Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 21st – 27th October // I’ve forgotten how to sleep and now everything is late edition

Okay then…

There are FIVE unique authors in the running this week, Except one of them is me, and now there are four. That sounds pretty bloody easy in theory, but Joe’s written forty seven reviews in the time it’s taken me to finish this sentence, so I’ve got a bit of a slog ahead of me. I’ll still have time to predict that Rob will balls up my holdover on his watch next week, but that’s because I always make time for Rob.

Let’s do thing.

Resident Evil 4 (PC) Geoluz

Geo starts his review by talking about what the newest PC post of a pretty old game has advanced and, while it makes for a pretty stiff introduction, there is merit there. It gets all the technical notes out of the way early, and there’s an argument to be made that a decent number of people will be looking for nothing but this information. There’s perhaps a sense of stiffness that continues through the review, but it’s very clever in what it select to talk about. For example, I don’t recall many other reviews mentioning the random nature of scoring headshots on the villagers because, while sometimes it’s the quickest way to down them, it also means that, sometimes, angry mutant bugs burst from the stump and try to eat your face.



THIRD Bonk’s Revenge [TG16] Overdrive

I think, in the battle for silver, this is the better written review but, unusually for Rob, it’s also the least enthusiastic about its subject. There’s a lot of words in there, and it sometimes feels a bit too much, such as needing to go back and make the same Mario and Sonic comparison twice. The review never really engaged me in the way that Rob review usually do - it seemed a very sterile review. Don’t think badly of me for not liking this one so much, OD -- remember I gave you a win last month!

HOWEVER! I really liked the dig about putting revenge in the title when Bonk has precisely nothing to avenge.


SECOND Ghost of a Tale (Switch) Flobknocker

Your line spacing is weird. Why is your line spacing so weird? There’s a few other oddities picking up throughout -- for example, you said you mentioned interesting in this game during the opening line, but how is a random reader supposed to connect those kind of dots up? There’s also a missing capital T from Tale in the same line.

That said, there really is a lot to like about this review, which takes a game I’ve never heard of and has me checking out gameplay videos shortly after I’ve completed my reading. Highlights include talking about how the game made you feel bad for killing previously perceived enemies after it forces you to get to know them in later chapters, and how the game world is so well realised, you wanted to be able to explore more than what’s on display.

WIN Alicemare (PC) Joe

So.

Joe wrote twelve reviews in two weeks, and I gets to try and figure out the best of ‘em. But they were all varying degrees of good, so here we go with a footnotes section of the ones that stood out:

I liked the angle taken when talking about Shadowgate, comparing death simulator, Dark Souls with the exhausting amount of deaths found within, and how it’s inevitable since you’re controlling a basic everyman rather than a Belmont. It’s also fair in how it’s pointed out most of these deaths and random and near unavoidable, and how that seems to be the bulk of the game rather than some grand narrative adventure. There’s a fair few typos in the early going, though.

Order of Ecclesia, likewise, offered a good hook (this isn’t the game of my youth – harrumph!) but did suffer from some stiff phrasing and a groanworthy cliché conclusion you’re better than. You also have the site’s second best Among The Sleep review! There were also other reviews. With words and everything!

Alicemare’s a good one. Rather than focusing on its RPGMaker-esque foundations, you pick the rights topic to talk about in how the game embraces a different kind of weirdness from the usual horror fare and, in doing so, elevate it from the asset swapped walking sims you continue to subject yourself to (yet still wouldn’t play Illumination and, no, I’m NOT ready to let that go yet). I’ve been known to enjoy an atypical horror game or two in my time, and this one has found itself on my wishlist. So you must have done something right. Alicemare wins the week.

For us. For them. For you.

Thank you very much for this topic. I'm sorry you got stuck with eighty of my reviews, but I appreciate you reading them. Also, thanks for the win!

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