Forums > Contributor Zone > Review of the Week September 17-23: What year is it?

Three shmups, a beat 'em up, two platformers and a game with nudity. What year is it again? Never mind that, because I had very few qualms about this week's offering of strong reviews.

While you've all been stuck in the '80s and '90s, I have joined the year 2014 by playing Alien: Isolation. You know, the game where no matter where you go, the Xenomorph is somehow always within five feet of you and sometimes inexplicably appears in front of you, even when the motion sensor says there's nothing around. That game.

That cheap fucking game...

But I digress. This isn't about me, it's about Honestgamer's Boobs Puzzle review. You're a brave soul, Jason Venter. You not only tackled a puzzle game, but one you can complete in a mere fifteen minutes, and suffers from a horrible dearth of content. This is a good review, but it's clear you didn't have much material with which to work. You didn't overwrite the review or contrive some fluffy nonsense, so that's good. I laughed good at the bit about family and pets walking in on the player at the wrong time.

Pickhut is destined to review Double Dragon games forever, but that's good for us. This one talks about why the game is important, showing the title its due respect. However, there's one move that breaks the game, rendering it less than average. Even were the developer to fix that exploit, the game would still be middling. This review dishes out good information, interlaced with some history and opinion, all in equal helpings. It's a good, quick read for anyone thinking about delving into the Arcade Archives presentation of the classic brawler.

One of the platformers we saw this week was Dragonfly Chronicles, as reviewed by Masters. This sounds like a "just plain bad" platformer, given the impeccable Master touch. It's a smooth piece that demonstrates the game's strengths and its abundance of weaknesses. I like that, despite the low score, this review isn't a bash. It remains pretty even and fair, giving its developer the benefit of the doubt while rightly criticizing the qualities that didn't work. The other game you tackled this week offered better content, and thus led to some greater talking points (plus that other review oozed passion).

Follow_Freeman's Donkey Kong Country review was an efficient treat that caught the heart and soul of the game, if not the series. I've never thought of DKC as immersive, but you did a great job of explaining how it can be so. Rare aimed for a certain vibe and nailed it squarely without detracting from gameplay. I'm glad this review didn't merely lean on "it's good because of its presentation" or barrage its readers with blind nostalgia. It's a very insightful read.

Out comes one shooter, with Overdrive taking on Sinistron for third place. This is a good, nuanced review that examines the game's R-Type elements and praises Sinistron for stepping out of R-Type's shadow. However, it's not an entirely good title, because it uses a pointless shield ability and basically lifts cliches from past shmups. This one had good descriptions of the game's various experiences, but worked best in places where you talked about Sinistron's special features, like the beak-nose. I would totally fly a spaceship like that.

EmP reviewed X-Multiply and secured the second spot, which is basically R-Type via Fantastic Voyage. This one turns out not to be as good as R-Type, though it sports many of that game's positive qualities. The strongest thing about this review is the collection of vibrant descriptions, which vividly capture the essence of playing. It was also nice to have that recap at the beginning, letting those of us who don't play shmups often know what Irem was up to at the time, and where X-Multiply fits in their grand scheme.

Masters emerges victorious with Rigid Force Alpha, a game whose title almost sounds like a mistranslated porn. Thankfully, the "alpha" told me it was likely a shoot 'em up. This is a really great review that gets to the heart of one thing: love letters can not only be be good, but valuable. When big developer stop producing our favorites of yesteryear, we can sometimes count on indie developers to snag the fallen torches and light them anew. I love that narrative, and I like that someone picked up R-Type without officially picking up, and that they did it justice. I can't really claim to be an R-Type fan myself, but I respect the series and I'm glad its fans got another title to sate their hunger. This review runs along at a perfect pace and offers proper descriptions of the experience, while justifying why sometimes it's more than okay to clone older titles.

