So I've taken the next step in my quest for video content creation and decided to try my hand at making a video review of a game. While my intention with this blog when I first started it was to avoid reviews, I feel like making some in video format will help me to improve my writing and speaking abilities for any other content I decide to make down the line. I bought an El Gato capture card so this time all the footage shown was recorded by myself and I also have a pop filter for my mic so there's no more of those nasty P-Pops that I had in my Atelier video.
Part of the process for reviewing a game is to take notes while you play it. The reason for this is obvious as, unless the game is extremely short or your have amazing memory, you're not going to remember everything you felt and thought while playing when it comes time to sit down and actually write the review. At first I thought that this note taking would take away from my fun playing the game by itself but taking a few seconds to jot my thoughts down actually allowed me to appreciate those aspects of the game I enjoyed even more. I went beyond just thinking, This is fun, to thinking, Why do I think this is fun? By the time it came to write the script, I was definitely thankful that I had a page of notes to refer to while typing it up.
When it came time to record my script I tried something a little different. I looked up vocal warm up exercises and tongue twisters to do beforehand and found that they actually proved to be pretty helpful. A lot of the tongue twisters I found were just fun to say too. Try saying this one quickly without messing up:
A box of biscuits
A box of mixed biscuits
And a biscuit mixer.
If you can nail that in less than 5 tries I'd be very impressed (or you already have experience acting and/or doing voice-overs). After doing these exercises I took many less takes to record each line and I was also able to vary my delivery in more ways, another thing I was really focusing on. I also made an effort to add pauses into my delivery of some lines to really emphasize what I was about to say next.
Beyond that the video editing stage was more or less the same as before, except I'm continuing to get more and more efficient at it. This was the first time I had to do a crossfade between my voiceover audio and direct video audio, but I think I was able to find a good balance with a little experimentation.
One thing that I do have to keep in mind next time I plan on making a video review (which is already right this moment) is to record more game footage. When I first started playing Lost Legacy I was capturing all of my gameplay. The first 3 or so hours of my gameplay are all on video. After a point, I stopped my constant capture and decided to only capture what I thought were important moments. I thought this would save me hard drive space and also make it easier for me down the line to find shots I want from more concise videos. Unfortunately, there were multiple times during video editing where I knew a very specific piece of gameplay would match perfectly with what I was saying, but hadn't captured. I had to improvise and use some less than optimal shots for some of the points I made so my next game I review I'll definitely be capturing more often.
All in all I'm relatively satisfied with this first attempt at a review. I avoided reading or watching any reviews for Lost Legacy before making mine so that my opinions were purely my own. After finishing my review and uploading it I went and watched the review from Easy Allies, a game journalist group I have an immense amount of respect for, and realized just how much room I still have to improve (you can find their review below).
I can't let myself get discouraged, though. I'm just getting started and I'm serious about improving my skills in game journalism. I hope you enjoy the review and feel free to give me your thoughts on it. Now, more than ever, I welcome advice, feedback, and constructive criticism.
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