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After posting my original story up, I received replies from Bloomer who mentioned that he still had all of the judging and interviews saved from Summer Fever 2004. I asked him to send them to me, and they reminded me of a lot of the stuff I had forgotten.

I believe the draft went like this:

theREALbbobb picks Masters
Sashanan picks Lord Alan
midwinter picks Bobotheclown
Kobold Warrior picks Asherdeus
Kobold Warrior picks DJSkittles
midwinter picks Genjuro Kibagami
Sashanan picks Richo Rosai
theREALbbobb picks Lilica
theREALbbobb picks Ohio State
Sashanan picks Shinnokz
midwinter picks FFM
Kobold Warrior picks J Dog
Kobold Warrior picks Disco1960
midwinter picks Golden Vortex
Sashanan picks Dark Vortex
theREALbbobb picks Karpah

I know that I got the first pick and Kobold got the last, and I'm pretty sure Sashanan got second because I think I remember Lord Alan being the second pick. In hindsight, my picks for Lilica and Ohio State are probably two of the biggest steals ever in a reviewer tournament; hell, I knew at the time what a good deal I was getting. Fastkilr was also in the pool, and while he wasn't technically drafted, midwinter was nice enough to adopt him and rotate their line-up so Fastkilr could play.

So the teams looked like this:

theREALbbobb - ~~The Anonymities~~ The Dream Team
theREALbbobb (captain)
Masters
Lilica
Ohio State
Karpah

Sashanan - Spaceman Spiffs
Sashanan (captain)
Lord Alan
Richo Rosai
Shin
Dark Vortex

midwinter - The Axis Of Machismo
midwinter (captain)
BobotheClown
Genjuro Kibagami
FFM
Golden Vortex

Kobold Warrior - The Fear
Kobold Warrior (captain)
Asher
Skittles
J Dog
Disco1960

There was a six week season, with every team facing each other twice, one home and one away game. Then there was a one-game playoff.

I am retroactively renaming my team The Dream Team because the old name is stupid and brings me much shame. Now, in my original post I mentioned that victory did not come too cleanly for The Dream Team. Upon reading the old judge reports, I realized that I had made an enormous understatement. Our ultimate victory was actually nothing short of miraculous, a comeback of massive proportions.

All manner of unexpected hiccups in the start slowed us down. Lilica lost her first two matches to Richo and then Skittles. Masters won his first against Sashanan, but then lost three matches straight to Kobold Warrior's Metal Slug 3, Midwinter's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow, and a rematch to Sashanan's Neptune Daughters. The former two were the infamous synapse verdicts. Ohio State, while acknowledged for his incredibly entertaining and funny writing, also received some complaints about his writing being loopy and exhaustive to the point of being exhausting. I personally used some reviews that today I consider horrible (though some of them won at the time). Karpah had the best individual record out of anyone on my team by week 4, which was 3-1.

So after the fourth week of a six game season, it seemed like The Dream Team had imploded. We were in dead last: our team record was 1-3, with a total individual record of 10-10. Zigfried said that in the reviewer chats everyone laughed about my team. Besides how stacked it looked, I imagine they also laughed partly because of how well my team was not doing. Granted, I don't think they blamed me, or anyone on my team, for the situation. Instead, they blamed Bloomer, particularly for the two synapse verdicts against Masters - a judge retort, if you will.

But you all know the happy ending, so the only question left is how we turned it around with only two weeks left in the regular season. For one, things started going better for the heavy hitters. After starting off 0-2, Lilica went undefeated afterward. Likewise, Masters went undefeated for his remaining three matches. I personally won my last two matches of the regular season, being particularly instrumental in game six, using two reviews that I actually feel okay about today. Karpah, like the other woman on my team, would end with a 5-2 individual record.

In week five The Dream Team experienced a major breakthrough. We were up against Kobold Warrior's team, the leader of the tournament at the time with a team record of 3-1. The lineup was different from our last match against them since they had home court advantage. Kobold put himself up against me, leaving Asher to handle Masters. It didn't quite work out for him. I defeated Kobold with my Suikoden review, which isn't that great, but I usually think of it as my first good review ever. In the grand scheme of things, The Dream Team swept Kobold 5-0, the only such occurrence in the entire season. Week five also experienced another interesting development as Vegita replaced FFM as a member of midwinter's team after FFM had one of his infamous review tantrums after losing.

