Reviewing games used to have a brutal clarity. The disc, cartridge or tape in front of you was the product. There might be a sequel, an expansion, a budget re-release, or a sheepish note from a PR person, but there was rarely a day-one patch galloping over the hill.

That made the work simpler in one sense and harsher in another. If something was broken, it was broken. If the frame rate collapsed, readers needed to know. If the final third clearly ran out of money, there was nowhere for that fact to hide.

Modern reviewing has different pressures. Games change. Servers wobble. Roadmaps promise redemption. The job is still to describe the thing honestly, but the thing is sometimes moving while you are trying to describe it.

The old discipline still helps: be fair, be specific, and remember that someone is spending actual money on the back of your words.