Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Oct. 1-7, 2018 -- WHAT...THE...HELL OCTOBER!!!!

You can tell it's October with the yearly glut of horror-themed reviews when after doing any number of RotWs with easily fewer than 10 reviews to read, I check things and find I have 17 reviews by 14 different authors (including EmP's hold-over which I didn't forget even though if I ever had an excuse to be overwhelmed and not even think about it, this would be the week). After contemplating quitting the site and dropping off of social media and everything so no one can find me ever again, I begrudgingly started reading. Now, since I only have so many hours in a day and this is already up to my previous standards of lateness before I decided to be this site's standard for reliability and punctuality, while I'll say something about all of you, these comments will be brief. If you place, take solace that you were in the top three of a week with more participation than this site's average big tournament and don't be stressed over just getting two or three terse sentences instead of my usual long paragraph of me trying to find a new way of saying that I really liked your work.

With that said, here are all the honorable mentions IN SHORT FORM!

CptRetroBlue had three shortish reviews for retro (duh) games. All were decent, but all could have used a bit of proofing to clear up some awkward phrasings and the like. I did love the mention of the "wiggling ears" attack in Phantasy Star 3. That one cracked me up, too.

EmP had an interesting review of the Sega 32x's take on NBA. A lot of history, both before and after this game, for the Jam franchise was very nice, but there only was a bit of talk about this game detailing what makes it different from other Jams followed by a 3/5 that felt out of place since the review was very complementary of the arcade Jam and mentioned how this was a really fun port where the negativity seemed directed at what came after this one.

sam1193 gave a good take on Absu, strongly illustrating his comparison to Journey and then getting to the crux of what can mar a game like this -- it might be pretty and enjoyable, but the lack of true adversity combined with a slow pace can become tedious.

CtrlAltDestroy2 provided a quality Axiom Verge review that really played up its "spiritual successor" vibe to Super Metroid, referencing how it builds off that game in many ways. Highlighting the flaws via bullet point might have been a bit distracting, as your regular prose flowed better (something I fall into doing every once in a while because it is easier), but this was a good read.

MidCore had a strong review for another old arcade game I had never heard about before. This time, the review is shorter and more compact, making it easier to get through. The history was condensed into a mere paragraph, but still told me what I needed to know about background and the description of the mechanics was easy to understand.

What I liked best about GeoLuz' review of Alan Wake was the way it did a good job of putting me inside the head of someone playing it, with the excited tone talking about how scary this or that might be, while also mentioning that after six chapters of the same sort of stuff, that scariness might turn to tedium. So far, you have only one review on this site. WE NEED MORE!!!

At some point, I'll get a PS4. I keep saying I want to eat up some backlog first, in particular games I have that have (or will have) sequels on that system. But reviews such as Zachary Walton's for Dragon Quest XI make it more likely that'll I'll impulse buy it sooner rather than later and have an even bigger backlog I'll never get through. I might be burnt out on JRPGs overall, but I love me some Dragon Quest and seeing how this game is like the previous in a lot of ways, but with a few new additions to the formula ensures this is a high priority for me.

If you read Jason's and Pickhut's reviews of Mega Man 11 back-to-back, you're in for confusion. Jason loves the Double Gear system and Pick thinks it's unnecessary. Pick loves having longer stages to fully explore each one's challenge, while Jason thinks it makes them a bit tedious, particularly if it's a stage he doesn't like such as Bounce Man's. Both of them do really good jobs of expressing their opinions, too. Guess when I get that PS4, I'll have to buy this game to find out who I agree with where. Assuming beating 1-8 on MM Anniversary Collection for the PS2 doesn't completely break me.

AbsoluteDeicide is another person with only one review up who NEEDS TO WRITE MORE for us. Your review of Agony was just awesome bashing of a crappy game. I mean, you skewered the hell out of it and its mechanics in an entertaining way. Let us know it starts out with potential, but then fails at every turn, while doing so in a way that I enjoyed reading a lot.

