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Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 22nd October – 28th October // Horror's Last Stand (until next week)

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Author: EmP (Mod)
Posted: November 01, 2018 (10:55 AM)
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Judgment delayed while I capped all that Halloween project nonsense. So glad I spent over an hour on a huge twitter thread to collect three retweets and a couple of favourites. Yay!

Now to take it out on your reviews:

Freeman runs riot on an impressive passion project, the likes of which we all say we’re going to totally do one day but never, ever do. It’s an exhaustive effort, linked to the back of three other exhaustive efforts that all do an excellent job of displaying just how invested in the series you are. It’s hard to build that kind of credibility so quickly in a review, which is, at best, a couple of thousand words, but it’s important because you words weigh more with the reader if they accept you as an authority.

This review has authority in spades. It sometimes makes the mistake of assuming the reader is as invested in the series as Freeman is, but it kind of works with something as seminal as Smash. For example, I have not played a second of any Smash game, but it’s so well known, I at least know the gist of it vicariously.

My issue with the review is that you’ve given the game a perfect score which is heavily reliant on fan-based mods. You make a very good argument about how this versions lacks without the modifications (the backwards step using Mario games was a point well made). I dunno; the conclusion says so long as you play the game in a way the developers certainly didn’t intend it to be played, then it’s worthy of a perfect score. It just seems a bit of a misleading argument. Is it just me? Maybe.

I liked Jason’s reviews. I liked Dungeon Village the most, so I’ll talk more about that one. He’s starting to rival Rob with his “let’s talk about meeee!” rambles, but they mostly stay in sync with the game discussion. What I do take issue with is something Jason rightly hints at people other than he taking issue with; ridiculous price inflation between media ports. I think a game should justify more than “You can now play this on a TV” to more than double their price, and this review doesn’t mention any other improvements, so I assume that’s it. That’s a sham, son. Your blind Nintendo purchasing has made a fool of you!

I do think you’re far too forgiving in that regard, but it’s worded in a way that allows the reader to make up their own mind. The review’s highlight, I think, was talking about how the game hits a suggested end state, but you were involved enough to want to keep playing anyway. I suppose you needed to get value for money after you allowed yourself to be ripped off like a mug!

I’ll stop now.

Somewhere in this mess, I make fun of Rob for being the king of halting game discussion so he can talk about himself a bit. None of that here. Not a single sentence. Way to make me look bad. Jerk.

The opening point is a bit mock-worthy though. Suggesting that Nintendo have made enough Mario games, even by that now-distant point in time, isn’t a ground-breaking thought. They churn these things out in their sleep so should be bloody good at it by now. I’ve never actually played a wario game, so hearing the differences was interesting to me, which highlights the review’s best aspect. It’s an informative little blighter, showing a sense of focus that must have killed Rob inside, as this tight reign rarely gets away from him. Maybe a little listy at times (i.e., the hat rundown), but it’s not a bloody Kemco game a review I’m glad to have read.


THIRD Ninja Wariors [NES] by Pickhut

There’s a few things in Pick’s review that don’t make a lot of sense to me. Like in the third paragraph, you talk about the console port differing from the arcade, but your examples are unclear. Are you saying the robot’s an entirely new addition to the squad? Are you suggesting you were not able to select your fighter in the arcades? I’m not sure!

The review is very well balanced, though, moving from complaint to praise seamlessly and painting a more complete picture of the whole. Every time I say something to the effect of how Pick might be the fairest critic of us all. In being so, he’s made a great take on a middling game reviewed well. Those middling games are bastards.

SECOND DreamWeb [PC] by DE

DE’s intro is a bit clumsy, going on about how all those developers can't do cyberpunk right, even if the second big complaint is to whine about poor game mechanics, which seems a pretty universal complaint not unique to the setting. But the rest of the review is great, bouncing in and out of the game’s setting, which is “how insane can we turn our protagonist?” It would have been easy to drop paragraphs of spoilers, and tempting too considering the game’s juicy content, but this review says right on the edge. You should read this review, phantom person reading my review of this review, and see if it makes you want to delve into an abondareware site and pick at the game.

I remember that diary, to. Back when games came in boxes with manuals and purchasing them was a BIG DEAL and not just a couple of errant mouse clicks.

WIN ANNA [PC] by Joe

Centering on a best Joe review has been a bit of a struggle. Somewhat because Joe’s good at what he does and is the second best a real site authority on horror games. He knows what makes the genre tick and, because of that, he’s able to zone in on what they do right or what they do wrong. This is a talent that been earnt in graft.

The other reason is that he’s written 47 reviews.

Some of these were kind of throw away, which is fine because shit like 24 HOURS are throw away games. I liked Bug island because it gave you a chance to show off your B-Movie nerdery; I liked RED because I’d assumed it was going to be another garbage shovelware game, but instead you did it great justice that overwrote my expectations. I’d be interested to know what you thought your best review of the last couple of weeks was. But if you picked another other than ANNA, you’re wrong.

