How We Actually Test a Game Before Reviewing It

People sometimes ask if we really play everything we write about. We do, and it takes longer than you'd think. A review that reads in four minutes might represent six or eight hours of play.

We install on real phones, including an older one, because performance matters and not everyone has the latest hardware. Then we play across several sittings to catch how a game feels over time, not just in the honeymoon first ten minutes.

If a game loses us partway through, that goes in the review. A strong first hour that collapses later is useful information. So is a slow start that blossoms.

Only after all that do we assign a score, and even then we argue about it. Numbers are rough, so read the words around them.