Forums > Contributor Zone > All I want for Christmas... 2008 Edition

Because it's never too soon to break out the holiday music...

Here's a new idea, and maybe it works, and maybe it doesn't, but let's give it a shot and see what comes of it. So this topic poses a simple question:

What games do you want reviewed for Christmas?

We all have favorite games we enjoy (or would enjoy) reading about. There are plenty of great writers around here that can spin a new or interesting take on anything. And you know, this being the season of giving and whatnot, maybe one (or more!) of them answers your call and you've got something to read Christmas morning. Maybe they give you a big lump of coal in your stocking and pan your favorite game. Maybe no one even cares and writes a review. Who knows!

But you'll never know until you wish for a game to be reviewed!

So post what games you'd like to see reviewed for Christmas (don't make requests of a particular author). I'll keep a wish list going. Those secret santas (keep it a surprise if you decide to review anything requested!) answering the call are encouraged to wait until the night of December 24th or Christmas Day to post their gifts. Because half the fun of Christmas is anticipation!

Make as many wishes as you want. Maybe you get what you want. Maybe you don't. But it's a non-competitive and fun contest for everyone, and it has the potential for great writing and surprises. So muster up some fucking holiday spirit and join in.

CHRISTMAS WISHES

Dagoss - Baldur's Gate: Throne of Bhaal
drella - Cadillacs & Dinosaurs
drella - Kingdom Under Fire
drella - Good Zelda/Bad Metroid or Good Metroid/Bad Zelda
emp - Shining in the Darkness
felix - Lot Lot
felix - Panzer Dragoon Saga
felix - Ys
janus - Braid
masters - Alone in the Dark 3
masters - System Shock
meeptroid - Wario Land 3
overdrive - Brave Fencer Musashi
overdrive - Fire Emblem (anything)
overdrive - Vagrant Story
venter - Daikatana (GBC)
wq - Dynowarz
wq - Golden Axe
zigfried - Arcana Heart
zigfried - Twinkle Tale
zip - Shaiya
zip - Any old Hugo games
dogma - Guardians/Denji Makai II
sho - Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall (PC)
sho - Secret of the Silver Blades (any version)
sho - Any good review for an Apple II game
sho - Super Punch-Out!! (SNES)
sho - Dead of the Brain 1&2 (Turbo CD)
sho - Dragon Knight & Graffiti (Turbo CD)
genj - Doki Doki Majo Saiban
penguin - Luminous Arc (DS)
penguin - Magical Starsign (DS)
penguin - Shadow Hearts: Covenant (PS2)
penguin - Mega Man X Maverick Hunter (PSP)

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

Arcana Heart and Twinkle Tale!

//Zig

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

This seems like a neat idea. I'll try to think of something later.

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

This is a pretty good idea, Drella. Here's what I'd like to see underneath my Christmas tree:

-Panzer Dragoon Saga (SAT)
-Ys (NES)
-Lot Lot (NES)

I've been pretty good all year. I don't ask for much!

I don't have to boost my review resume because I have a real resume.

Ok. Thought of a couple.

Dynowarz (NES) Pretty sure it there's only one. Might have a longer title.
Golden Axe (GEN)

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

I'd like to see a review of that new free MMORPG, Shaiya I think it's called.

I'd also be tickled if someone did reviews of the old Hugo games.

Note to gamers: when someone shoots you in the face, they aren't "gay." They are "psychopathic."

I'll start a list here, sure. I'd like to see people review:

Daikatana (Game Boy Color)

I'll add more as I think about them.

"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

Daikatana! Bless it.

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

Braid

"fuck yeah oblivion" - Jihad

Shining in the Darkness

For us. For them. For you.

Brave Fencer Musachi
Vagrant Story
Anything Fire Emblem

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

System Shock
Alone in the Dark 3

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

Ys for NES, too, I think, even if it's already requested. Is that allowed? =/

[Eating EmP's brain] probably isn't a good idea. I mean... He's British, which means his brain's wired for PAL and your eyes are NTSC. - Will

I would say if you specify the NES version, yes. Because I'd guess that, as someone who did review the NES version, that anyone asking for a Ys review ISN'T looking for the NES one, necessarily....

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

I've got a new request:

I'd like to read a positive Metroid review and a negative Legend of Zelda review, because it strikes me as utterly bizarre everyone who has written about them on this site has turned against one but not the other...