And foofaraw is a third first-time site reviewer (you know the drill by now) this week (with CtrlAltDestroy2 getting an honorable mention for having two reviews in as many years). A pretty nice review for a strange-seeming little game. You made it seem pretty interesting. To give a bit of advice, you might want to work a bit on organizing thoughts. I did that same thing early in my reviewing where I'd segue constantly via parenthesis and someone eventually told me to cut down on that and try to make those thoughts flow more organically into the review.

THIRD PLACE

darketernal's Phantasmagoria (PC)

First, the middle pic cracks me up. It's Dana Carvey's SNL Church Lady character covered in blood; so scary!!!! More pertinent, this is a really fun and personable review that does a good job showing how the game is solid in many ways, but has bad acting and is marred by not knowing if it wants to invoke subtle horror or in your face. And your review gives good examples of it doing both. In particular, the part where you mentioned how large the game seems with all the discs and such and then note you can beat it in one day. Good stuff.

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SECOND PLACE

Nightfire's RimWorld (PC)

I loved the intro vignette for this review. It was a great lead-in to what seems to be a super-complicated game that does a whole lot of everything, ranging from battles to sim-like stuff to resource management. Even though explaining all that stuff makes this a fairly long review, it was a very easy and fun read. Kind of like how you mentioned that all the stuff here is accessed via a very intuitive interface that makes things surprisingly doable to accomplish. No easy feat to pull off a review of a game like this and make it really good, but you did.

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REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

JoeTheDestroyer's DOOM (PlayStation 4)

Look, I'll be the first to admit that when I have a lot of really good reviews and need to find ways to order them, ones I can relate to the best might get an edge. And I'm a guy who has spent a gazillion hours playing Doom, Doom 2, Final Doom and any number of Doom wads. Still, taking that into consideration, this review kicked ass. With the amount of time between classic Dooms and this Doom (with Doom 3 in between), it's easy to assume that the formula has been altered to be unrecognizable, but you do a great job of illustrating how this is classic Doom with new-age graphics and a few additions such as those quasi-RPG elements mentioned. Congrats, you won the busiest week in recent site history. Now try to talk EmP into letting this count as two wins, since you beat enough reviews to count for 2-3 weeks of submissions!
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Whew, that was a lot of work! Someone's drinking tonight!

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

Oh my god, you did it. You got buried, but you still got it in by Wednesday. Someone get this man a drink.

Thank you for top placement! Winning against a dozen or so others feels like an accomplishmemt. Congrats as well to Night fire and DE for taking second and third (and welcome back, Night!).

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

Tough weeks ahead for all the RotW judges. It's funny to me before my turn inevitably rolls around. Then I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

Good work getting all this out. You're right about the NBA score; I could have sworn I scored it higher and a 3/5 is a definite lowball. I'll fix that up.

Congrats to DE when he sees this sometime next year, props on the big time comeback tour from Nightfire (long may it continue) and a well deserved win for Joe. That Doom thing was the best review I've read in a while.

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the placement, and thanks for the warm re-welcoming. I don't have a lot of time/energy to write reviews these days so I can't guarantee I will contribute as regularly as I used to, but we'll see.

Grats to Joe for #1. That Doom article was a solid read.

placid like acid

Glad you enjoyed the review! By any chance you'll dive into Mega Man 9 & 10 before giving 11 a shot?

Also congrats to Joe on getting RotW, and for everyone who made OD suffer filled this week with a ton of reading material!

I head spaceshit noises.

Likely. Odds are that after going the PS2 Anniversary Collection, I'll be Mega Man'd out for a while. And then I also have the PS2 MM X Collection, so it might be a long while before I get to 9, 10 or 11.

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

Likely. Odds are that after going the PS2 Anniversary Collection, I'll be Mega Man'd out for a while. And then I also have the PS2 MM X Collection, so it might be a long while before I get to 9, 10 or 11.

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