Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: April 17-23 -- The week Venter tried to break my spirit by writing 6 reviews by himself.

Another week of me judging reviews. Looks like we have one from Nightfire carried over from last week, but to balance that out, we have one of mine to get carried over to next week. Looks like we have nine people fighting for three spots. Looks like I'll be cursing Venter's name the entire time I'll be doing this, as while most people kept things nice and simple for me with one review each, he did six last week. Now there has to be some sort of obscure RotW rule stating that a contestant is disqualified if they submit more than, say, three reviews in a week, right? No… Damn, looks like I'll be reading a lot about obscure indie 3DS things and other bizarre creations of diseased minds. Rob, welcome to the land of sadness. You'll never leave.

*Takes long, desperate gulp of tequila. Steadies hands. Starts doing this thing.*

A few random notes about a few reviews that won't be listed below.

* I feel less bad about my Kemco RPG reviews now that I see Jason has reduced himself to writing about super-cheap 3DS indie titles that were so quickly thrown together that it makes Kemco look like hard-workers who break the mold with each new release.

* Overall, I agree that the newer, fourth scenario in Ultimate Doom wasn't particularly necessary. HOWEVER, I will never say anything negative about its second level. Anything that starts you out in a situation where the instant you pull a trigger, you'll be trapped against a wall with all manner of stuff charging and shooting at you is A-OK in my Great Book O' Doom (5343 pages and counting!).

* MY LUCKY WEEK!!!! Another Telltale series has started AND a visual novel, both for me to read!!!! At least both games seem pretty forgettable in the grand scheme of things, so I could console myself by constantly repeating that it was only a few minutes for me, but a couple hours for the reviewers.

And now:

THIRD PLACE

Jason's Graceful Explosion Machine (Switch)

It took way too long for me to decide whether to go with this review or EmP's for placement. Both had plenty of strengths and were entertaining to read, but this one held my interest just a bit better, which probably has as much to do with the subject matter as anything else (Someone has read a LOT of reviews for Telltale series. Someone is totally tired of reading about their interactive Choose Your Own Adventure games.). Anyway, you did a good job here of painting a picture of an interesting game that isn't much more than a diversion when it's all said and done. It's got a pretty interesting weapon set-up, but starts out pretty dull due to apparently really easing you into the game. And then the difficulty hits. You paint a picture of a shaky difficulty curve that goes from easy to brutal abruptly, not giving you the sort of gradual curve that feels so much better to play through. This is one of those reviews where I could "get" what you were saying despite having no prior knowledge of this game, so at the end I knew what you meant when you said it's a pretty good game, just not one you want to play regularly.

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SECOND PLACE

Pickhut's Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap (Playstation 4)

This is a really good remake review that hits all the targets. You mention what was so cool about the original, you describe (eloquently) the enhancements and improvements of this version over the old and you then give a "you can't go home again" discussion after all that good stuff, citing how this is a game that was very good for its time, but by today's standards, it's short and linear with easy bosses and not enough for many of your transformations to do. Really, it was a tight battle for first place this week, with the deciding factor probably being that your paragraph about the game's challenge kind of felt thrown in between two paragraphs that I think would have read better if they were together and that paragraph was somewhere else, because you went from talking about how the game can be linear, to the challenge, then back to how it's short with other small flaws. Caused me to have to stop and regroup for a bit, it did! Otherwise, a very good review that I enjoyed reading.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Master's Lament (PC)

You may have gotten the idea I kind of liked this review, considering I took the time to let you know of a small error in which GB Castlevania game you were referencing. Can't be letting minor details drag you down, you know! I agree with you on how it's cool (at least for us guys who were around in the 8-bit days) that companies are releasing games in that style, but yeah, it helps when you don't get the idea that they were just focusing on that style and not so much on making a great game around it. I mean, when reading about a game like this, I don't expect to see lines like "equal parts short and easy". I think the best part of this review is just how efficiently it is worded. It seemed to read really quickly, but there was a ton of information in it, both about your expectations and hopes and how you thought things would go, and how things actually were. Overall, a really good review that won by a slim margin on a busy week with a lot of good stuff.

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Now, let's see if I can get my review of Super Meat Boy finished in time for it to also be up for judging next week! Don't know if I'll have the time to do so, but it's good to try to set goals, regardless of whether you actually work to meet them! Right?

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

Thanks for the quick topic. I didn't feel like any of my reviews were RotW material, necessarily. I was just trying to post good reviews for a variety of games, and I think I accomplished that even though none of them ranked above third. It was another tough week, so congrats to Masters on his win and to all who participated. I'll try to take it considerably easier on whoever does the next topic... but no promises!

"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

Gratz to the winners. Jason must have stolen Hermoine's time-turner to find the time to write so many freaking reviews (not saying it's a bad thing, but seriously, that is some stamina right there).

placid like acid

Ah, I can see why that would mess someone up reading through the review. I never thought about that. I guess the reason I went with a "back and forth" format during that part was because I was trying to see if I can avoid the "pitfall" of only mentioning all positives in one chunk of the review and all negatives in the other half.

That was actually some very helpful feedback, because I'm in the middle of writing another review and it's making me think of reshuffling some things.

Anyway, thanks for the placement, good job on Venter for placing too, all others that submitted in another diverse week, and congrats to Masters for RotW!

I head spaceshit noises.

There's no one organizational approach that's always perfect. And the only approach that's ever right is to tailor your organization to your particular topic (or in the case of a review, to your particular game).

Sometimes, you want to mention a pro and a con, and repeat that. Sometimes, you want to front load a review with all of the pros and end with a few cons that then sound weak in comparison. Sometimes, you want to briefly mention a few positives and then really dig in and talk about the negatives that overwhelm them, and especially work to end the review on a negative note that lingers in the reader's mind.

That all works out to be just one more of the many things to keep straight while reviewing. And for what it's worth, pickhut, I think you're getting better at it all the time.

"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

Long time ago, I used to have a problem figuring out specific things to mention about a game versus unnecessary stuff, but that no longer seems the case. Though, I'd be lying if I said I didn't struggle here and there, or the thing I thought seemed important just ultimately felt like filler reading material. Nowadays, my biggest dilemma in writing a review seems to be saying the things I wanna say about the game in a way that'll make sense to the reader. And organization usually plays a big part in that. It's just one of those things, like you said, where I'm figuring out if a particular format is best suited for the current review I'm writing. Sometimes it hits me instantly, and sometimes it's something I realize halfway through finishing one.

It's definitely one of those ongoing, never-ending hurdles of reviewing.

I head spaceshit noises.

Thanks, Rob! Nice review, pick -- I said as much in a thread I just made for it before coming here. I also liked Jason's review of the same game from a completely different perspective.

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

I'd say you accomplished that goal, Jason (doing a bunch of quality reviews for some games). The only thing I thought might have been questionable was how in-depth you went into each game in that one party game, while at the same time hardly mentioning anything about the individual games in the Disney compilation (you may not believe this, but I was a NES owner who never owned nor played any of the games in that compilation, so a little info on which ones are the must-play apps in the collection and which ones are forgettable would have been nice).

On the other hand, your conversation with a hypothetical friend about your score in Orbit made me laugh and I thought both of those 3DS indie reviews were well-done, as far as letting people know what those games are and how they're not really worth the money, even at that really cheap price.

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