The same review on multiple platforms (aka Josh being insufferable again)

[Rucks]

I semi checked for this being posted about before, so sorry if its already been brought up.  But who made the decision to post reviews for multi platform games in each section the game was released in, as opposed to just the platform it was reviewed on?  The example that first comes to mind is Taelus' review of Broken Age (which is available on the Vita, PS and PC) being posted in all 3 sections even though he played through it on his Vita.    I know it's no longer a Grandia II port type situation but can't different versions of games still vary between systems?

I've been rooting around your reviews section for the last few weeks (because I am insane) and it's come up a few dozen times and I guess I was just wondering what the dialogue was on that. 

[Mike]

Well, *generally* when a game gets released on several platforms at once, you're getting the same game. When it comes to console vs. handheld vs. mobile, it varies a bit, for sure. Not usually as much as that Grandia II mess, of course, though I know the first time I played a Telltale game on my old iPad, the performance was subpar vs other platforms. (or my newer iPad)

The possible distinctions are why, under platforms on reviews, we added a "reviewed on" field, so at least you know what version we played. We feel it's still worth listing on each platform page, though, simply because the core game is going to be the same, and in most cases (say, PS3/360 releases, and usually PS4/XB1), performance will also be largely the same.

That said, were it feasible for us to review every possibly different release - at least to have general 'console,' 'PC,' and 'mobile' reviews - we likely would, but there's only so much time in the day, haha. So in the end, if we can't do that, we think it's best doing what we do, since we wouldn't want someone to visit one platform's page and assume we don't have a review at all for a game. Or force them to peck around each platform to check.

So that's my long-winded explanation. Hope that makes sense! We don't really explain this policy anywhere on the site, so this was a good question to bring up. Do let us know if you have any others. ^^

[Tooker]

Along these same lines, we were discussing games we never reviewed recently, and a number of them were games that we did review on one platform, but not on another, because the ports/platforms were sufficiently different that it wouldn't have been right to link to the same review in multiple places.  A typical example would be X-Men Legends II on Xbox, PSP and GameCube.  Even if they were released at the same time, the capabilities of those platforms were so different we couldn't say that the review of one would tell you what to expect from the others.

Hardware disparity doesn't seem to be as big an issue these days as it used to be, so we don't have to worry about that as much.  But we'll still break things up if we feel like that's more appropriate.  Like if Broken Age had been on iOS, Vita, and PC, and the touchscreen controls were totally broken.  We'd give that a different review with a different score.

That's my two bits, speaking as someone who's written separate reviews for the same game on different platforms and also posted one review for multiple platforms.

[Rucks]

Thanks for the input!