Table of Contents

• CritiqalHit's Review System
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Contact Info

Welcome to CritiqalHit! Here you'll find the musings of Adam Morehouse in the form of video game reviews and editorials...and who knows what else, really. It felt weird just writing that in the third person to be honest, but here we are. You might recognize me from LAGTV (Life's A Glitch TV) or my own Twitch and YouTube channels as NovaWar and IAmNova respectively.

I've been writing game reviews off and on for nearly 20 years which may lead you to believe that I'd be pretty good at them, but don't let that stop me from confusing you once in a while. Truth be told, I always appreciated game reviewers as a way to navigate my expensive hobby in gaming, and at some point mid-way through an article written by Jeff Gerstmann or Ryan Davis (I honestly can't remember now - I'm old) I decided to try my hand at it and never stopped.

Review writing is a largely subjective form, and I've always maintained that the best way to interface with review writers and their content is to find a few that align with your interests and see things the way you see them. You're looking for a proxy of you, oftentimes, because if the reviewer isn't particularly representative of your tastes and how you view things then their opinion is as useful as the digital paper it's printed on. That's not to say there's no value in reading the opinions of others you may not agree with because that's simply not true, but when you're looking to spend some extra dollars on a piece of entertainment it's awfully useful to find someone who represents you when picking out whose opinion you put stock in before forking over your hard-earned money.

With that being said, I hope that at some level I can be a useful resource for you as you're looking for reasons to throw money at one game over another! Historically I have never reviewed a game I was given for free from the Developer or Publisher to help readers be comfortable in knowing I'm not worried about losing the ability to get free games in the future. If that ever does happen I will of course be sure to make it well known but hope you'll have a little faith that I'm not changing my opinions because I got to save a few dollars and play a game before its 500gb day one patch.

CritiqalHit is mostly a one-man show, aside from my legendary video editor and friend Mark, and as this isn't my full-time gig these days I'm of course not going to be able to crank out content and keep up with other publications. Hopefully in some way that will lend itself to promoting quality over quantity. A man can dream! Subscriptions, should they be made available, will likely be more about supporting the content than getting a long list of benefits for this same reason. I greatly appreciate all support and know that most of the money goes toward maintaining this website, buying the games as they creep ever closer to $500 a piece, and paying Mark enough to get himself an extra carton of milk.

I remember when GameSpot's forums just about combusted the day that they released the Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess review and awarded it an 8.9/10. It was inconceivable to many people that it didn't score at least a 9, but that sparked something in my mind - what the heck is the difference really between an 8.9 and a 9?

GameSpot would eventually drop that scale for a flat 1 through 10, but I would become more partial to Giant Bomb's implementation of a 5-star scale. It seemed so much easier to differentiate between say, a 2/5 and a 3/5, and it allowed review writing to be less regimented in its talking points - something I never thought should have been so prominent in a form of entertainment like games.

Eventually, I decided that, while a 5-star scale was great on its own, having something else also easily digestible to help a reader see if parts of what largely make up the game experience strongly contributed positively to the experience. That's when I created the badge system I use today.

Someone might be naturally turned off by a game that's a 2/5 but if that 2/5 has great character and story writing held back by gameplay in a way they don't mind then that game might still be worth a look to them. The badges help fill the gaps that numbers alone can't cover, and if someone doesn't always have the time to read, watch, or listen to a whole review, it's a great way to get a better idea about the game at a glance. With that being said, it's helpful to know what each star rating and each badge represents - so here's an overview of the whole system:

Ok so it's *technically* a 6-Star system, but let me explain. It'll make sense...I swear. This will probably be easier in pictorial form, so to get the rundown on stars and badges check out the two image galleries below!

Hopefully, that sixth star makes some more sense, now! Now for the badges:

These twelve badges make up the main categories I think about when evaluating any game, and while the list isn't exhaustive, I tried to have them be representative of what most people would think about when making a purchasing decision beyond just a raw score.

Hopefully that all makes my review system a little less of a mystery!

Memberships

How do I become a member?