This dethroned Kobold as the leader, putting midwinter's team in first. The Dream Team was still only in third, although we somehow managed to have the best total individual record at the time with 15-10. Conveniently enough, in the sixth and final round of the season we were up against midwinter's team. We didn't sweep; instead, we merely won 3-2 with a bbobb-Masters-Lilica victory.

At the end of the regular season, Kobold had regained the lead with a total team record of 4-2, defeating Sashanan who ended up in last place. The Dream Team's defeat of midwinter brought the two even in team wins of 3-3, but our week five sweep gave us the better total individual record, better than even Kobold's, which put us in second and secured the playoff spot.

The final I sort of already covered in my last post. I think Kobold received home court advantage because he was the season leader, but it didn't matter too much in the end. He put me back up against Asher, and took Masters on himself. We won 4-1, the only loss being myself. For some reason this tournament had a rule allowing reviews that had already be used before in the final, so bloomer basically judged a bunch of reviews he already judged before. This was fortunate for me, since my teammates all had great reviews that were easy to find for the final.

And that's about it! I would go on to captain a major league team of Autorock and FFM to the playoffs next year but fall short of victory, and then eventually take a long, four-year hiatus from reviewing. Lilica would soon realize her enormous potential as one of the best reviewers this community has ever seen, winning official and unofficial Beat-Zig's, penning PDO, before disappearing, reappearing very briefly, and then disappearing again. Karpah and Ohio disappeared, and as far as I know have not been seen to this day; bless their souls, particularly Ohio, who was an amazing writer and personality.

Masters is still kind of around and shit.

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My Shadow Hearts: Covenant review was truly done as a process over time. I started with just writing down scattered ideas, and each day over the course of a little over a week I would add a bit more. The first draft was an 1800 word monstrosity that was pretty incoherent.

At its current state as a more or less finished product, it's still 1600, which is over my old regular. I used to write more around 1200, with my maximum usually being around 1500. These weren't personally enforced measurements, just habits.

My active vocabulary isn't as big as it used to be, and a lot of words don't come to me as easily anymore. Still, the review still reflects my old style to an extent, somewhat wordy and a little over-sophisticated, though I think it's still pretty clear.

Despite how in the past I usually had trouble just getting enough information for a complete review, I practically had too much stuff and even had to omit stuff. I had a paragraph that was basically GRAPHICS, though I think I kind of fit it in at first, but it was eventually axed. It also included a bit about Yuri's fusions, and I was hoping to talk about the cool high level fire and earth fusions, big suits of armor and rockbeasts with crystals jutting out of their backs respectively. In the end I never even used the word fusion in my review, deciding that it was a technical term that would need to be defined, and that demon transformation was a more accessible phrase.

I also had some things to say about music. A lot of people actually have a lot of positive things to say about Covenant's music, though not me. It's often noisy, and when it's not noisy, it's forgettable. At best it can be called experimental and does a good job of capturing feelings of insanity. While other games often put a lot of attention into their music and it adds a lot of experience, Shadow Hearts: Covenant has crappy music but the rest of the content is strong enough to stand without it. In this sense, I consider it the polar opposite of FF8, in which the great music is far more enjoyable than the entire rest of the content combined.

There may have been even more things to say, but I was trying to determine what was important and what wasn't. I wanted the writing to be at least somewhat lean, and I definitely didn't want to write a bloated review.

But now I'm going to play an even better RPG: Lunar SSSC!

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In 2004 I participated in what was called “the minor league” Team Tournament by Fact and other AIM chatroom people involved in the regular TT. The format was strange: four teams of five people, bloomer as sole judge because there was simply no one else to spare with two TT’s going on. I don’t know the reason for this nor do I know how this played out in the week scheduling.

I suppose part of it may have been related to the fact that the draft pool for this TT covered a much wider range of skill levels than in the regular TT. Part of the reason it was called “the minor league” was that the draft pool consisted of the leftovers from the standard TT draft who didn’t make the cut, as well as many people who didn’t bother to enter the standard TT because they felt they weren’t good enough to be drafted. I was among the latter. By then my name had become known, and I think I was on the ROTD schedule, but I was not personally confident in my abilities and felt overshadowed by what I saw as a community full of more experienced and talented writers.

