Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW: Sept. 9-15 -- Three's company, four's a crowd

As the old saying (not actually) goes: three's company, four's a crowd. And there is no crowd this week, with only three reviews in the running counting overdrive's holdover from last week. Look under your chairs, all who participated! You get a placement, you get a placement and you get a placement. I am truly at my most Oprah Winfrey right now. On with the comments!

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Third Place: Jurassic Park: The Game (PC) by EmP

I don't know what the fascination is with dinosaur games... is what I would say if I hadn't recently reviewed one myself (and a Jurassic Park one, at that) in recent weeks. But anyway, EmP jumps into the fray with a review for a Telltale game that fell flat. The review doesn't suffer that same fate, and also doesn't overstay its welcome. It spends no time on details that don't matter in the big picture, because the big picture is oppressive QTEs that EmP describes beautifully with a few fine examples. I loved the bit about a character running awkwardly up the stairs, as opposed to running smoothly up the stairs, and how that worked in contrast to more important events executed with the same process. It was convincing stuff. The clever gimmick in the conclusion works better than some gimmicks because it serves as a reminder that QTEs aren't especially fun when they mean you have to fail and go through everything again. But nice try, EmP; you can't trick me into reading the review a fifth time. I finally realized there's no winning and I'll never see that more conventional summation!

Runner Up: Super Mario 64 DS (DS) by overdrive

The timing of this review was interesting to me, as I've been doing a lot of work on the site lately to spruce up our DS listings. That effort has served as a reminder to me that in the site's history, our community has perhaps never done a better job of covering a system's library than it did with the DS. This submission carries on that proud tradition, offering a 2019 look with fresh eyes at a game that we actually covered somewhat extensively back in the day. Smartly, and somewhat fortunately, overdrive is able to cover both the port itself and his fresh thoughts on the original game, because this is how he first experienced Super Mario 64. While that contributes to a great review, the approach is not entirely to his benefit as a player. I like Super Mario 64, but I also feel it hasn't aged particularly well. The port did a lackluster job of capturing its best qualities while (unfortunately) exaggerating or at least doing nothing much to fix its flaws. Overdrive relates his experiences with the general design and with the camera issues in particular in a review that is a pleasure to read... unless maybe you're now seething because Super Mario 64 is a perfect game and how could anyone not like it?! But I think we're all past that, and besides... anyone who wants a great 3D platformer with Mario can always go play Super Mario Odyssey on Switch.

Review of the Week: Armored Core: Last Raven (PS2) by WilltheGreat

Reviews for older games are a thing this week, and WilltheGreat drops by with his thoguhts on Armored Core: Last Raven, just in time for the recent release of Daemon X Machina on Switch (which was made by some of the same folks). This older PS2 game, according to Will's review, warrants 4.5 out of 5 stars. People who love Armored Core seem to REALLY love Armored Core, so that didn't come as a surprise. But Will does a good job of explaining how a few differences and wise adjustments make Last Raven such a treat compared to some others in the beloved (by people who aren't me) series, with evocative descriptions and some meaningful analysis of the impact a quality story has on the game and its replay value. This is fine writing indeed, with the author turning in some of the best work I can remember ever seeing from him, but that realization is bittersweet because it makes me sad we don't see him active around here a bit more frequently.

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Thanks for the contributionss, all. It was a slow week but also the sort of week that produced nothing but excellence. Any one of these reviews could probably have won first place on a week with only slightly less stellar competition, for real. Ranking everything this time around was tough.

I continue to be delighted by the variety of titles we come together to cover on the site. Your work inspires me to put in more work behind the scenes, to build a better gallery for your artful game critiques. Thank you for everything you do, and I look forward--as always--to seeing what comes next!

"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

Kudos on getting the topic up so fast, Jason.

Also, where the hell did Will come from?

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