Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW // 18th November – 24th November // Clock Watcher Edition

THIRD Mario Clock [NDS] Honestgamer

Wherein Jason Venter reviews a clock.

I mean, you review it as well as anyone probably could. It’s good that you took the time early on to explain why you’ve decided to review a glorified clock because, otherwise, people might start questioning your need to talk about anything with even the lightest Nintendo tint (nintinto?) attached.

On the other hand, your lazy use of “Is X going to be Y? Read on to find out!” to close out the second paragraph is awful, and you deserve to be called out on it!

Otherwise, yeah, it’s a review of a clock. Other than question who’d leave their DS/3DS on all night so as to make use of the alarm, there’s not really a lot more I can add. Well done on recording to history some little semi-obsolete bit of software that will probably cease to exist soon. I find that a worthwhile endeavour.

SECOND Dark Devotion (PC) Joe

I’m not sorry for bringing the pun plague to HG’s taglines. I feel a sense of pride in how it’s infected so many of you. Like a fungus.

I think this is a good hook to take, that the game kicks your arse while you slowly chip away at it. Maybe that’s because I recently beat Sundered, which also has a massive kill everything fetish. I didn’t really like the opening paragraph which felt a bit like a placeholder, but the documenting of the difficulty and how you eventually got around it made a lot of sense to me. You also did remarkable well by getting through most of your review before you compared the game to Dark Souls. So close! Though, to be fair, this game certainly deserves that comparison a lot more than the comparison usually merits elsewhere.

One complaint: you finish a paragraph with “I could rattle of Dark Devotions horrors for days”, but the majority of examples you used were pretty generic. More of the green children, please; less lava belching golems. How gauche. (Also, off, not of.)

WIN 198X (PC) Masters

I review all kinds of weird shit (Jason personally ensures that I can’t go more than five reviews without lobbing a visual novel at me, for example. None of the rest of you have to review VNs!), but my least favourite category is easily compilations. Marc has a very abridged compilation title, but still takes all the different games modes to task, in a direct fashion that wastes no words, but still manages to tie them back to their obvious inspirations and then note how lacking they are.

Perhaps he doesn’t manage to do that as well with the dungeon crawler, because he’s yet to let the rage-inducing majesty of Eye of the Beholder into his life. The best of them is the arcade action takedown that wants to be Strider or Shinobi, but is instead a sodding ever-runner. Those are rarely any good! Really, though, what impresses about this review is that it takes a game that has a short run length but pulls itself in six very different directions (five completely different genres, and the plot that ties them all together) and wraps up the discussion in about the time it would take for Rob to just finish his rambling intro. Gots to sneak in hidden Rob shots somewhere.

For us. For them. For you.

Thanks for the nod on this very small week. And you got it up the next day in record time! That's probably more impressive than our reviews.

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

I used the "keep reading" phrasing quite deliberately, for a variety of reasons. Your protest over its use actually tells me it served at least part of its intended purpose.

And yes, although I recognize that a review for a clock doesn't on the one hand make for exciting reading (hence my use of that phrase), on the other hand I do feel (like you) that it serves a valuable function. I hope to review lots more oddities in the years to follow, around other work I'm performing around the site. And if I ever finish or even just catch up on that work, you should look forward to a flood of Nintendo-focused content from yours truly. I've unofficially declared it my personal beat.

Thanks for the timely topic, even though I knew I had no chance of placing at the top of the heap. Sometimes, a man just has to review what a man has to review. Sometimes, a man has to review a clock.

"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

On the one hand, and then on the other hand?

I see what you did there.

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