The minor league TT was meant to be all-inclusive however. What made me comfortable was that a lot of people were entering who I felt I was at least as good as, and in some cases better than. I don’t entirely remember why, but whereas I hesitated to enter my name into the standard TT draft due to lack of confidence, I signed onto the minor league TT as a captain. To my surprise this was accepted and welcomed, and the first thing I did was develop a draft plan.

The draft worked in the same way as the normal TT, except with four rounds. The draft pool wasn’t devoid of talent either. In addition to major league TT draft leftovers, it included people who didn’t think to enter the regular TT or simply didn’t come around in time to enter. Such individuals included Masters, the most coveted draftee in the pool, and the legendary wordsmith and then-Zigfried-in-the-making Lilica.

In truth, I wanted Lilica more than anyone else, but I knew Masters was the most desired person in the field, and I had the first pick. I took a calculated risk: I used my first pick on Masters, hedging my bets on the likelihood that none of the other captains knew how good Lilica was, or that she was any good at all, since she had then joined only recently. My plan worked, as I watched the other captains draft reviewers like Lord Alan, Asherdeus, and DJSkittles over her. I had the two heaviest hitters in the field on my team. Shinnokz and Karpah rounded out the ranks of my gender-diverse, five-person team.

Despite my apparently stacked team, victory did not come as cleanly as would have been expected. I don’t remember exactly how many weeks there were, but I think Masters finished with a total record of something like 5-3 or 4-3, not quite his expected performance. The reality of the situation was that while he was a great addition as a writer, he was somewhat difficult to work with. An odd character, he was initially difficult to communicate with, and eventually he was incommunicado altogether for unknown reasons. This meant that I had to pick reviews for him to be used for the contest, and I recall him having a very large catalogue, one that made poring through it almost prohibitively difficult.

Lilica turned out to be the real performer on my team. I think she had only one loss and she even took over captain duties one week while I was away, though she faced the same difficulty in selecting a Masters review. My other teammates performed well, and the ultimate result was the victory of the minor league TT. The final was against a team captained by Kobold Warrior, which included Asherdeus, DJSKittles, Disco1960, and one other I can’t remember. We won 4-1, the only loss being my review of Chaos Legion versus Asher’s review of Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes.

I like to believe that my shrewd and focused captaining had a lot to do with my victory, but at the same time I think having an immensely stacked team helped as well. There was some controversy over bloomer’s judging, particularly when he gave a win to Sashanan over Masters with his justification being the particular synaptic firings of his brain. I didn’t personally care all that much. I just looked forward to the rest of the tournament and how I could win it. The most amazing thing that year was how there was so much interest that two Team Tournaments were held, even if the minor league was often forgotten.

This wasn’t so in the next year, and I participated this time in the only team tournament, again assuming the role as captain. I must have had the third or fourth or fifth draft pick because my first pick was Autorock. He was my heavy hitter and a great writer. What ever happened to him? In any case, there wasn’t the depth and overall quantity of quality reviewers in 2005 that there was in 2004. With my second draft pick I chose Scott “Just a Dab” Clemmons because I deemed him the best of the remaining draft hopefuls. The historical record makes Scott look like a savior, and while it’s true that my team could not have gone as far as it did without the wins brought by his reviews, the reality of the situation was that he was just as much of a liability as an asset.

That Scott lost his first match against Gruel and then won his next six makes his performance sound like something of an inspirational story, like the ones in sports movies such as Hoosiers and Remember the Titans.

What happened was that when Scott saw that he was up against Gruel in the first round, being Scott, he scoffed and figured that there was no way he could possibly lose. So that’s precisely what happened: he posted a horrible review for the match and lost. In retrospect, perhaps I should have used my captain power to intervene, but I must have put enough trust in him at the time and did not want to be too commanding.

The loss devastated Scott, and he immediately announced that he quit the TT, completely without regard for the fact that he signed on to a team participating in a seven- to nine-weeklong competition. I suppose it’s possible that I could have signed someone new, but I didn’t think of it at the time, and I’m not sure if there actually was anyone else to sign on. My course of action was similar to what I did with Masters a year earlier: sift through his catalogue and post the reviews myself.

