Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 24th September – 30th September // Cartoon Hour

I went to bed last night knowing there were only four reviews, but expecting the near-obligatory zero hour Freeman drop to add to that. Dragging out of bed to do the wageslave thing, I notice a distinct lack of any new reviews. Well, that’ll be easy then, thought optimistic Gary. Then I sat down to do this thing, and somehow that bloody Masters has snuck one in through the back door. The man is the bane of my life.

The following is thoughts recorded under light duress about a bunch of reasonable reviews. No one really hit it out of the park this week aside from me, and I can’t count myself, but that’s okay, because Rob will forget to next week, as well

Speaking of Rob, his sign off to Kemco is pretty fitting, as is the fact that going back to it has ended his RotW placement streak. There’s a lesson in there somewhere. Here, he lets his burnout not only show, but form the spine of a review on a game that’s very much like another game he’s reviewed. If this is the end of that little project, then I will offer some kudos. I bitch about how I locked myself into the 32X mess, but at least that (awful, awful) stuff contains wildly different games, and not just the same template endlessly recycled. Come back and pick at it when something stokes your interest; it will give you something new to write about.

CptRetroBlue has a pop at Sonic Heroes, in a bullet-point style review. There’s some spacing issues, and not a lot of words, which tells when a decent amount of the review is giving advice on how to play it rather then talk about how it plays. The foundations of a good review are there, but it’s a bit of a fixer-upper.



THIRD Rayman Legends: Definitive Edition [SWH] by Mariner

Off to a rough start with the 2000-GFaqs-era opening paragraph shtick of finishing off with a question. Will this review wield information about the game you’re checking out? Read on to find out!

The rest of the review works much better, even if it does overdoses on in-game terminology now and then. With your lums and teensies and murfys. The poor spellchecker must have had quite the headache.

I think what I liked most about this review is it tries not to just be a good stuff vs bad stiff list, but attempts to talk about the game as a whole. It’s a bit clumsy at points, but manages to make for a convincing read.

SECOND Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu [360] by Masters

I’m both glad and furious that Marc’s reviewed this game. I’m glad because it will shuttle people towards his excellent TG16 review of the same game. Why is it excellent? Because I cut my teeth on ridiculous HTML code on making that banner back in the day. Check it out - it’s a mouse-over! We also rescued flying Jackie from what used to be the scorebox where we could enter our own custom text rather than suffer Jason’s drab summaries and, now, nothing at all. Why furious? Because he knows that I’m incapable of letting the TG16 Jackie surge across the bottom of the screen in this NES review. It’s the wrong one! Now I need to make another.

Marc does one thing especially well that I remain completely incapable of pulling off -- being concise. He’s able to say in a couple of hundred words what I would have to ramble on about for pages. Point in case; this review. In very few words, he manages to convince me he’s an authority on the subject matter - whether that’s something to be proud about or not is another discussion.

The main thrust of his argument today is that JCAKF on the Nes is a decent game, but fails to stand up to its more powerful version. In making this point, it would have been easy for the review to lapse into a companion piece rather than a standalone review that would have placed his TG16 effort as required reading. But this pitfall is dodged by providing just enough information for the reader to compare the two versions against each other. And it’s still so concise, despite providing all that info! I’d be at 1,200 words by now.

WIN The Simpsons Game [360] by Joe

I can’t speak for everyone, but I seem to have come across the following sentiment with increasing consistency; game tries satire and falls into the same traps it’s trying to make fun of. Joe wastes zero time pointing out that this is the case for yet another Simpsons games, a video game franchise I refuse to revisit after Escape from Camp Deadly stole chunks of my childhood.

So, then, substandard parody fails at being self aware. Joe’s Best Of moments include pointing out how things mocked by the game as ingrained as looting breakable crates and pressure pad puzzles might be wide-spread but bother relatively few. Or noting how quiet the game’s sarcastic quips become when referencing its own failures.

Once that point is securely nailed in, Joe moves onto the game’s more mundane failures, of which there are plenty. The Simpsons should be a fun IP to work off, but it continues to spit out awful video games (that arcade brawler being the one notable exception). Same as it ever was, says Joe.

For us. For them. For you.

I know there weren't many reviews, but thanks for doing an EXTREMELY prompt RotW. Congrats to Joe on his very good Simpsons review. And as always, it's nice to see a mariner review. Finally, like you, I was surprised not to see an 11th hour Freeman effort drop.

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

It's entirely possible I personally screwed up an 11th-hour Freeman drop by taking more time than usual to consider two recent game addition requests in The Production Room. I can assure you it wasn't intentional, if that's indeed what happened.

"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'm not complaining about having less to do.

Carry on.

For us. For them. For you.

No offense taken, and it was a week with plenty of good reading, regardless! I even have some extra reviews waiting to be used at the right time, but I must stand by my stance of these mods being worthy of journalistic overview due to having enormous historical significance to one of Nintendo's flagship series, on both the official and community-driven side of creative processes. If we want to keep up with other gaming sites, it would be best to document these games, as they have, and my previously unbroken 30+ consecutive weekly contributions have demonstrated that I am up to the task, as a citation-laced, interview-bolstered article a wealth of potential new readers are waiting for can attest.

EDIT: Compromise reached, look forward to a review/blog double treat sometime in the future...

Ha ha Har! Thank you for the win. On a side note you can include Hit & Run with the brawler, and I've heard the arcade bowling title is decent.

Grats as well to Mariner and Masters as well on their placement.

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

If it's any consolation (for me), it's that I had more fun writing Asdivine Menace than the last infinity Kemco reviews. Apparently coming to grips with my apathy and making it the cornerstone of my review at least made it enjoyable to write!

And who knows, I might still do 2-4 of those reviews a year, give or take. Bastards are taking up space on my tablet and I did spend money for most of them, so I feel some sort of compulsion to eliminate them gradually. Very gradually...if I go a few months before dealing with another generic "I always do good things because I'm a good person" Exe-Create hero, that's probably best for us all.

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

I wonder if mariner and CptRetroBlue know about RotW and are simply lurking indifferently? Or maybe they're put off by Emp's coarse words?

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