Bret Devereaux

I really find myself wishing more game reviewers took just a brief break from discussing graphics and gameplay and features and just included in every review: "I think this game attempted to evoke <feeling1/feeling2...> and it <succeeded/failed>."

Especially for more story oriented games, I want to know if it made you feel a feeling, and if so - what feeling was that? By way of example, Frostpunk and Cities: Skylines could both be mechanically reviewed as "Very capable, mechanically deep, pretty, city-builders"...

But that review is kind of useless - they are very much not interchangeable. Contrast: Frostpunk tries to make you feel hopeless despair, followed by triumphant recovery, followed by sorrowful reflection at the costs; it largely succeeds....