How we actually test a game before writing

People sometimes ask how long we play before publishing. The honest answer is: until we've formed a real opinion, which varies a lot by game.

First test is always airplane mode. If a game won't launch or refuses to save without a connection, it fails our basic filter and we note that in the review. Offline is the whole point of this site.

Then someone plays properly — through a tutorial, a few chapters or race series, and enough of the mid-game to see if it holds up. We take notes on controls, battery drain, and whether it nags you to connect.

Only after that do we write. No trailers, no press summaries standing in for play time. It's slower than churning out posts from store pages, but it's the only way we'd trust the site ourselves.