Insofar as NGJ involves the writer's personal experience with a game, NGJ provides a much needed <i>context</i> for the review.  Covering the game's lineage, prequels, and personal experiences with all of the above, grounds the review/article with the context needed to evaluate the writing itself as it attempts to evaluate the game.  It grants the reader a greater ability to determine with more accuracy how useful the article is.  "Of course he thinks that, he used to do X" or "Well sure he hates it, he also hated Y" etc.  (or I suppose "Yeah, Tim would say that 'cause he's a fucking loon.")

Put another way, a standard game review, evaluating every game as if it were released into a vacuum containing only its contemporary peers and prequels, delivers an article that is nigh useless.  It prevents us from moving forward as a whole.  If you don't compare them to anything, every game is the best game ever made.  And if you don't provide context for the AUTHOR then how can anyone accept their words to have any kind of authority?  It's hard enough accepting someone else's subjective grading, without the context of the evaluator it's perhaps too difficult.

People may want easy, but it's a disservice to deliver it.