Congrats dood, just keep it cool and fair.

I think replay value should never be the top priority in games reviews, but that's just me.

replay value determines how long you'll be keeping the game without reselling. in the end, it's all about value for money. read the rather long post i made about that.

I would put "polish" way up. You can actually tell when a game was given extra care when you can notice lil things that enhanced your gaming.

As for bugs and such, I find those should be huge in penalty. At least, the obvious ones that shouldn't even have passed the QA. These are usually titles that intentionally pushed out due to "dead lines" that's got to be met.

Nintendo games are usually very well polished, IMO.

some games, though not as polished as others, are simply better at core gameplay. I think that's more important.

You got a lot of work on your hands. This is how your day will go,

11am- Wake up.

12pm- Go on the internet.

1pm- Find all the news Kotaku stole, rewrite it into your own words and hope your readers dont use the internet for gaming news.

2pm- Write an article complaining about Nintendo.

3pm- All done! Now enjoy all the games sent to you and all the hot pockets you can handle.

Sounds tough but you can do this! You can be a great video game journalist!

Originality is an odd thing to mention in criteria for your score.

It's nice to have a fun new original game but just because it doesn't do anything new and amazing shouldn't take away from its score as long as it does it well. Look at games like Halo 3, Uncharted 2, and Gears 2, all those aren't really that original and just build off their predecessors but are still great games (assume Uncharted 2 will be great).

-edit-

and congrats! ^^

I don't know what magazine it was but whenever they reviewed a game they always had a sidebar that simply stated:

Better than : Final Fantasy 10 - 8.9

Worse than: Final Fantasy 9 - 9.1

It was only for game similar to the one being reviewed.

Just a quicker way to know how good a game is. It would apply more for websites since it could cause the viewer to

search for his review and get more hits but I think it's still a great idea.

good luck, and best advice is to not be biased.

Not entirely true. We get review copies, but usually very late. I know Tor has already finished his review copy of Demon's Souls and about to start writing the review.