Let’s talk about me. Back when I finally caved and bought into Steam, ANNA was one of the first games I ever purchased from the service. This’ll date me; it was a little before it got the extended edition tag and in its unrefined form, it was a bit dull. I picked at it a bit, but soon found other things to hold my interest.

Joe makes it clear that the game’s come good. Dropping in little details like the always actively trolling doll helps set the game as a creepy time, but he never gives it a free ride. It doesn’t quite balance the praise/bash segments as fluidly as Pick’s review, and it doesn't quite have the delicious source material DE’s working with, but it manages to paint a fuller picture of its game and what makes it work the way it does.


For us. For them. For you.

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Author: dementedhut
Posted: November 01, 2018 (12:19 PM)
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Careful! The last time you said I was being fair, I completely trashed the next game I submitted a review for.

Thanks for the comments, and I definitely understand how you could be confused about that paragraph. I modified it a bit, hopefully clearing up some confusion.

As always, a congrats to the others for contributing this week, darketernal for getting second, and to Joe for nabbing another RotW!


I head spaceshit noises.

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Author: honestgamer
Posted: November 01, 2018 (12:26 PM)
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I think a critic can be forgiven talking about himself to a certain extent in this bloggy era, especially if the discussion is made relevant to game dissection. So I try to do that when I talk about me. I also try to write my reviews in a way that gives readers enough information they can make up their own mind, and know whether they are likely to agree with my analysis if they play the game, or feel quite differently. So it sounds like I succeeded in both efforts with my review you liked most this week, and that's encouraging on some level even if I didn't win.

Also, as a side note, you do seem to have sparked a bit of discussion on a fairly important indie game with someone who was on the development team--or privy to inside details on motivation and such--over on Twitter, and I would say that's always worthwhile and interesting. In regards to social media reception, I would say this year's round of horror game reviews has been more successful than most, so that's something to feel good about.

Thanks for reading, and for assembling this topic. Congratulations to those who placed ahead of me during a ridiculously tough week. And not the last week, it looks like. We're busy again with a lot of quality output this next one. I love it!


"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

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Author: Follow_Freeman
Posted: November 01, 2018 (10:53 PM)
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I strongly agree with Jason's sentiments. Nothing wrong with personalizing one's writing; if the reader prefers something more generic, there's surely something out there for them, but there's only one Jason Venter or Follow Freeman or what have you. If I wanted dry, blandly objective writing, I'd head over to IGN or GameSpot; I read HG for well-argued reviews that also bother to let me know where the author's coming from.

As for my Brawl review, if it gave off the idea that the game is excellent only by way of playing it via means the devs did not intend, that only because that's exactly the point I observed. The impact of fans making their voices heard is still continuing to this day, with Ultimate aping the Legacy XP mod in that it brings back all old characters and stages (with competitive-friendly variants), and the last Nintendo Direct even revealed they were bringing back some more features from Melee, too. I hope that I encouraged the community to consider trying more ambitious, in-depth content; just as was the case for the Smash Bros. modders I interviewed, I'm sure there are plenty of other great indie devs out there who would be delighted to have reviewers reach out to them, and there's nary a review of a good indie game that couldn't benefit from insight on the creative process. And that's good for this site's publicity, too; you may have noticed my side-blog got over a couple hundred views within 24 hours of publication. We have a unique advantage in that we're more personal than an IGN but still large enough to be worth the while for a skilled yet under-the-radar dev to be willing to cooperate. Let's not waste this opportunity any longer!

Incidentally, strange that we're getting more reviews published right after when school's started for everyone, much more so than during the summer. They're all fine reads, though, so it all works out well for us lovers of personal, high-quality game reviews.

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Author: JoeTheDestroyer (Mod)
Posted: November 03, 2018 (12:57 AM)
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Hahahaaaa! Thank you for the victory, and thanks to everyone else who submitted horror reviews this month. You are all appreciated for contributing to this awesome event. Except Pickhut, who wrote about ninjas. Geez Pick (kidding, it was a good review).


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

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Author: overdrive (Mod)
Posted: November 03, 2018 (09:49 AM)
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Thanks for the comments and such. I'm glad to disappoint you by being focused and not talking about myself! Although you should be mad at Jason on that, as he removed a segue-way into me talking about how I finished Super Mario Bros. 2 with 60+ lives on hand. Was it forced? Hell yeah! But it goes to show that when left to my own devices, I will always make my reviews about me!

Oh, and Freeman: "Incidentally, strange that we're getting more reviews published right after when school's started for everyone".

School's out FOREVER! And has been for me for a couple decades. My boom/bust periods in reviewing revolve around my work schedule. None of this school stuff!


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

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