How we actually test a game before reviewing it

People sometimes ask if we just play a game for ten minutes and write a score. We don't, and honestly that's the whole reason this site exists. Here's roughly how a review comes together.

First, at least one editor installs the game and plays it properly — usually several days for a longer title, or enough sessions to see past the honeymoon phase of a casual one. We take notes constantly, especially about the stuff that annoys us, because that's what you'll feel too.

Then we test on more than one device. Marek keeps a drawer of older, cheaper phones, and every game gets time on at least one of them. A game that only runs well on a flagship isn't much use to most people, and we say so when that happens.

We track performance, heat, and battery drain across sessions, and we dig through the settings menus to see what can be tuned. Only after all that does someone sit down to write. The score comes last, once we've actually formed an opinion — not before.