me a while to decide upon a format for writing these reviews. I've taken notes on pretty much every game I've played since 1997, and I've always wanted to make these thoughts public. My primary motivation is the arguably foolish drive to improve the state of the industry as a whole. If nothing else, I suppose it gives me an opportunity to provide my feedback to the game developers, and while one schmuck arguably cannot change much, he might at least learn something from the process of trying. A secondary goal is to help the gaming public choose wisely in spending their dollars, both for improved return on investment as well as the results that voting with one's dollars can have. Finally, the following represent only a small fraction of the total reviews I have to post. It will take me some time to put all the data in the desired format. Having said all of that, my reviews of the following games are now available.
NB: Many of the following contain "spoilers"; read at your own risk!
Baldur's Gate
Battlefield 1942
Battlefield 2
Battlefield Vietnam
Black & White
Blade of Darkness
BloodRayne
BloodRayne 2
Call of Duty
Call of Duty: United Offensive
Command & Conquer: Generals
Command & Conquer: Generals: Zero Hour
Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
Diablo
Diablo II
Deus Ex
DOOM 3
Dungeon Keeper II
Dungeon Siege
Earth 2150
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
Far Cry
F.E.A.R.
Freedom Force
Gears of War
Ghost Recon
Ghost Recon Revisited
Guild Wars
Half-Life
Half-Life 2
Halo
Hellgate: London
Homeworld
Homeworld: Cataclysm
Homeworld 2
Jedi Academy
Jedi Knight II
Jericho
Klingon Academy
Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle Earth
Lord of the Rings Online
Max Payne
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault: Spearhead
Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault
Myth II: Soulblighter
Operation Flashpoint
Painkiller
Prey
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
Quake III Arena
Quake 4
Rainbow 6
Rainbow 6: Lockdown
Raven Shield
Red Faction
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Rise of Nations
Rogue Spear
Rune
Sacrifice
Savage: The Battle for Newerth
Serious Sam
Soldier of Fortune 2
Splinter Cell
Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow
Star Trek: Elite Force 2
Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force
Star Wars: Battlefront
Star Wars: Republic Commando
Starcraft
System Shock 2
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
Thief: The Dark Project
Thief II: The Metal Age
Titan Quest
Tribes 2
Tribes: Vengeance
Tron 2.0
Undying
Unreal II: The Awakening
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament 2003
Unreal Tournament 2004
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Warcraft III
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
World of Warcraft
X-COM: UFO Defense
I approached the above reviews from a certain philosophical perspective, and it bears some discussion so that my reader can understand the approach I've taken. First, you'll notice that I do not assign grades, scores or any other sort of metric to games. I avoid this deliberately because I think video games have now begun to move beyond mere products and venture into the realm of art. At least, insofar as film can be considered an art form, I think it only reasonable to extend this to video games. As such, while I can tell you that a game is good or bad, fun or not fun and given some kind of relative assessment along various lines (e.g., bang-for-the-buck, intensity, realism, etc.), I just don't see any good way to try to make such "hard" comparisons. Is Starcraft a better game than Red Faction? Well, I think it provides more bang for the buck, but both were an utter blast to play. Further, die-hard FPS gamers will likely not appreciate the RTS mechanics of the former. In light of these and other questions, how is it reasonable for me to assign some numeric score to each? I suppose I could do so within a particular genre, but the criteria used for its assignment would still be pretty arbitrary.
Second, I break games down along a few, fixed lines. Since video games presently engage only the visual and aural senses (I know that some games do include tactile feedback, but they are still in the underwhelming minority), covering these two areas is a given. A game's user interface, its mechanics, its story (insofar as it has one), its "content" (which is surely the dumping ground for anything that fits not into the other categories) and its multi-player capabilities (if any) all seem to me similarly important. In each case, I try to provide positive praise where deserved as well as negative feedback, both to warn the player and advise the developer. It should thus be possible for gamers to "adjust" my reviews for their own particular tastes. For example, if you just don't give a rip about a game's music or sound effects, then none of my complaints with its audio will be relevant; I, on the other hand, am pretty fussy about a game's aural presentation.
Third and finally, my ultimate conclusions regarding a game tend to emphasize fun and value. A game like Serious Sam, for example, can't possibly measure up in an artistic sense to a game like Deus Ex or Homeworld. But that doesn't change the fact that it is an utter blast to play and a great value at its typical selling price. My hope is that persons wishing to focus their time on only the best games (i.e., the most entertaining and most valuable) will be able to glean useful advice from my conclusions.