Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Aug. 21-27 or something like that, I think.

For most of this week, it looked like Pickhut would be the only reviewer reviewing, which would have made things really easy for me. But instead, three more people would submit, giving me four to read. Good thing for all of you that they were quality stuff. But still, one of you shall be traumatized and shocked when this is over with!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! But one of you does have to feel the same way I do virtually every RotW nowadays…wait, now it's not funny because it's about me...

Indeed. And on to the reviews...

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THIRD PLACE: Parodius (Saturn) by pickhut

Is this game under the proper listing? It's under Parodius, but you list it as Gokujou Parodius Da! Deluxe Pack in the second paragraph. Very puzzling. Anyway, the review itself gives a great description of the fun, zany nature of Parodius games. The quirky levels, well-designed variety of characters and so on. I might have liked a bit more descriptions, as there almost seemed to be a touch of "writer's fatigue" on the subject of Gradius-n-spinoffs since you've covered Gradiuses galore, Salamanders-a-several and now, plenty-o-Parodiuses in recent times. I know when I did eight Mega Man games in about a year, I was running out of things to say by the end and I got a hint of that here. What you had was good, though, and did a great job of showing why the Parodius games are worth hunting down.

SECOND PLACE: Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Revelation (DS) by wolfqueen001

I was confused at the beginning, until I realized you were reviewing the American DS port instead of the SNES translation patch ROM version. Then I realized that Murdaw is the charming fellow I know as Mudo and it all made sense. There is a lot to cover in this game and you did a good job condensing a good bit of info into a review that was easy to get through. The main attraction of this game is the two separate, but connected, game worlds and you really let the joy of exploring both of them shine forth in your writing.

OVERDRIVE PLACE: ActRaiser (SNES) by JoeTheDestroyer

This review reminds me that I need to play this game again. One of the oldest SNES titles, but one that's held together better than most. Great look at it and how everything works, from action to sim and back to action. Yeah. I have to get to this one again. This review re-sold it on me.

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Since we have a bit of extra time, to mention Jason's review. Overall, I thought it was good, but there was, I felt, a good bit of review/score segregation. Like, you spend a LOT of time discussing game flaws ranging from lack of strategy to flaky controls to load times and then finishing with a "don't let this stuff stop you from trying the game". To me, if you're recommending a game by a high score, the content of the review should match that enthusiasm. The writing here was engaging, but the tone just seemed negative to where I thought you were talking about a mediocre-to-okay game. You might want to work on the overall tone to focus more on positives.

Enough of this. Back to my gaming progress which will include one or maybe even two reviews this week. Keep checking this site to find out how productive I am or amn't (I've always felt "am not" deserves a legit contraction…and there it is!).

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

Thanks, OD. I didn't think my review would cause any initial confusion. I guess I just assumed people would look at the system it's under or something, but really, I should have included the full title at the very beginning if nowhere else. I just didn't because, well, it's such a long title. XD

Anyway, thanks for the feedback. I was actually pretty happy with this one for a change. Congrats to Joe for winning, and the rest for participating/placing. I really need to write more reviews.... Maybe then I can finally break my year-long RotW losing streak!

Also, thanks for getting this done so soon!

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What espiga does in his free time
[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

Nice job on the RotW, Rob. I rather liked Pick and Joe's reviews. I haven't read Leslie's yet, but I plan to.

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

I've seen several images of the PAL version of the cover, and it simply calls the compilation Parodius. I just assumed whoever put that up was thinking about that version, since it still has the same cover art for the site.

Anyway, thanks for the placement and comments! Sorry if the review sounded like it was lacking in decriptions, wasn't intentional. Good job to wolfqueen on her placement, and congrats to Joe! It was a pretty good review.

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I head spaceshit noises

Before I derail anything... congrats to the winners and congrats to overdrive for a timely and thorough RotW.

With that said (and meant sincerely), let me say that I considered balance carefully before posting the review and I thought I nailed it. I spent 2 paragraphs outright griping about the flaws--load times and controls that are frustrating until you adapt to their quirks--and most of the rest of the review (around 3/4 of it) skewed positive and explained why the flaws don't matter much. To me, an 8/10 was justified and matched the tone of the text.

I get that for overdrive the score felt poorly matched to the text, and I don't resent that response. As much as I review, though, I would like to know if others felt the same way... because if it's a common response, obviously I have some thinking to do.

(The best place to leave feedback would be in the review's feedback thread, by the way, or you can send me it by HG Mail or whatever. Again, my goal here isn't to derail this thread.)

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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto

IT'S MY THREAD AND I DECIDE WHAT DERAILS IT!!!!

Er, I mean...yes. After looking at the review again, here are some ideas I have as to what went wrong for me personally with it.

Part of things might have been location. For me, the negative parts were the last paragraph before the third pic (where you mention the strategy parts aren't all that effective) and the area between the third and fourth pics (the one sentence intro and the two preceding paragraphs). All of which is located before the conclusion.

Now, if you take me in particular, this isn't the sort of game I'd normally be spending my money on unless the amount of money I have dramatically increases to the point where I can purchase strange games that seem a bit intriguing at will. While that means I might not be the core person this review would be for, it did mean for me that the good vibes the earlier portions of the review gave suddenly got deluged by "the strategy doesn't really work, the play control has issues and the loading times get tiresome" before being concluded with a "but give it a try anyway".

So what I'm saying is that maybe if you balanced each negative with a positive instead of putting them all together right before the conclusion, the overall review would have worked better for me.

/OVERLY VERBOSE EXPLANATION

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

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Awesome reviews this week! Thanks, Rob, and great job to Jason, pichut and Leslie!

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

My concern wasn't the fact that you probably won't buy the game. There are probably a lot of 8/10 games that no one on this forum would buy. It was more the matter of the review and score not matching.

Your comments on the positioning of the complaints do make sense. I had a feeling that it wasn't a matter of "good" text versus "bad" text, but some other thing.

There are different lines of thought when it comes to organization for an essay--or by extension, a review--as I learned in some of my college writing classes. The approach I took is one option, but not without its risks depending on the reader. The alternative you suggested also has risks of its own (it can dillute the effect of every positive before those positives can as a whole build a sort of momentum), and there are other options that neither of us have mentioned... all with other potential issues.

I do feel a bit better, though, after reading your clarification.

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"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto