Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW -- April 3-9, 2011: The Triumphant Return of Overdrive

Six reviews by five authors equals fun for everyone. Let us commence with fun, ja? In this case, "fun" means, I pick three of them and say brief, vague statements while you read these words and wonder if I even read any of them! Which is better than the "fun" of someone else covering for me because I forgot about it.



THIRD PLACE: Assault Suit Leynos 2 (Saturn) by pickhut

In quick succession, you've hit up three different Assault Suits games. You did a good job here of, as per the norm in your reviews, succinctly getting to the point. It's nearly always easy to read your stuff, which is good. You have a good game that could have been great, but a collection of short and drab stages detracts from the massive amount of customizing you can do. You mention this in a straightforward way that was easy to read and digest. Good work.

SECOND PLACE: Ninja Crusaders (NES) by JoeTheDestroyer

I don't think you have to worry about getting killed by ninjas, Joe. If they hunted down everyone who had negative things to say about a game featuring them, there'd be an epidemic of mysterious deaths in the retro reviewing community. Easy for me to say, though, as fear of this happening is the reason I decided Wrath of the Black Manta wasn't worth my time! Anyhoo, on to the review. Sounds like the sort of game I wouldn't want to play, as the "positive" you mention most is its frustrating difficulty...which then descends into mere repetition. And the premise. But, back in my youth, I could see me eating this up. I did beat a lot of similar NES games where the only way to win is to learn from your 10,000 deaths. Your review did a good job of simply illustrating the reality of so many games from that era. Brutal until you learn how to play and then you grind through the game doing what you do against more and tougher enemies. Simple, effective review with some witty writing. I like that.

OVERDRIVE PLACE: MLB 11: The Show (PS3) by asherdeus

I haven't played a MLB game since the days of the SNES, so it was interesting to see what companies are doing with them. The best complement I can give you is that you made this game easy to understand. With sports games, that's often tough, I've found. At least modern sports games. They can be so complicated with simulations, stats, player building, etc. that a reviewer walks a fine line between not putting in enough detail for readers to grasp all they want to know and putting in too much detail, so readers are bogged down by a massive encyclopedia of all things in the game. You walked the fine line and walked it well. Easy-to-understand comparisons of the improvements over last year, how your player improves, game mechanics and the flaw of excessive loading times are all seamlessly packed into what proved to be an easy and informative read. You win.

Guess it's time to get back to my second attempt to play Persona 3, also known as the emasculating experience where every suave move I put on someone reminds me of how non-suave I was back in high school. And how I didn't have a big tower full of infinite numbers of monsters to fight then either. Or maybe I did, but because I wasn't awesome, I was just out of it during the nightly dark hour...which is also depressing.

I'm not afraid to die because I am invincible
Viva la muerte, that's my goddamn principle

Thanks for the kind words, OD. Ash, congrats on RotW, and good job to you, too, Joe!

I head spaceshit noises.

Haven't read Ashy's review yet (don't play sports games really) but I concur that the other two choices are good ones!

I don't have to prove I'm refined - that's what makes me refined!

T'ank you, t'ank you! You do me much honor! Congrats Ashy and pickhut! Let me also recognize fleinn's great Top Spin 4 review! G'night!

The only thing my milkshake brings to the yard is a subpoena.

I didn't see this before, but thanks for the feedback, Overdrive. I've been accused of picking "easy targets" in the past, so I've been trying to challenge myself by reviewing games from genres that I normally don't. This was the first one that came out decently and I'm glad you enjoyed it. Your positive feedback means a lot. Joe's review carried a lot of energy through it and I think that Pickhut did a really great job of vividly presenting what Assault Suit was all about. You two both brought your game and I easily could have lost to either of you and still been satisfied with my placing!

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