Review Policy

The TiG review policy is simple; TiG reviewers love video games and we love our iPhone/ iPod touch. That is the criteria by which our contributors are selected. We work on a two way street. We want our readers to know exactly what they are buying, but we also want to celebrate the creativity, support and hard work that developers and publishers put into our favourite mobile platforms.

We are a community site, which encourages other iPhone / iPod touch owners to become members. Once it is agreed that a reviewer will contribute to TiG we ensure that they remain autonomous in how they manage their contributions. It may be that they write short, snappy to the point reviews or long in-depth, detailed and specific pieces. We simply request that they include at least a point on each of our seven categories (Graphics, Audio, Gameplay, Control, Lastability, Value, and Presentation).

Our reviewers contribute their writing voluntarily, the only benchmark we share is our appreciation of video games and our affection for our iPhone & iPod touch.

TiG feels that the tide is turning in the video games consumer / publisher relationship. For too long we have paid over the odds for a tangible software product.Digital App Store downloads have created a market where we can make impulse purchases and buy lots of games cheaply, affording publishers an ever increasing user base of game fans to sell their latest wares to.

Therefore, we have reached a win, win situation? Well almost!

TiG believes that even 59p is too much for a gamer to pay out if all they are set to receive is a bottom shelf experience. A game which wastes time results in disappointment and damages the perception of the platform on an holistic level.

TiG also appreciates that the vast majority of game developers are putting in massive amounts of time, money and expertise into creating a gaming labour of love that may still flounder, and drown in the vast sea of Apps. We understand that the nature of the App Store is unprecedented; almost anyone with Objective C programming experience can get the Software Development Kit (SDK) from Apple and make games.

This is great! but.... it leaves us with a rather large quandary to solve, how do we determine which games are worth reviewing?

Review them all! Well, in a perfect world, this would be plausible, sadly in the real world it is not. Our mantra is to implement a policy focused on quality. We will happily spend time with any game we are asked to, but, not all of them will make it to a full review.

Often a TiG reviewer has already played a game for many hours before they even choose to review it. We may know that it is an 8 out of 10 game before we even write a live review up for the site. In fact we have plenty of 5 out of 10 games on our iPhones / iPod Touch, but we choose not to review them as they don’t bring anything new to the platform. Our review time is quite simply better spent on celebrating the games that iPhone gamers will love and promoting the developers that warrant the attention.

An overall score of 7 out of 10 is awarded to a fun game worthy of purchase, 8 is brilliant and a 9 is superb, amongst the best that the system has to offer. A 10 out of 10 score is so incredible that it is relatively unprecedented. If it is not at very least a good game, it’s unlikely to get a TiG review.

We are flexible in our approach to reviews and as more reviewers come onboard we can cast our nets further and catch all those lil apps that got away! but for now, our core review team and our ethos is focused on Quality!

TiG is a site which appreciates amazing games. We know that the iPhone / iPod touch are legitimate and exciting mobile gaming platforms. Our belief is that our core purpose is to let our readers not only know if a game is great, but to explain to them exactly how and why the game excels. That is why TiG reviews are the main focus, priority and hold precedence over any other content on our site.