All memberships are currently handled via our Patreon page. If you'd like to become a member, becoming a patron will grant you benefits both here on this site as well as on Patreon specifically. Depending on your Patreon tier, you will receive certain benefits.

What tiers of membership are there?

All membership tiers and their associated rewards can be seen on our Patreon page. Below is a list of current tiers, but may not be up-to-date. The Patreon page should always be considered the master list for rewards in the event this section hasn't been brought up to date post-changes.

The Viewer | $1 Per Month

• Access to all free content on CritiqalHit
• Ability to comment on all free CritiqalHit articles
• Ability to receive free CritiqalHit newsletters
• Access to Patreon exclusive posts
• Access to audio review Patreon RSS feed
• Access to Patreon exclusive posts

The Player | $5 Per Month

• Everything in The Viewer tier
• Ad-free experience during adsense campaigns
• Ability to view and comment on all premium articles on CritiqalHit
• Name shown at the end of video reviews

The Critiq | $10 Per Month

• Everything in The Player and The Viewer Tiers
• Have a say in some games we review

Should I use the payment options I can see on my account page?

NO! Under no circumstances should you do so. As explained in the Terms of Service, this part of the Portal UI remains out of necessity for Patreon benefits functionality only. Here is the full explanation from the ToS:

To accommodate Ghost.org's Stripe integration for memberships in conjunction with Patreon to provide membership benefits here on this site, Stripe collects associated email addresses upon becoming a CritiqalHit patron to keep track of complimentary premium status applied to accounts here on CritiqalHit. Payments themselves do not involve Stripe, and as stated are completely handled by Patreon. This is what enables Critiqalhit.com to provide member status via Patreon support tiers.

ATTENTION!

To facilitate Patreon integration for membership benefits here on CritiqalHit, Stripe's services which are intrinsically tied to Ghost's core systems (beyond our direct control) are required to have your Patreon-powered benefits work here on the website. As such, there are portions of the UI that, annoyingly, we can't readily modify. One of these parts you may see when looking at your account settings. Please be aware that all membership payments are to be kept to Patreon. Membership payments made in any other way may not be refundable.

Website Functionality

Why can't I comment on articles?

Given this is largely a one-man operation, battles have to be chosen wisely. There are a lot of bots, but also paid people who spam and abuse comment sections on blog sites. As such, the way to avoid dealing with as much of that as possible was to lock commenting to members only. It doesn't matter what tier you've chosen, all tiers will at least allow you to comment on the free articles that make up the vast majority of CritiqalHit's content.

Why can't I see the videos on the pages?

Odds are, this is because when the site prompted you to set your privacy preferences, you disabled one or more which would trigger Iubenda's system to disable the YouTube embeds. This is part of complying with international privacy regulations like the GDPR (YouTube embeds have Google-related trackers, of course). If you click the floating green button in the bottom right of your browser window or go through the link in the footer, you can update your preferences and the videos should become visible again.

What or who is Iubenda?

Iubenda is the platform that handles maintaining this site's cookies and privacy policies. When you choose to disable certain things for privacy, their services will also disable certain aspects of the site like the aforementioned embedded YouTube videos. The internet has become an increasingly complicated space to operate on with a lot of regulatory bodies demanding certain functionalities to be able to legally operate within, or have customers from, their respective countries. Iubenda helps me ensure I'm covering as many of those bases as reasonably possible.

Why aren't there more (any) pictures on review pages etc?

As much as I'd love to be able to break up some of the (comedically) longer articles I post here on the site, the challenge is bandwidth costs. To make sure I avoid as many bandwidth issues as possible, I decided that I'd limit images and focus on providing actual video via YouTube when I can. If I can manage it at some point, it's one of the first things you'll see me add to the general flow of content here.

Need help with something on this site, or have questions about advertising, sponsorships, or other ways in which you'd like to work with CritiqalHit? Here's a contact card annoyingly in the form of a picture in the hope that all but the scummiest AI overlords can't scrape it and spam me with car insurance scams.