In a way, it was easier doing this for Scott, because he had a much smaller catalogue, so it was much more manageable. At the same time, it was harder, because it had nowhere near the depth or quality of Masters’ catalogue. I did what I could, analyzing all six of his upcoming matches in the week following his defeat to Gruel. I had to sift through his reviews, finding the ones of acceptable-enough quality for tournament use, saving his best reviews for his hardest matches. It worked, and the 6-1 record is primarily what the historical record sees. Autorock had either a 3-4 or a 4-3 record, his major moment being his upset against Fact. I must have had either a 2-5 or 3-4 record; unimpressive, but the combined team record was enough to bring us into the playoffs.

But by the time playoffs rolled around, we had kind of already blown our load. Scott’s catalogue was simply spent: there was nothing left in it worth using, and because of his tantrum there was no hope of him writing new ones. For the semifinals I simply could not count on his match being a win and it wasn’t one. I think Autorock won his match, but my review of Splinter Cell lost 2-1 to Emp, and that was the end of our ride.

I brought that team as far as it could have possibly gone. In all honesty, I don’t think Scott would have had the record he ended up with had he stuck with it and chosen the reviews himself. Though it brought me some fortune, I think drafting him was the worst overall action I’ve taken as a TT captain, while my subsequent manipulation of his catalogue was my best. Autorock had only an average record, but the fact of the matter is that he had all the hardest matches. He was the heavy hitter so he had to go up against all the other heavy hitters, and given his victory against the previously undefeated Fact, I think he performed spectacularly. The one factor that I felt I did not control well enough was my own performance. I did not produce as much as I had hoped, though the few reviews I did produce in that time are probably among the best I’ve written.

It is now 2009 and it has been four years since I’ve participated in a TT or even written a review for that matter. I was actually entirely prepared for the possibility that I wouldn’t even be drafted since I haven’t done anything in a while, and the few times I entered a contest, I flaked. I figured that if I was picked however, it would probably be one of the captains who has been around longer, and I turned out to be exactly right! Not that I would have minded playing on anyone else’s team, but I am particularly glad that I’m on Janus’ team. Although I don’t usually think of him as one of my primary inspirations, reading his recent reviews of A Fading Melody and Sonic the Hedgehog has reminded me of what a great writer he is, and the truth is that he has always been one for as long as I can remember. He has the formal excellence, the personality and the insight.

Besides the fact that I just plain didn’t sign up in time, I entered as a draftee rather than as a captain because I didn’t want to assume the burden the role entails. However, I am aware that this burden is partially imagined and self-imposed by me, and that not all captains view the position the same way. That’s why I still assume it a bit anyway. I’ve been looking at the field, trying to figure out ahead of time which reviews I plan to write I should use against particular reviewers. The only problem with this is that it’s been a while, and not only am I not acquainted with the newer names, but I’m not familiar with how the writing of older names may have changed. How much have people like Golden Vortex, True and Disco1960 improved?

Perhaps more than anything else, the reason I have entered the TT is to get myself writing reviews again. Those few times I entered contests but flaked, I entered them knowing that I could flake if I had to, and that there wouldn’t be too much consequence for it. But this is a Team Tournament, and I’ve committed myself to at least seven weeks. As of now, I have about one review about 70% of the way done, which I plan to finish in time for the first round. It’s actually looking alright. I’m trying to get used to the idea of writing as a gradual process of development as opposed to an hour or two of hyper-focused concentration and inspiration. I have about ten other reviews in the making, mostly just ideas I jotted down while they were fresh in my head, though some of them are already pretty significant. I’m not sure which ones to write next, part of the reason being that I’m wondering which will make the best “tournament” reviews. But the most important thing for me right now is that I just get with the writing again.

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Writing reviews that is, not whatever you had in mind.

A few weeks ago I wrote an 11,000 word piece examining the business model of The Southwestern Company and its consequences. It was the biggest piece of writing I had ever done. It was also the first piece of extracurricular writing I have done since the last review I submitted to HG, which was in 2005, before I started college.

When I first started writing reviews on GameFAQs at 15 or 16 years of age, I was basically a machine. I could simply take a game and more or less without stopping put everything I had to say about it down on paper (or on the screen really) and post it as a review. Those reviews probably weren't very good, but the writing process was so much simpler and easier back then.

As I received feedback from ROTD's I began to learn more and obsess more about writing well. One comment in particular stuck with me: Denouemont gave a review I wrote for Skies of Arcadia an honorable mention, but remarked that the writing did not flow well. At the time it was a concept beyond my skills and understanding, and even today I feel it escapes me to a degree. I was directed to NT220's review of Lufia for a seminal example. Man was that guy good, and I'm pretty sure he wasn't even a native English speaker.

