Forums > Contributor Zone > Review of the Week: August 20 - 26. Week Off Edition.

I have no excuse to have this ROTW out so late. I mean, I know the deadline is technically Wednesday, but I'm currently on vacation and I only had four reviews to read. Obviously, most of day time is devoted to spending time with the kids, since I'm off and they haven't gone back to school yet. I also set some goals for myself during my amazing ten days off work:

1. Find my missing jury duty papers. Yeah, I've been selected for jury duty for the third freakin' time. Most people don't even get called once. I already served on a case before, for which the defendant was found guilty. I don't really want to talk about that. Bottom line, though: I found the papers. I was worried one of my kids put it in the garbage, thinking they were doing me a favor.

2. Beat Dragon Age II. Mission accomplished, unfortunately. I'm the kind of person who has to play a series in order. I finished Origins last year and loved the hell out of it. I wanted to dive right into Inquisition, but my stubborn mind wouldn't let me touch it until II lay dead at my feet (or at least until I have it the old college try). It was an arduous playthrough, thankfully softened by its cast of likable characters.

I went with a male warrior build for Hawke, kept one of his preset designs because it greatly resembled a good friend of mine, romanced Isabela and basically sided with the mages at all times. I also killed the High Dragon, which was the only worthwhile battle on offer. Ultimately, though, it's a boring RPG because almost all of it transpires within a single town.

And I'm not saying that Dragon Age II's town is a hub, either, and that there are severa outside that you can visit (a la Ys III). During any of the three acts, you see three areas outside of town to explore at most. Almost all of the quests involve running errands or venturing to various parts of the town Kirkwall, from the poorer sectors to the upper class neighborhoods. Imagine playing Final Fantasy VI and never leaving Narshe, except to venture to one of three areas on the outskirts for a short while. Terra receives a slew of quests to complete, many of which require her to enter buildings and search copied and pasted dungeons. You battle through several warehouses that are exactly the same, delve into several caves that are identical and enter back alleys that may as well be the same street. That's Dragon Age II.

3. Start Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm only in the first area outside of the hub region, and already this game is leaps and bounds a better title than its predecessor. Imagine if someone took the best parts of Dragon Age: Origins and combined them with the elements that actually worked for Gothic. I would never have imagined a game that plays like a merger betwee BioWare and Piranha Bytes would be so terrific. However, I'm only a few hours into the campaign, so we'll see if it stays thoroughly fresh.

One complaint I have is that animals tend to spawn out of nowhere, sometimes right next to you. And by "animals," I mean "sometimes fucking bears." You'll be exploring all nice and dandy-like, ready to interact with an object so you can continue a quest or add to a collection, and then a bear that wasn't there a second ago interrupts your expedition. Thankfully, they're more manageable than Skyrim's bears, but it's still annoying.

4. Finish Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. My wife really got into the Dresden Files, and wanted me to read them. I dragged my feet, only because I had other stuff to read first. I polished off the first book not too long ago, and haven't had much time to read this second one. I'm now well past the halfway mark, so hopefully I'll have it done within the next few days.

Enough yammer. Four review from four heavy-hitters, and I had a helluva time ranking them.

EmP wrote about Dungeon Girl, a dungeon puzzler that sounds a bit overloaded. I've played my share of these games, and so far they're all pretty much the same. You do a great job of illustrating this game as being all over the place, trying to shoehorn as many concepts in as possible. It's a pretty list-like review, which is to be expected of any take on a puzzler. They're always so technical that most of us can't do more than list functions and tell the reader whether or not the finished product has any staying power or is worth playing in the first place. You do that with a well written article that maintains an even, casual tone, and that's really all I ask for here.

Freeman returned to hit El Viento for third place. This was a lot like OD's review. It was very detailed and dished out crits on particular scenes, rather than lumping all of its flaws into neat, list-like sections. However, picking apart and dissecting segments of the game worked well for this piece. It's such a detailed review that I basically feel like I've played the game, even though I've only actually played maybe five minutes of it. A couple of sentences had me scratching my head, but this is an otherwise well written, in-depth review.

Masters covered the shooter AstroViking and took second place, a game that sounds like Robotron meets Devil Daggers. As always, your word choice is on point, and the review flows marvelously well. I loved the description you gave in the fourth paragraph the most, and it almost sold the game for me. Then you yanked the carpet out from underneath me, as well you should, since this title gets repetitive and loses its charm after some sessions. It sounds like a pretty standard indie game, and this piece lets the reader know that they're in for some excitement, but only so much.

Overdrive remembered Super Castlevania IV, a game that I kind of enjoy. He also picked up the ROTW crown this week. I like the latter half of this game, anyway. Everything leading up to Dracula's castle sort of bores me. But once you get into the dance hall and plow through scenes like the swinging chandeliers or negotiating the crumbling money platforms, the game revives itself like a corpse rising from the grave. I dig this review for a number of reasons. It starts out kind of rote, as if to get all of that nonsense out of the way. It segues into comparisons with Castlevania III not only for clarity, but to explain why some of SCIV's features didn't impress some people. The last bits talk about particular segments, and serve as both a blog-like remembrance and a detailed crit of particular portions of the game. This review dishes all sorts of info in a variety of ways, and still flows wonderfully. Nice work!

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Well, I'm off to enjoy my vacation and read any reviews that pop up occasionally. The air quality here in Spokane has finally evened out, after we were practically smothered by forest fire smoke (no joke, out local air quality made it into the "hazardous" range, and I have asthma). I can finally take the kids to the park without feeling like I'm going to suffocate.

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

Thanks for the win! It's been a while since I've gotten one of those!

In other notes, I've been lucky with jury duty. Only gotten it once and the case never went to trial so I didn't need to even bother with showing up. Which is good; only so many hours in a day and so on...

You're not making me want to take DA II off my backlog and play. Not with that sort of verdict on how tedious it is. And just when I thought I'd forgotten about Suskie's similar complaints, too...

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

Good job continuing the streak of timely RotWs. Thanks for the kind words. I also liked Rob's review -- congratulations.

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

Hey, no need to feel bad about taking your time to get these out; putting aside the fact that getting feedback on this sort of thing is a privilege instead of an obligation, you had more important matters to tend to IRL.

Anyway, good week and thanks for the honors; even when there's but a few reviews coming in, I can count on them to be good!