About Larking Around
Tetsugaku no michi, or “Philosopher’s Path,” in Kyoto, Japan
Lark Anderson is the founder of Larking Around, which focuses on travel guides and detailed reviews of restaurants, video games, and more.
As a passionate foodie and former GameSpot contributor responsible for dozens of game reviews, Lark has a proven track record of writing unbiased experiential critiques.
Follow Larking Around
About Affiliate Links
One of the key purposes of Larking Around is to educate readers with information learned through research and experience, and in some cases, this means that we may help you make a purchasing decision. Content on Larking Around sometimes contains affiliate links, which means that in the event that you make such a purchase after clicking on one of our links, it may result in us receiving a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
If you do make such a purchase, we thank you for your support!
About our reviews
Generally speaking, all products, meals, and trips are paid for out of pocket. In the event that this is not the case, disclosures will be made within the review text itself. In all cases, the opinions expressed within Larking Around’s reviews are the entirely unbiased opinions of Lark himself.
Larking Around specializes in reviews of restaurants and games. For each such review, you can expect to find a narrative description of the overall experience, the score, an FAQ covering the most important questions, and general details.
Our review scores are made up of two components: the score itself, and one or more key qualifiers. The score is a rating on a five-point scale, represented by stars, that expresses overall satisfaction in the experience. Key qualifiers add additional context to the score by identifying outstanding attributes that are selected from pre-defined lists, depending on what’s being reviewed (see below).
Restaurant Review Key Qualifiers
An amazing atmosphere is one in which there is a consistency between ambience, decor, and physical space, and in which these elements interact to elevate the overall dining experience in a welcome and pleasing way.
A subpar atmosphere, on the other hand, is often the result of a chaotic or disjointed aesthetic that threatens to drag down the mood and wreck otherwise good vibes.
A defining experience is an unforgettable, must-experience event that only the very best of the best restaurants can provide.
In their quest to provide a remarkable dining experience, some restaurants fly too close to the sun, resulting in a pretentious, unnecessary experience that leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
To serve exceptional food that is delicious, aesthetically-pleasing, and of the highest quality should be one of the primary goals of any dining establishment.
Nothing can ruin a dining experience faster than unsatisfactory food that lands below expectations and leaves the heart, soul, and stomach aching for something more.
Restaurants that deliver a fantastic value leave you feeling like your overall experience was well worth the price of admission.
When spending upwards of hundreds of dollars on a meal, the last thing you want is to feel like you’ve wasted your money, which is exactly what a restaurant that offers bad value does.
While the standards of service will depend on the type of dining experience (not every meal is multi-coursed and served by personal wait staff), superb service during relevant interactions can truly elevate a restaurant into the upper echelons.
On the other hand, poor or otherwise inattentive service can diminish or make disappointing what should be an otherwise special moment.
Packaging for takeout or delivery food is often one of the only things between receiving crispy and delicious or soggy and limp food. What makes packaging great is when it does its job in addition to being well designed or aesthetically pleasing.
Careless packaging is what happens when it’s clear that little or no thought went into the takeout experience because dishes get smooshed or mixed up or food is poorly labeled.
Game Review Key Qualifiers
A game with great gameplay just feels right. Movement and control is smooth and intuitive, combat systems and interactive sequences are fun and engaging, and you always find yourself saying “just a little bit longer" before you put it down for the night.
Simply put, unfulfilling gameplay is hollow, repetitive, and feels like a chore. Some signs of it include stilted or unintuitive controls, a sense of fighting against the game rather than playing with it, and the feeling that the tasks you are asked to perform are pointless or are designed to your waste time.
Whether painstakingly rendered in 4K HDR at 60 FPS or with a unique visual style that sets it apart from the pack, a game with a fantastic presentation is both beautiful and immersive.
Poor presentation is more than just subpar graphics or an unoptimized framerate – it also includes everything from badly designed user interfaces to terrible inventory management systems and beyond.
With the right combination of songs played at the right time, what would otherwise be an average game can be uplifted to the next level.
On the other hand, a substandard soundtrack can break you out of an otherwise immersive game and sour the entire experience.
An engrossing story pulls you right in from the very beginning and doesn’t let you go, even days after you’ve finished it.
A tiresome story is one that you’ve seen before many times, with little in the way of originality.