Forums > Contributor Zone > Review of the Week - Ocotber 2-8 - The Horror! The Horror!

11 reviews this week. At least 7 of them are horror themed reviews, thanks to that dastardly EmP and his schemes to make me read more reviews. Joe has reviewed two games in his Alone of the Dark marathon, which gives me ten unique authors. Sorry this one is a bit late. I spent four days interstate and too tired in the evenings to get stuck into this. But I'm here now, so let's get started!



Jason Venter continues his mission to review all the Switch games. The review waffles on a bit too much, particularly at the start. There is one sentence in this review that really said something worthwhile, and it was the description of the jokes falling flat because they were a parody of a parody. More lines like that and less lines about your childhood underwear, and this could be great.

Usagi reviews XXZ. It doesn't seem like there's much to say about this game, although the review itself feels quite unfocused, which is odd for just four paragraphs.

Brian confused the hell out of me with his System Shock review. The intro had an interesting idea for it, but it ended up being a very long sentence and I had difficulty wrapping my head around what was actually being said. Then there was so much back and forth about remakes and sequels for the future and from the past... then the review ultimately lost me in a treatise of FPS controls. I did like "It belongs in a museum" as a tagline, though.

alteredconfusion's Woolfe review may have suffered a bit, because Nightfire's review for this game is still pretty clear in my memory. I felt like the writing was a bit blah here, especially how paragraphs were started - lines like "Now there was another portion to the game" doesn't fit well (and I'm not even sure what tense is this supposed to be), and there's an "All in all" thrown in at the end. The descriptions of the game came across well, particularly the scene-setting graphics paragraph near the start.

crazycanuck wrote a pretty good review of Observer. I can't really fault the review in any way, except that the pro/con list at the end probably wasn't necessary, since I got all of that by reading the review. In a quieter week, this could've cracked the top 3.

Zach Walton's review is well written and professional, but didn't really engage me, probably more due to the subject matter. The last line about it being lonely in multiplayer was probably the best bit of the review.

Masters reviews a bad Steam game, one of those games that still has something to like. I'm glad you're still on your comeback tour, as this was a good read (although I've heard of this game before, and heard many of the same things about it). I don't know if this innuendo was intentional, but this line made me chuckle, "It’s all very stripped down and imprecise, but as flawed as the main thrust of the game is, the real pain in the ass is the mini-game situation."


THIRD PLACE
Alone in the Dark 2 by JoeTheDestroyer

I got to read two Alone in the Dark reviews by Joe this week. I felt your Alone 2 review was the stronger of the two, with plenty of analysis of what works and doesn't work in a horror game, and how the two segments of this game contrast each other. Those screenshots, though. This game doesn't look like it has aged well. The shoddy mechanics made me laugh. I think the paragraph that earned you a spot in the top 3 wwas when you talked about Grace, then followed up that description with "All that to kill one creature. Bless this game." Because up until that point, the game sounded pretty bad, but here I was able to see why you still liked it.


SECOND PLACE
Yesterday by Gary "EmP" Hartley

I almost locked you out of the top 3 for a mistake in your intro (You then'd when you should've than'd), but that wouldn't have been fair, because this review is cheeky and energetic, and engaged me. You definitely had me at "Prepare to be underwhelmed!" This game seems like the sort of thing I'd pick up if it were included in a bundle of stuff. I do like my adventure games, as do you apparently. I don't know if it was necessary to flash your Adventure game credentials at the readers, but I suddenly feel like challenging you to an insult sword fighting contest (with rhyming insults if we are at sea) due to you saying you could out-quote me in Monkey Island. Did you slip that in because you knew I was judging this week, and that's exactly the sort of thing that would bait me?


FIRST PLACE
Bravely Default by Rob "Overdrive" Robbington

I reviewed this game a few years back, when it was new. I have to admit, I didn't actually finish the game when I'd reviewed it. I think had I known about the padding of the last few chapters, I might've dropped my score a bit. Rob, your fatigue with this game definitely came through. It was an interesting discussion on what is wrong with RPGs these days. I definitely look back on this game with fond memories, but there's no way in hell I'd actually replay the damn thing, and this review reminds me of why. I agree with your need to keep things vague. A lot of the games issues don't really manifest until after the 40-50 hour mark, because the first four chapters of this game are awesome, and a lot of the late game stuff involves pretty hefty spoilers. I gave this one RotW because it makes me want to go back and revise my review, which is quite a feat when you consider how lazy I am.



Done. I probably get to cop another horror week later this month.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Have a go at my spelling, but put the RotW date in as Ocotber 2-8. Ocotber. For shame!

Here's a nostalgic tale. The year was 2005 and a fresh faced EmP was well on the way to winning his debut Team Tourney with Vortex and Ruder. It was quite late in the tourney and I knew I wasn't going to get anything new written in time, so was looking over my fledgling backlog for a review to use. Ruder told me to use a Monkey Island review I'd written and wasn't very fond of because "Jerec likes those awful games." For reasons I can't explain, over ten years later, the weird fact that Jerec likes Monkey Island has always stayed with me.

I won that round. But then I lost to Sho because Jerec didn't understand the subtle genius behind the Monsterseed review.

The short answer is yes, I did throw that in because it was your week. I'd originally just thrown in the Discworld boast but, once I decided I wanted that to be its own paragraph, it needed fattening up a bit. So it seemed an apt inclusion.

Thanks for getting through a tricky week full of new writers. Big congrats to Rob for a well deserved win which (backhanded compliment in 3...2...) has certainly been a long time in the making. No props to Joe until he commits to an Illumination review.

For us. For them. For you.

I like that story. I can so imagine Ruder saying that.

Fixed my spelling in the title. ...actually it doesn't let me. Curses.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

Thanks for the win. There was some good competition and I've been off-and-on, quality wise, so this is great damn news!

Yeah, it'd have been an easy 4/5 and maybe a 5/5 game if you just took the prologue, C 1-4 and the final chapter. But add in those other 16 times of having to tap the "x" button a million times while Airy's whining at you to keep pressing it and I really started to dislike a lot of this game by the time I was done. A big part of it is simply how you don't really get any new content to explore over chapters 5-8 (unless, like me, you saved the Vampire Castle for C5 because some of those dragon bosses you have to fight to access it are tough). Instead, you just go through a bunch of ones you've already done to re-fight bosses and, in C6, collect a bunch of weapons and armor from blue chests.

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

Thank you for placement! I'm glad my AITD 2 review went over well. Congrats to our victor.

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