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I've got nothing else to talk about. October approaches, so that means a lot of horror-related content from me. Sadly, most of what you'll receive from me is rehash from Realm of Gaming, which I have been reworking and (in some cases) rewriting. I took the time to replay [REC] Shutter, and I think I dislike it less nowadays than I did five years ago. I mean, not that I suddenly think it's good or anything, but it's leagues ahead of stuff like White Mirror and Alone K.W.

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

Joe, you've outdone yourself -- it's still Monday! Anyway, thanks for the props. Pretty cool when we got three R-Type wannabe shooter reviews up, and two retro action titles. And Venter's porn. And whatever Dragonfly was trying to be.

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

i see absolutely no r-type bias that worked against me

But good week anyway. Although I wanna make sure, was I terribly late in adding in the screenshots to my review? I usually wait until after I see how my text flows on the webpage before adding images; I hope that I wasn't too late in adding them and inadvertently detracted from the reading experience of others. I make very careful use of screenshots to support my points, such as how I showed the goofiest-looking ones (frog rides and squawking birds) as I talked about the game's ability to maintain artistic consistency by establishing its silly tone early on. No one's noted my attention to detail as of yet, but still... Either way, thanks for getting this out so early! I'll try to be as prompt with my editing next time. I actually had this one done on the very last hour of the day, since I've been busy getting interviews with developers for an upcoming project...

Thanks for the placement; it was a tough week, so I'm glad to keep my streak of top 3s going strong! At 2 straight or something like that...

And it was kind of cool to see a top three that was nothing but R-Type wanna-bes. It'd have been all kinds of cooler if mine was #1, but I'm just happy to be in the top three. I'VE SHAKEN OFF THE KEMCO MALAISE!!!!

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

Would have replied earlier, but the pesky site crashed.

What a weird week! I had no idea that Marc and Rob would steal my idea of reviewing an R-Type-like when I originally subbed it, but I'm very glad they did. I was just looking for a game I could blast through after the 100+ hour slog through Yakuza; X Multiply seemed a good choice.

So congrats to my shooter brothers and props to Joe for a speedy topic drop. let's do it all again next week.

For us. For them. For you.

After submitting that review, I actually had the urge to do another Double Dragon review. But I don't want another River City/DD burn-out like last time. There's just something so bizarre about trying to find a genuinely good Double Dragon game in all of this... mess... and each time finding more disappointment.

Thanks for the comments, and congrats to Masters for nabbing RotW in this... weird R-Type threesome showdown.

I head spaceshit noises.

Emp: Don't lie, you picked X-Multiply to satisfy your "X" requirement for the AlphaMarathon.

Pick: Try the Sega Master System version of Double Dragon. I mean, it's not perfect or anything, but I remember it being fun with a friend.

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

The SMS port was actually a childhood game. I played it in recent years and... the game looks nice, but the unstable hit detection threw me for a loop. Maybe I need another revisit.

I head spaceshit noises.

EmP, you know the reality of how it went down. I did my review first and while it was stuck waiting for Jason to get to it, you and Marc jumped on the Rob-Type Train and you were lucky enough to get yours on the site first, so you could pretend it was your idea.

TRUTH BOMB!!! Or at the least, an opportunity to subtly change R-Type to Rob-Type.

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

Marc/Rob. You’re both kind of right. Both your reviews were in the works before mine. I’m just more productive and broke ground first.

After Yakuza was a done deal, I’d actually settled on a replay of R-Type Delta. I’ve not sat down and burst through a shooter in a long time (mainly because I give all my shooter review codes to needy Marc Golding) so I was looking forward to it. Then I got curious and looked up the R-Type timeline. Then I saw X Multiply, which had a similar gimmick to BioHazard Battle, which is one of my favourite games, so I leant towards that instead. It’s true that I needed an X, but I had no initial intentions of reviewing Delta, so the review did only surface to knock out that letter. To its credit, X was an easy write up. Not a landmark entry, but a good time. Deserved a better port run than it got - it never made it outside of Japan. Now it’s back to your regularly scheduled site-supplied games

For us. For them. For you.