Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 9th October – 15th October // The painfully obvious obsessions week

There were a lot of good review this week, to the point where I typed up some feedback blurbs I then would use as places were reshuffled and people gazumped. For the most part, you unlucky bunch can find their notes nicely stored away in feedback topics, to which you are welcome. That leaves the honourable mentions space wide open to talk about Jason. Who is disqualified for this:

This is a game that eats the brave for breakfast. -- You’re doing it on purpose. We both know; we’ve both known for a long time. I’m not even mad. I’m impressed by your perseverance.

Jason’s not got the RotW credit he deserves this year while he spits out shotgun blasts of solid reviews, because they often just miss out on the top three, such is the case here. A few typos have crept into his four (four!) reviews this week that I shall not make fun off because I fixed them as I saw them a little while back and have forgotten what they were – but they were there and I was embarrassed for you. Some of these feel like you’re going through the motions, and that’s okay because they’re uninspired games and you are.

I liked the Earth Atlantis review over the rest; both that and Tiny Barbarian flirted tight with a top three place but were just edged out, I think, on authors writing about genres they have a ridiculous amount of history with. It’s a tough week to write outside your niche, but, to be fair, I don’t think there’s any more big Nintendo games you can gush over for a while.




THIRD: Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare [PSX] Joe

Joe gets what made the original Resident Evil strain of horror games work, and so gets down to explaining why the first attempt at rebooting Alone in the Dark doesn’t really work. It would have been easy just to wail on how it drops the ball on the survival half of survival horror and just rolled with that. Joe does this by talking about the limitless supply of shotgun shells and save items and why this overwrite the player’s fear of running out of resources. But he then kneecaps AitD for a multitude of other well-explained reasons. The controls are cumbersome and the game forces you into time sensitive tasks that punish you for not having responsive inputs. The cast is bland and uninteresting, despite being more likeable in previous chapters.

I like this review because whereas it sounds like he’s about to take AitD to task for being a bad horror game, what he actually does is use that as a way to start talking about how AitD is just a bad game. He even goes back to tie up the thesis he started in the opening paragraph, which is something I do religiously so must be the hallmark of fine writing.


Second: Maid_San’s Caving Adventures [PC] by Masters

Hands down, best bloody line of the week: Who knows why she’s there, or why she thought her attire would make for practical spelunking gear? Ai don’t. It’s a crime you will never get the credit you deserve for that one.

In fact, there are a lot of clever, snarky lines throughout, like mocking the troll’s awful posture. And only you can bemoan the lack of gratuitous fan service. Compared to the rest of the field, you’ve been lumbered with awful material to work with (and, yes, I know I got it for you, but you requested it, so it’s still on you) and you’ve managed to come out the other end with a playful review that still tells the world the game is best left alone.

WIN Friday the 13th: The Game [PC] by Pickhut

Check Pickhut out – all topical and shit.

I’m mildly impressed by your source knowledge on this one. I’m reasonably confident I’ve seen most of (if not all of) the films but they all kind of blur into one big blood stain to me (aside for the original, and the one where he goes to space and batters a girl in a sleeping bag to death with another girl in a sleeping bag). You use this knowledge to very good use, first by building the game up in the opening by comparing it to the locations for the first handful of films and later by running through a laundry list of instances that could be taken from the film source to enhance the game.

Impressing upon the reader this kind of insight works out very well, because they instantly put more faith in your review. You’re a proven Friday 13th nerd, even with your NES game reference, and it lends you an erudite tone.

I really like this review. When you convince something that you’re attached to a project, like you do by showing that the films have stuck with you, and then bash the game, it makes it sound even more disappointing – think Jason bashing Kirby, or some such. That you build the game up to then knock It back down with examples of developer chicanery also makes it a fun read. It was going to take a very good review to come up top today; maybe the hiatus did you some good.

For us. For them. For you.

I like getting feedback on my review instead of on this thread. It gives me a sense of what the site was like in 2011. (Yes, I noticed.) EmP your experience and insight is appreciated and I am grateful.

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

Thanks for the comments on my reviews, EmP! In all honesty, sometimes the food-related references and metaphors are intentional, but also, the fact is that a lot of them are natural and useful. I know they bug you, which is why I sometimes throw them in on purpose if I think far enough ahead to realize it's your week, but I would probably be using them somewhat frequently even if we had never met.

Congratulations to those who placed ahead of me this week, as always!

"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 thought about reviewing some food related game like Burger Time and just loading it with food metaphors for EmP. Maybe one day...

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

Thanks for the RotW! I consider it a compliment that you thought I'm a Friday nerd with all the movie knowledge I was dropping in the review; I've only marathoned the movies in recent years due to my nephew both taking an interest in Jason and being too scared to watch them on his own. Weirdly charming bunch of movies. Prior to that, the most I ever saw of a Friday movie was Part 8's ending (which made zero sense out of context, and even less sense in context) and that sleep bag scene from Jason X.

Congrats on everyone else this week, too! Clearly a tough week, especially since it's October, usually the site's stronger months for reviews.

I head spaceshit noises.