Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 3rd-9th April // Rise of the Underdogs

Could it be? A slow(ish) week! Yeah, sure, I guess that it’s bad for the site overall, but perhaps I could do something new with this evening now. Go outside? Hug a family member? Drink homemade cider until I lose the feelings in my hands? The possibilities; they never end.


THIRD Metroid: Other M [PC] by Hasty Pixels

Your reviews have been struggling to get any air time in this year’s RotW rotas, and I think a lot of that is down to the template you’ve since adopted. Things like that are great if you just want to crank out a factory line of reviews, but they don’t really give you any room to expand your themes and make the entire thing feel stunted. You’ve not avoided that here, but it does feel lessened.

There’s a few fallacies, though. Other M often gets the boot because it turns Samus into a bit of a whiner, but it seems backwards trying to blame this on the Developer's culture when said culture is wholly responsible for the more stoic badarse that populates every other Metroid game. Especially when this game was translated from the Dev’s original text by Nintendo Treehouse, who are easily one of the worst translation houses out there (sorry, Jason, but they are!). It just seems an unsubstantiated claim to make, especially as it’s made a couple of times over.

Other than that, my advise is to try ditching the enforced structure and perhaps your reviews would feel less manufactured and overly safe.

SECOND The Bard's Tale [PC] Joe

I think this review’s late focus on why it’s a parody game that doesn’t really understand parody is communicated well. It’s a common enough pitfall, to lampoon something’s unending tropes and cliches but still unironically fall victim to them yourself, so pointing it was the right thing to do. The intro was also a point well made - this game is shallow enough that you’re going to have to stick with the character build it designates, like it or not. As a comedic RPG, making both these points is a devastating blow to the game.

It seems a bit sparse on any other details, though. I’ve not played Bard’s Tale (and I never will - you can’t make me!) but I know it as the game that criminally wastes Cary Elwes, which gets no mention. The entire affair feels a bit bare bones, like it was a bit of a rush job you just wanted to get out of the way.

WIN! Mass Effect: Andromeda [PC] by Zydrate

Zydrate has no idea how to ration reviews. Or self edit. Or centre screenshots. But she keeps plugging away with these relatable blog-like reviews and this week she’s reaped some rewards.

I thought this review felt smoother than your Diablo effort which had a few rough spots and a lot of word repetition to weigh it down. This Mass Effect review felt more on point and wasted less words in talking about the things that needed talking about. It’s not perfect; it’s certainly much more negative than the score at the end would suggest. This is probably because you dedicate much of your review to what Andromeda gets wrong (which is understandable considering the horrendous backlash it received for releasing what is essentially an unfinished game) while most of the things you liked are just lobbed in there as a list. This didn’t really work in your favour, creating an unbalanced feeling review. I also agree with (and, thankfully, no longer need to fully type out a response to) Nightfire’s point in how comparing ME and Elder Scrolls is a broken comparison. Scrolls often breaks because you’ve killed a cave troll with an orange on a Thursday in a lake it shouldn’t be in during a quest that doesn’t exist. ME plays at being open world, but remains a rigid and linear game in comparison. It doesn’t kick up a fraction of the variables that could go wrong.

But I think it gets its message across; it’s more Mass Effect which is enough for a lot of people, even if it has a host of issues. I loved the original trilogy and have spent a lot of words talking about that very fact, but I shan’t be going near this one until they finish the job they charge people an exuberant amount of money for.

For us. For them. For you.

Look, if I paid attention to when Jason edited my review, it could have been included! But I didn't, had to create its game listing and, therefore, didn't get it on the site until 20 minutes after midnight.

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

The site's timestamp (due to server location) is about 8 hours off from my local time zone, anyway. So you probably missed the cutoff by more like 6 hours, overdrive. I hope that consoles you. And it's a dang good review, so it should be in contention this next week... unless you're judging and it has to be shuffled off another week.

Congrats to this week's underdogs/winners, and thanks for a timely topic, EmP!

"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

I feel like you just gave me a win because I whined on the discord a couple weeks ago about not ever placing. You didn't have to do that.
Still, the fact that I don't "Ration" reviews shows that I don't REALLY mind not placing, I just want my stuff read.

I totally get your thoughts though, especially about how the whole thing leaks with negativity, which is why I gave that initial disclaimer about how much I do actually like the game. It's just the good stuff is rather bland and built-in while the bad stuff is irritating and constant. Basically how Yahtzee got famous.

My Tumblr (Don't worry, I just talk about games)
My Steam Profile

People whine at me all the time. They have for years, and it doesn't make that much difference. I felt you had the best review this week; if you're looking for something to knock your ego down, though, it wasn't as high a quality week as we've been used to recently - so, yay, I guess? Hasty came third and his review was a shunty section effort with what I consider a flawed central argument; Joe's review felt like something he just wanted to get finished so he could move on to stuff he cared about. Had OD subbed his review on time, he'd probably have won, but you'd still have placed with either review.

Aren't you glad you picked at that scab now? Spirit crushing EmP, away!

For us. For them. For you.

Yep. My review showed up as "April 10th" even though I submitted it at like 6:00 p.m. on April 9th. Oh well. Now I get to wait two weeks to see what people think.

Gratz to Zy! Aside from that extremely lengthy criticism I had, it was a good review and worthy of the win. Some advice though; don't poke the blobby too much, all you'll get is sticky.

placid like acid

"he'd probably have won"

Man, I'm going to have to fight to not let this go to my head, as it might be the most praise EmP has ever given me!

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

Underdog huh? It's a start. I stand by my opinion of the overdramatic writing of Metroid M. I enjoyed the game... not so much it's inconsistent, erratic story.

Thanks for the endorsement, EMP. :)

Look, the only time I'm not wrong is when I'm right, so...