Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW Hub // 2017

It was a cold December night back in 2003 when a young Jason Venter stopped playing Kirby on his original Game Boy just long enough to rip off GameFAQS’ then legendary Review of the Day and bring a truncated version onto his own site. The first Review of the Week was born - Bloomer was the winner that time, a brave young man who had fought off koala bears and marsupials to pen a glowing review for Fear Effect on the PSX. And so it was that a cycle was launched. From then on, once a week, Jason would tie all the user reviews submitted to his site and offer feedback, usually something along the lines of “This isn’t a Super Mario praise review - you lose” or “The Oxford comma is for sinners!” Like a boss, he would do this for many years until he then made the mistake of allowing other people to have a go, giving him free time to turn copy edits over sometimes as quickly as seven weeks a pop. Things changed; staff reviews became eligible alongside user ones, schedules were drawn up that Overdrive sometimes kept to by pure drunken error. Some smug prick once won four in a row and hasn’t shut up about it since. It was an institution, but as reviews waned and these topics became single reply threads, the drive to keep it going slowly died out. Suskie won the last one at the tail end of 2013 - almost ten years to the day the first episode was released. And that was that.

No one really knows why it came back. Rob was involved, so it might well contain a lot of drink, and I was involved, so perhaps some kind of concussion made me think I was living in 2008 for a spell. Joe was there, too, until all that wailing reminded him he had a family he should probably pay attention to and graciously slid back into the shadows to hunt Pokemon and secretly do all the breast feeding. Nightfire capably took his slot, and for the first time in a while, there was stability. It looked like this could become a staple event again, and the people were mildly pleased. Not me. I am never pleased. I tried it once, and it was awful.

RotW could be better than it was. In many ways, it already is. Jason has already started offering up fabulous prizes for the winners (subject to availability) which we hope to see continue, but why not more?

More prizes!

Let’s hope. Win one of these weeks, and you should go an have a little look at this topic RIGHT HERE. Perhaps there’s a game waiting there that takes your fancy. It’s yours to claim.

More judges!

EmP/Nightfire/OD is a great line up of capable writers who can offer worthwhile feedback to any review that makes the top three. But why not more? The ideal number of judges is four, allowing a month to be split equally between the group. Though it would be nice to reach this number, I get that this is a bit of a commitment and isn't going to be something a lot of people will want to do long term, so I’d also like to open the floor up to guest spots. Want to lord over people’s hard work, but find the idea of doing it more than once exhausting? Guest spots are probably the answer for you. If you fancy taking a random or specific week, let me know either here or via HGMail, and we’ll see what we can make happen.

Current Rota:

EmP -> Overdrive -> Jerec

More glory!

Introducing Site King!

Ever wonder who the most consistently brilliant writer we have on the site is? It’s me Harbour some kind of thought that it might be you? You’re wrong; it’s me This is where we find out. Using a hopelessly complex scoring method that I should start being really annoyed about inventing around, oh, say March, Site King keeps a rolling tally of your brilliance and ranks you accordingly against fellow writers. The top five of which will be displayed under this very paragraph and look a lot like this:

1st: -- EmP
2nd: -- Joe
3rd: -- Pickhut
4th: -- Masters
5th: -- OD

You hail your reviewing overlords - and you hail them like you mean it! Whoever finishes top of the pile come the end of the year, well, they becomes the Site King. Or maybe Queen. Or whatever Pick identifies as this week.

More achieving!

That’s right! Meaningless busywork that nobody wants or has asked for! Find it here -- in a neat little list.

