Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Oct. 16-22 -- Horrors, Cartoons and Other Things

Here's an interesting week. While there are a total of 12 reviews (counting an EmP holdover from last week), there only are seven contenders. Joe did three, while Hasty, Masters and EmP each have two. As a side note, looks like Jerec has to contend with me again, as I have a holdover from this week to go to next (Journey to Kreisia). Why is this interesting? Mainly because it's a slow Tuesday at the office and I'd find myself interested by most anything.

THIRD PLACE

EmP's JYDGE (PC)

Twas a close battle between this review and Hasty's Hob for third place, but you won by a hair. Or nose or whatever your "won a close battle" metaphor of choice is overseas. You did a solid review of an interesting game with this one. Kind of a creative title, where you have to do things in a variety of ways in order to get the necessary medals to progress, while at the same time, evolving your character so it can do more stuff in clearing stages. You did a good job of bringing all that to the forefront, which resulted in an enjoyable read that told me all I needed to know in a pretty concise, informatory way.

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SECOND PLACE

Joe's Alone in the Dark (Xbox 360)

I was close to giving this spot to your review of The Tape because you did a really good job of tearing apart what sounds like a "let's do a found footage game without thinking how to implement it FOR EVEN ONE MINUTE" sort of thing, but this review had the combination of being really good and making me hate my bad luck, so it wins. I've mentioned this before, but a couple (few?) years ago, I went to GameStop and bought a used Alpha Protocol. Except the dude at the counter placed this game in the case instead and I didn't realize it until about a year or so had passed and I was in the mood to play AP. My initial reaction was: "This is a respectable series, so this game might be good!" and then noticed reviews weren't particularly well. After reading this, I'm pretty sure that game will be firmly at the very end of my backlog, slightly behind those two old Medal of Honor games I'll likely never touch again because of how archaic they fell compared to any FPS released more recently. With this review, you really showed off all your AitD cred you've built up by playing virtually every game in the series. You know what to look for and you're able to pinpoint where this game failed to deliver. Inconsistent puzzles, glitches, tedious crap, etc. All in all, you simply did a great job of painting a picture of a game that failed to live up to expectations, only having the occasional positive mixed in with a lot of mediocre-to-bad stuff.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

Marc's Cuphead (PC)

I've heard about this game a decent bit recently. Kind of equal parts its difficulty and its art style. For that reason, I thought it was really cool that you took the tactic of simply mentioning the old-school cartoon vibe and then spent the entirety of the review gushing over how thrilling it was to play. After all, one can simply look at the pics to see that cartoon look; focus on what a picture can't tell. Like how challenging it is. How you can't rely on pure reflexes. How you have to scratch and claw for everything, with the game humorously showing (taunting?) you with how much further you have to go in order to get past whatever's been killing you. There was just a lot of good phrasings throughout this one -- I especially liked the "Cuphead lover, who is also the Cuphead persevere-er" line. As a guy who's spent a decent amount of time playing action games where difficulty is a big selling point, I can attest to how love for these things is best illustrated by simply wanting to persevere a little bit longer. This was a really good week, overall, but I still had no trouble picking my winner. The other spots may have required a bit of thought, but not this one!
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And that's my last Halloween Month week for this year!

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

I find it comforting that I'm within a nose - or hair or whatever - of top three. I plan to keep working hard to improve my prose and creativity. Congratz to the winners!

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

Not even an honorable mention :(
Ah well.

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

Hey, the only way to improve is to keep at it.

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

Well, in fairness, Zyd, if I'd gone more in-depth like I did with my last RotW, you probably would have gotten some sort of honorable mention recognition. But right now, I'm balancing being busy at work with trying to get a ton of reviews done, since I finished a few games and am close to finishing a couple more all at once, so I kind of breezed through this one with a bit less effort than usual.

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

I knew Guardians would never get a look in so long as you were judge. But I preferred that Jydge one anyway. Even if typing that Y instead of a U killed me a little inside each time.

Thanks for the comments and props to all. Another very fierce week; no one should feel bad for not getting in the top three.

For us. For them. For you.

Har har yar, 2nd place! Thank you for the almost win, but grats to EmP for besting me.

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

Tell me you're not actually dressing up for Halloween?

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

EmP
In fairness, even if I liked TellTale's stuff, it'd be hard for Guardians to get far with me judging-wise, since it's a mid-point (or later) game in a story-driven series, putting you in the unenviable spot of trying to review the game, while not openly spoiling it, leaving things in a situation where I, as a person with little familiarity with the GotG characters and none with this series other than your reviews, gleaned little more than how TellTale is doing better with the writing than in a couple recent series and how there's a lot of conflict that may not be resolved happily down the stretch, while reiterating that each episode seems to focus on one particular character.

I think the toughest thing when it comes to reviews of these games as far as contest/judging purposes go is that, unlike other gaming series, where the games are essentially stand-alone even if connected story-wise, if you're not there from the start, you're not going to get much out of any aspect of it, so with me not having played any of these games and not being overly familiar with the subject matter, it's essentially one of those reviews that's well-written and useful for a person into what TellTale does, but hard to necessarily get into if you're not following along with what they do because it's essentially a review of one chapter of a game that's being released as individual chapters instead of as a completed product.

But anyway, Jydge (and yes, it is grating to type it like that) was a better review all-around, I thought. You just felt more "into it", I think when you writing it, not having to dance around potential spoilers or take time reminding people what happened before, but focusing on the action and how it works. Which is the sort of thing you're really good at, which doesn't get to come out in a TellTale review because of how so much of the "action" is simply making choices.

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

I'm only messing. I think it's borderline hilarious that these GotG reviews always seem to fall on your week. In an uncharacteristic spate of generosity, when I can I try to avoid subbing adventure games on your weeks because I know you dislike them and that Jerec loves those awful games. But I don;t have the choice to sit on newly release Telltale stuff, so you get to suffer with them instead.

For us. For them. For you.

Jerec is also a little tired of TellTale's output. They peaked around Tales of Monkey Island/Sam & Max: Devil's Playhouse, then went more towards interactive movies with the Walking Dead, although that ended up being very popular.

I did like The Wolf Among Us, but have largely ignored their monthly output.

I couldn't imagine reviewing these things chapter by chapter, as each episode can usually be finished in around 3 hours and most of it is story and dialogue with a few simple puzzles thrown in.

I can avoid death by not having a life.

I really like The Wolf Among us. I think it's showing more and more that Telltale is stretching their team to take on all these licenses. I'm enjoying GotG for the most part, but that has a lot to do with the setting

For us. For them. For you.