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Forums > Contributor Zone > RotW -- July 6-12, 2020: Not much suspense here, slackers!

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Author: overdrive (Mod)
Posted: July 15, 2020 (01:13 PM)
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This will be quick and easy. A total of two reviews were submitted last week. One was mine; the other belonged to EmP. Since I'm doing this week's RotW, that means EmP wins by default, sparing him the humiliation of losing out to a review for a damn Mahjong game. So, if any of you end up finishing lower in Site King this year than you wanted to, blame yourselves for letting those three second-place points and one third-place point go to waste. For shame, people, for shame.

Well, except for me. Double-win here! Not only was I productive last week, but I also have a super easy RotW to get through.

REVIEW OF THE WEEK (aka: Overdrive Place)

EmP's Flying Red Barrell: The Diary of a Little Aviator (PC)

So, recently, in judging something you wrote, I included that I liked the line about "plating all the forms". And so you throw in a "shooting all the ups" one in this one. Overkill, dude, overkill. Ought to bust you down to third place out of one review for that.

Taking that out of the equation, a lot of people here have developed their little niche of games where you can tell they're super at home writing about. Joe with horror, Venter with whatever new stuff Nintendo's systems are churning out and you with random PC/Steam games that seem to be pretty obscure or of appeal to a limited grouping of gamers. Well, maybe not me. A lot of the stuff I reviewed the hell out of in the early years is the sort of stuff I don't play much of now, with how I play JRPGs and retro shooters/platformers a lot less than before and, really, the retro has been changed to "stuff that was cool and new and talked about by everyone about seven years ago". But that's besides the point. Whenever I see you've reviewed a PC game and I've never heard of it even once, I generally expect to get a pretty good read. And that was the case once again.

To forego the usual, "You did this good and this good and blahblahblah" stuff, what worked for me about this review was how it all led to a long, but really good conclusion. You mentioned how, being a cute-em-up, you can expect the game to be super-hard, also bringing up how it has a simplistic system with a peashooter and missiles. You mentioned how it's really vague as to how you score big points, making it feel like an accomplishment to simply figure out how to not get those one-star ratings on levels. This leads to the dual conclusion of how this is game meant to be replayed over and over again in order to both figure out how to survive the stages, but also to better your scoring performance. With the caveat that doing so might not be appealing to a lot of people because, with only the most basic weaponry and no way to deviate from that load-out, that could wind up a pretty repetitive affair. And then leaving it open-ended in the "if you read this and know what you like to play, you'll know if this game's style will work for you" way.

Basically a situation where you laid all the cards on the table and let the reader decide if those cards equal a winning hand. And done so in fine fashion. So, good job for writing something that I can give real complements to instead of "Welp, you won by default! Cheers, I guess…"


Back to doing whatever it was that I was doing. Maybe I'll try to figure out what my niche is. Western RPGs? Man, if they were my true niche, I'd be able to write about 6 reviews a year because I get so into their worlds. Kemco? HELL NO WHAT ARE YOU EVEN TYPING THIS ISN'T 2016 ANY MORE YOU IDIOT!?!?!!!!!?!!!! Ah well, I'll just keep it at: Whatever My Whims Allow Me To Randomly Play. Or: Guy Who Lets His Subscription To PS Now Take Over His Life.


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

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Author: honestgamer
Posted: July 15, 2020 (07:03 PM)
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Thanks for the topic, overdrive! Congratulations on your win, EmP, even if you didn't have an imposing field of competition. Maybe next time around!


"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: EmP (Mod)
Posted: July 17, 2020 (09:00 AM)
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Another big win over nobody. Suck it, nobody; I've got your number!

Thanks for the comments; I was hoping to plot the review in such a way that the reader would know by the end if it's for them or not. Sometimes, there's nothing wrong with a game but if it's just not your jam, then you're not going to have a good time. On the assumption that a/ your holdover is not forgotten and b/ I manage to continue carrying this site on my back, it will be nice next RotW to see more than one review talked about. The only time that hasn't happened since the restart has been, of course, my week.


For us. For them. For you.

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Author: overdrive (Mod)
Posted: July 17, 2020 (02:30 PM)
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FUN FACT: I originally had thought about switching weeks with someone just so there would be a 2-person competition. But then decided that (a) I'd probably get buried with some 10-review spectacular on my new week AND (b) Figured I wouldn't have a review ready for next week regardless because I'm in that great position of being mostly done with four different games, but not right at the end of any of them and am being unwilling to focus on one of those games to quickly finish it. Just moving between all four (with a bit of time towards one or another of my other projects), making incremental progress in all of them.

At least that means, I'll be pretty busy writing from the end of this month through the next! In theory.


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

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