26th December -- 1st January
2nd January -- 8th January
9th January -- 15th January
16th January -- 22nd January
23rd January -- 29th January
30th January -- 5th February
6th February -- 12th February
13th February -- 19th February
20th February -- 26th February
27th Febuary -- 5th March
6th March -- 12th March
13th March -- 19th March
20th March -- 26th March
27th March -- 2nd April
3rd April -- 9th April
10th April -- 16th April
18th April -- 23rd April
24th April -- 30th April
1st May -- 7th May
8th May -- 14th May
15th May -- 21st May
22nd May -- 28th May
29th May -- 4th June
5th June -- 11th June
12th June -- 18th June
19th June -- 25th June
26th June -- 2nd July
3rd July -- 9th July
10th July -- 16th July
17th July -- 23rd July
24th July - 30th July
31st July -- 6th August
7th August -- 13th August
14th August - 20th August
21st August - 27th August
28th August - 3rd September
4th September -- 10th September
11th September -- 17th September
18th Septemeber -- 24th September
25th September -- 1st October
2nd October -- 8th October
9th October -- 15th October
16th October -- 22nd October
23rd October-29th October
30th October -- 5th November
6th November -- 12th November
13th November -- 19th November
20th November -- 26th November
27 November -- 3rd December
4th December -- 10th December
11th December -- 17th December
18th December -- 24th December

For us. For them. For you.

If I'm able to follow through on my devious plans, I will be the site king by year's end. Mwa ha ha ha ha!

(I'm glad you brought back the RotW version of Site King. I think it was fun.)

"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 on secret doors to another world2

If that turns out to be the case, you've a lot of catching up to do.

That simple serene list of names hides a lot of chaotic maths, and the uncouth thrashings of several people unmentioned, just below it.

For us. For them. For you.

For reason no one fully understands, Jerec has kindly agreed to step up and be the RotW's fourth judge. To commemorate this, I have added a rota chain to the topic which I will update each week, bolding the judge whose turn is up next. Overdrive will still forget. I will still have to prod him.

Thanks, Jerec. Hang in there, buddy.

For us. For them. For you.

I'm going to be late with rotw this week. Been travelling interstate for work the whole week.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Before anyone (EmP) sends me a reminder about my RotW, I'll get to it after I've finished my contest review. Because this [won't] can't be my year if I don't prioritize it to [not] be my year!

[EmP's going to beat me]

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

I see your UNCLEVER edits and raise you with my submission!

Which may be edited up to 500 times between now and the deadline!

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

15 reviews for the next RotW... plus an Overdrive review from last week (although I see he has one submitted this week, too).

Thanks, AlphaOlympics...

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Hey EmP, just so you know, my June 19-25 topic is missing. The link you have links to some moderated posts... I've still got the original in a text file if it can't be recovered any other way.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

That sucks. I don't think I can reclaim it from the void; if you want to re-post it, I'll change the achieve link and set it so it won't get deleted. It's an important RotW, after all!

For us. For them. For you.

Several of those links are dead, actually.

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

http://www.honestgamers.com/forums/threads/6239/view/0.html

I can avoid death by not having a life.

For those of you keeping up with the Site King scoreboard -- which is probably none of you, but I need to pretend otherwise to make the hours of work I put into it not feel like I actively seeking busywork to ensure I don't stray outside and talk to people -- you might notice that, for the first time since this thing started, Pickhut's not in the top two and Joe's snuck in. OD's also fallen out of the top five for the first time this year. There's 22 names total with points on the board, and enough year left for more obscure maths based shenanigans.

(If I do this next year, please please please will someone remind me to make a more simplistic formula for points)

For us. For them. For you.

You could set up an Excel spreadsheet with formulas so all you need to do is put in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd each week and let the formulas do the rest.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

I tried to set something up where you get more points if you place on a busy week, but as the year's ground on it's been a major regret.

For us. For them. For you.

Apparently my whole "Do a total of 2-3 reviews over a two-month period" strategy did not work as far as placing highly in Site King goes...

Oh well, I'm actually in an area where I'll be beating a few games in a short amount of time, so don't worry folks, I'll be making a comeback! Or not, if I can't figure out a way to make my current review suck less.

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

Yeah, my review input hasn't been great for the previous two months. Hopefully I can pick up the pace again starting with this month and go from there. There's a lot of games I've been meaning to play and review, and it's not helping that the holiday release season is upon us.

I head spaceshit noises.

Anyone want to join the roster?

Working on mine. On an interstate work trip this week so if I get bored in the hotel I'll try and get the reviews read.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Probably be about Friday when I get to mine. Busy week at work, where I'm on the road a lot, which cuts into my free time.

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