Forums > Contributor Zone > Review of the Week, Jan 2-8 - Pagan Sacrifice Edition

It's that time again, where yet another review must be chosen for Review of the Week. The winner shall be anointed, venerated, draped in fine silks, and then thrown into a fiery volcano to appease the gods. The villagers will rejoice and feast, engage in orgiastic pleasures for three nights, then next week we will do it all over again. The fun just never stops around here.

Anyway, here are the rankings:


Third place: Zydrate's Thief review (PC)

Zydrate gave a solid "meh" to Thief, and her snappy, no-nonsense writing style does a good job of explaining why she felt that way about it. I got the feeling that she was ripping on my own review of Thief a little bit, but that's okay. We're all friends here.

I do appreciate that her reviews are always easy to read and are technically sound. This is a girl who knows how to do a proper edit pass. No missing punctuation or improper grammar here, nope. (Let that be a lesson to the people who didn't make the cut this week.)

My main criticism lies in the fact that this review feels more like a blog post than a full review, and that's because it is. Reviewing a game as a collection of personal impressions can be fine if your audience knows you well, but that's not necessarily the case here. A new player who stumbles upon her review but doesn't know anything about the game beforehand might not get the full picture.

In short, there was nothing wrong with what was actually here, I just felt like it needed more. In this respect, I hope that she writes a full, exclusive review for HG at some point. Hopefully soon. I know that the quality would be excellent.


Second place: Jerec's Final Fantasy XV review (PS4)

It's been a while since I've played a Final Fantasy title, and Jerec gives us a thorough rundown of what Square Enix's latest flagship title is all about. He skillfully explains this game's strengths and weaknesses while providing plenty of context about how it differs from previous titles and where its influences lie. His review is long and thorough, but not boring, something that I definitely appreciated.

His writing style reminds me of pickhut's work a little bit. Pick's reviews are generally more concise and have a bit more energy to them, but that's not really a criticism; it's kinda like comparing apples to oranges. Both are strong writers with solid technical skills. Maybe they should meet up for coffee sometime.

Anyway, my only major criticism has to do with the images that he included. They are clearly too large for the frame, sliding clumsily out of the right side (note for next time: The maximum width for images is 720 pixels). Also, the placement of the images breaks up the paragraphing in a weird way. First there's a block of three paragraphs, then one, then two, then five. If these had been spaced a little more evenly it would've made the review a little more attractive.

But that's a small gripe. Overall, this review is a good read. This is the first time that I have judged one of his reviews and it was a pleasure to do so. I hope he comes around more often!


First place: EmP's Night Trap review (32X) (Held over from last week)

King Slime is at it again, churning out plenty of quality reviews from within his den of muck. Little does he know that this time he has condemned himself to a fiery doom within the caldera of the volcano. Serves him right.

Anyway, he submitted three reviews this week and I had a hard time deciding which to choose, as they were all strong contenders. On the one hand, his Life is Strange review was a thorough, thoughtful piece that delicately described what that game was about and how it works without spoiling anything. On the other, his X-Mas Shooting - Scramble review had that brilliant opening paragraph that was practically worthy of the win all by itself.

However, I chose his Night Trap review because it had the best of all worlds: It described how the game works, its greater context, and how the video game industry was forever changed by its existence. It also never dragged at any point and was damn funny to read. Night Trap is one of those "important" games that everybody should know about, kinda like how Troll 2 is an important piece of cinema. You expertly explained why this is, while applying your usual level of knowledge and technical skill.

A minor gripe, though: I did find a couple of places where a space was missing between letters or an extra space was added before a hyphen. This could've been a result of editing. I'm sure you could probably find a way to blame Jason if you try hard enough.

My only other complaint is that I wish this piece had some screenshots with it. The inclusion of some absurd images would have really been the icing on the cake here. However, the absence of a positive is obviously not a criticism, and since I cannot find anything else of significance to nitpick about, that makes you the clear winner for this week. Congratulations.

Right then, off you go:

Here's the funny thing about Night Trap and screenshots. I took a bunch while I was playing so that I could place them in context among the review. That bit where I talk about the modest nightdress? I had screen grabs. The dorky ninja vampire house invaders? Had grabs. But I didn't upload them to site and promptly saved over them the next day. I have saves nearby, but my options were a/ play more Night Trap or b/ do absolutely anything else. I went with b. Everyone should always go with b.

I'll go back in and retake them once my immunity has built back up a bit. Should be good by 2022. I'll go back though the review shortly, though, and try and weed out some of them spacing issues. You're right; it's probably Jason's fault.

Congrats to Jerec for being bought back to life (again) by Final Fantasy and dropping a very interesting review for a game I've read little about. Good work to Zydrate for pipping into third above a few other writers, and props to Nightfire for kicking this one out so quick.

I'm fine with volcanoes. As an Englishman, my default temperature is wet and cold, so it'll take that kind of extreme heat to break on through.

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the feedback! It's my first review in a couple of years so I was afraid of being rusty, so I'm glad it came out okay. Regarding the images, I had to upload them to my blog (which for some reason uses a different size VENTER!). I had to upload them to my blog because there were already 10 or 12 images for FFXV which were BORING and there was a thing that said any other images would likely be rejected.

So yeah, I'll reupload them to be a little smaller so they'll fit better. Edit: Have re-sized them and re positioned them more evenly throughout the review. Originally they were placed to visualise a point I was making, but I do agree that the rhythm is broken by having them at odd intervals.

Congrats to EmP and Zydrate for their placings.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

I've spoken to Nightfire on Steam already but I'll add some thoughts here;

First: I wasn't ripping on Nightfire's review specifically. It was just one of like ten different sources that couldn't seem to get over the past games. I mean, I think Morrowind was great but even Oblivion is a bit better once you get some kind of face mod.

Secondly: It is true my 'review' was a First Impressions post on my blog but I did already do a few hours so I was writing it with a review-like mindset. Nightfire's not entirely wrong though as reviews try to run the full gamut of thoughts like voice acting, graphics, mechanics, sound, etc... And I only touched on a couple things so fair enough in that regard.

That's all.

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