Thanatos2k said:
It's really not impossible. Most of the stuff should not be subjective. This would be what you do:
The battle system is similar to that of this other game. *Shows reasons why they're similar* *Shows ways they're different* *Suggests which one works better or not, gives detailed reasons why. (SUBJECTIVITY ALERT!)* *Does this for several other games* Note that these reasons will never consist of political ideology.
The reason this works is because very little of this is the reviewer telling me what they think is good or not, they use my own notions of what is good or not to guide me. This is valuable to me. Saying Tactics Ogre plays similarly to Final Fantasy Tactics and showing why is extremely valuable information to me, because I like Final Fantasy Tactics, so it's pretty obvious I'd like Tactics Ogre. If I didn't, I similarly would not like Tactics Ogre. You can even throw in whether you think Tactics Ogre plays better than FFT or not, and tell me why. If you're going to suggest that the game sucks because SRPGs are boring (PERSONAL AGENDA ALERT!), then you're the wrong reviewer for the job.
I've never played (other game). This review is subjective, because it assumes I have played (other game).
More and more, people seem to say 'objective' and actually mean 'agrees with me'. Being 'subjective' is being thrown around as some kind of slur on a reviewers professionalism. Its bloody ridiculous. Especially considering the day and age we live in. I know Yahtzee will not give any RTS game a good review because he is subjective, but thanks to the Internet I can easily look up half a dozen different reviewers and get a balanced view on the game.
Also, why can't a review have commentary on political ideology? I don't want to play a shooter if its about a Skinhead killing thousands of Jewish women, no matter how good the mechanics, or how slick the graphics are. On the flip side, I might be tempted to play a game if it is actually trying to get some kind of nuanced message across but its graphics or budget don't quite reach that far (for instance, Spec-Ops the line)
Infact, Spec-Ops: The line is a great example of where a completely objective review would fail to do a game justice. It would be compared poorly to other shooters with more polished gunplay, mechanics, graphics, and a better multiplayer. But without any 'subjectivity' (to say, without any mention of the biases and politics the game is wearing on its sleeve) it just comes across as a third rate knock-off shooter, rather than as gut punching attack and critique on that genre of games. Its value would not be shown to the audience, and that would be a terrible thing.