Reviewing a game is often more satisfying for me than the actual process of playing it. After all, good games are hard to come by.

Then again, like good games, good game reviews are also rare. Game reviews are a form of criticism that's untaught, unrefined, and completely inconsistent from one example to the next. It's like cave painting. I've always wanted to try to make some sense of the form (game reviews) and boil it down to the essentials--to consistently be able to produce reviews that are of a perfect length and give you all the information you'd ever need about a game in order to be able to decide whether or not you want to purchase it.

I wasn't quite so smitten with Deus Ex as most people.

After all, that's the goal of any review, right? To objectively tell you whether or not, and if so then how, something is worth your money. Of course, it's not that simple--if it were, then game reviews all would be a lot more similar.

I've been managing GameSpot's PC reviews for about two years now, during which time, for better or worse, I've been trying to refine the process of reviewing games down to a science. If nothing else, doing so has made the job easier--my small group of writers knows what I expect, and I in turn know what to expect from them, and between us I think we do a good job. We're able to review games efficiently and accurately.

Greg's Now Playing Arcanum, Max Payne, Anarchy Online Recent Favorites Max Payne, Twisted Metal: Black, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal All-Time Favorites Ultima V, Street Fighter II, Samurai Shodown, Fallout

Writing and editing GameSpot's reviews to make them clear, concise, and thorough is something I've finally become comfortable with after working at it every day for an extended period of time. But the balancing act between accuracy and timeliness will always remain very challenging. My goal is to bring you a comprehensive, accurate review of every PC game the moment it's available on the store shelves. For various reasons, this isn't always possible--mostly because we often don't have access to the game in question until you do too. Then the race is on. I feel like every day that goes by between a game's release date and the time we review it, our review is becoming less and less useful. That's because, as time goes by, more and more people can decide whether or not to buy the game regardless of our review.

I knew everyone who gave it a chance would love Torment.

It's so easy to wait on the sidelines until the public has reached a mutual consensus on a game and then review it. Hindsight is 20/20. Games such as Planescape: Torment and Deus Ex, which are now regarded as classics, were much easier to review a few weeks or months after release than they were when they first came out and nobody knew what to think. When Torment came out in December of 1999, a majority of GameSpot's editors were already nearly decided on which games we would receive our game-of-the-year awards. I was reviewing Torment at the time, and I had to convince them to give it a chance. Having played through Torment, I knew full well that it was the best role-playing game of that year and that it would later go on to become a classic.

I like this job because I like being right. I'm probably not right all the time. Even so, I take each new review assignment very seriously. I feel like each new rating I assign out has to be in context with every previous rating I've ever given--thus each new review I write is tougher than the last one. Then again, it's just a job about games--it's not rocket science or brain surgery, and I never lose sight of that. Even so, I like taking it seriously, as I believe you deserve nothing less for taking the time to read our site.