I ended up taking a pretty long break from reviewing, and extracurricular writing in general, because the process became too hard with perfectionist obsession. Four years have passed, mostly with school, drinking, and other appropriate activities for my demographic. In a year I will graduate with a BA in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley.

I've come back to reviewing with an older, wiser head, assuming I haven't killed too many brain cells with mind-altering substances. I have a greater respect for the writing process, and a greater sense of humility for where I stand as a writer. It can be both too inspiring and too disheartening to look at a review like King Broccoli's review of FFX and think, "Man, I want to write like that."

The perfectionist tendencies haven't gone away entirely. But more so than four years ago, I'm sometimes able and willing to just put down ideas, even if I don't think I have them worded perfectly yet.

I think that's a good (re)start.

Mood: Venterific, what else?

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So I just bought a 15th Anniversary Edition Street Fighter Arcade Stick to play Tekken, Street Fighter 3, CvS2 and Guilty Gear with. It's in good condition. But man, trying to start playing these games on a stick feels like learning the games all over again.

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My Divine Sealing review has 666 hits.

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http://www.gamefaqs.com/features/top10/1135.html

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My roommate leaves his used condoms in the trash can in our room. Pretty disgusting, cuz, you know, I would never want to be near anything that was inside his girlfriend.

Game of the Day: Super Smash Bros. Melee

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>:(

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English 45A: Literature in English through Milton - C+
Astronomy C10: Introduction to General Astronomy - C+
Political Science 2: Introduction to Comparative Politics - C
Near Eastern Studies 24: Literature in Islam - A

On an unrelated note, I just finished playing Homeworld, and I have to say that it's been a long time since I've played a game as incredible as that. I'd say it also has the best video game name ever.

Game of the Day: Homeworld

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I got a D+ on my English midterm. Please shoot me.

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God I was so fucked up last night. Still trying to figure out how I made it back to the dorm.

Game of the Day: MU Online
Song of the Day: Small Two of Pieces - Yasunori Mitsuda and some singer bitch

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I am fucked.

I could be doing something to help the fact that I'm fucked but blogging is far more interesting than reading Middle English texts. I have an English midterm in twelve hours in an English class where the majority of the shit we read isn't even in fucking English. Thank you University of California at Berkeley. I spent about four hours last night fucking translating a miniscule portion (about 200 lines) of the stuff I'm being tested on -- translating in a fucking English class! Meanwhile, it seems Middle English authors and orators always dealt with an audience of fucking retards. I drew this conclusion from the fact that they always seem to feel the need to convey their messages by saying everything thrice:

Men will often hear and tell -- of the battle of the king
And of knights that were hardy -- that much is true
They will need to hear -- tales of such things
Hardy battles he may hear -- of apostles and martyrs
That hardy knights were -- that stood in battle with the king

This is my punishment for choosing to be an English major. Fortunately, English classes can only get better after completing the class on literature from Beowulf to Milton, since the rest of them will actually be in fucking English. At least Chaucer will be ridiculously easy by the time I get to that.

It's easy to get wound up about this shit. For the first time in my life I actually have to worry about the possibility of failing classes -- that fact that it's a possibility is new and unfamiliar. Clearly I'm not smoking enough fucking pot.

I took a bit of a break from the four hours of academic bullshit by playing some of Metal Gear Solid 2, a game that's engrossing and retarded all at once. It's so much fun choking guards to death or hiding from them by jumping over a rail and hanging from a ledge. The physics and the incredible enemy AI makes it so believable -- that is, until it stupidly breaks from its seamless world with moments like these:

Colonel: Raiden, if you want to activate the node, walk up to it and press the ACTION BUTTON.

At which point, Raiden stupidly repeats: "Uh huh, I see. So if I want to activate the node, I walk up to it and press the ACTION BUTTON?"

That sure is a testament to Hideo Kojima's brilliance.

I think I'm just about done for now. I spent the summer trying to get over the biggest crush of my life and then she started IMing over the past two months, and she's got all this stupid fucking sappy romantic bullshit in her profile.

God, I'm just not smoking enough fucking pot.

Game of the Day: Unreal Tournament 2004
Song of the Day: Coldplay - Speed of Sound

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