All of the "Metroid flaws" seem to apply to both. There's no map in either (well, really not much of one in Zelda); only in Metroid is this a complaint. There's a lot of similar looking areas in both; only Metroid gets tagged as flawed here. There's some repetitive backtracking to gather supplies: health and missiles in Metroid and rupees and health in Zelda. Neither character can attack diagonally.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but fundamentally they seem pretty similar to me. I still like them both. I don't see this supposedly huge difference; Sportsman, to pick on someone, gave Zelda a 10 and Metroid a 1, and this seems both rash and extreme. There's nuance between the two for sure, but I don't follow this at all. So maybe someone could better explain this, because I'm reading labyrinths are engrossing in one and tedious in another.

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

New PC and an X Box please.

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

My Metroid review was a bit harsh, I just to give it a 1 (or 10) for the contest it was in. It's probably more of a 3.

The difference between Metroid and Zelda is most of the flaws in Zelda can be overlooked. You don't really have to search for rupees unless you want the blue ring early in the game and the heart problem can be solved in less than two minutes by walking up and a few screens to the left to reach the fairy. In Metroid this can take up to 20-30 minutes. I would've liked diagonal controls in Zelda but it didn't seem to make it much more difficult for me, which in Metroid the lack of diagonal shooting made it impossible to dodge certain enemies and severely crippled how you could attack (and it kinda makes sense since in real life you can only swing a sword in front of you).

The only aspect I would have a hard time defending is the map. In Zelda I never got lost and in Metroid I got lost plenty of times so maybe that's why it was never an issue to me.

In other words, I also wouldn't mind seeing a praise Metroid and a bash Zelda, but it won't be from me!

IF YOU WANT MORE BEATS FOR YOUR BUCK THERE'S NO LUCK.

Yeah, even if Zelda uses a lot of the same graphical tiles, its world map is quite distinctive. I can easily find my way around it and most screens (aside from Death Mountain) are completely unique. That's the overworld. As for the dungeons, they're so distinct from one another that it's incredible. Each has a unique sense of atmosphere--brought about large in part by the enemies--and any sense of "Where in the world am I?" is the result of never having been there before (as opposed to the sensation of wondering if the screen you've just reached in Metroid is new territory... or somewhere that you've already been three times).

I can agree that from a 'nuts and bolts' perspective, there are a lot of similarities in the formula. However, Zelda nails it pretty spectacularly and Metroid doesn't really. I still wouldn't personally give Metroid terribly low marks (even the 3 that Sportsman cited seems extremely low) because the core formula makes for good gameplay either way, but I do feel that Zelda went with the same sort of stuff and took it to a much better place.

"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

Nintendo was on to something with Metroid but the actual game was extremely flawed. Super Metroid (and to a lesser extent Zero Mission) took the forumla and turned it into something fantastic. Metroid might be better if it was the only game of its type but with better offerings out there it is completely obsolete.

IF YOU WANT MORE BEATS FOR YOUR BUCK THERE'S NO LUCK.

let's face it: both suck pretty hard.

For us. For them. For you.

Whether I review it from a "modern" perspective or a "how I felt about it when it was new" perspective, Zelda would score somewhere in the middle range. Perhaps I should bring myself to play it again -- the last time was a couple years back. It was basically do the same thing over and over and over again.

Metroid, on the other hand, I always loved. The secrets had more variety to them (even if some were "unofficial"), the settings had more variety, and it was just a cooler concept in general.

//Zig

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

With me, I'd give these as my main reasons for putting Zelda over Metroid.

1. Nostalgia. Zelda was (along with the SMB/Duck Hunt combo, Rygar and RC Pro-Am) my first NES game. It was a ways later that I borrowed Metroid from a friend.

2. While they have a lot of things in common, as far as those annoying points, they don't bother me in Zelda like in Metroid. Like, you have fairy ponds to regain all your life, so when you start up a saved quest, you don't have to fight a bunch of enemies to get maxed out on life, like you do in Metroid. Also, while Zelda has no real overworld map, at least there's a radar-like box on the screen, so you can see roughly where you're at in the world. And Zelda doesn't have lava pits where you can fall into and watch your life melt away amazingly quickly while you're trying to jump out of the accursed thing.

Still, this is a very valid request and I'd be very interested in reading the reviews of someone who likes Metroid more than Zelda.

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

I want a review for Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal.

Not sure how to make a sig? While logged into your account, you can edit it and your other public and private information from the Settings page.

I'd really like to see Wario Land 3 reviewed.

"It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything."

I was never able to get into the original Zelda, but I first played it post-2000. So there's no nostalgia there for me. Too bad I'm a retired reviewer. :P

I can avoid death by not having a life.