November: The Reviewing Chronicals.

Honeycomb Beat (DS) November 6th

This was purely written on the publisher’s request as both Jason and Pup have a review up for this game already. Three staff reviews and no users, odd. Anyway, this meant that saying something new about it wasn’t really going to happen, so I didn’t bother checking on the aforementioned pair of reviews and just wrote. It’s a puzzle game review, so it’s not going top be my best thing ever, but it is adequate.

The jellyfish pic used to be the paragraph that you’d see on the game’s data page, but this made Jason uncomfortable. Probably because it upstaged the hell out of review effort!

Sam & Max 201: Ice Station Santa (PC) November 11th

Just when you think you’re free from a series….

Don’t get me wrong, I love playing the new Sam & Max games, but writing about them gets harder and harder each review – and this is my 8th review! I’m enjoying the games far too much to let some other slacker take the contract, though.

The new series seems to have a few key differences from the last, including an effort to drag in new players, so perhaps I’ll have something new to write about. Here’s hoping.

Escape from Paradise City (PC) November 18th

Martine was set to review this one, so it was posted to him. He couldn’t play it on his laptop. So I offered it to new boy PAJ89, but he was busy with exams. Trying to get Ben to review a PC game these days is an exercise in frustration, so I gave up and did it myself. Pretty glad I did. The game’s actually a lot more fun that I imagined and is probably the best of its kind since Syndicate back in ’93. There are a lot of good ideas within so I’m hopeful to see more from the developers in the future.

Luminious Ark (DS) November 25th

When I originally asked for a review code of this game, I was told I couldn’t have one and was sent Valhalla Knights and Honeycomb Beat instead. It was only after the PR firm employed a new guy who actually came out and asked me if I wanted a copy that one arrived. The game then got busy taking over my life.

I took it to my football matches and played it at half time. I took it to the gym to play on the treadmill a few times. Hell, I kept it on my bike and barely resisted the urge to play at red lights. It’s a great game and one I’m still playing via the new game + mode.

Best thing I’ve played on the DS bar none. But the review was tricky because it does have some rather glaring problems that needed to be addressed and not skipped over so I could praise the hell out of it. Everything considered, I’m very happy with how this one came out.

Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (DS) November 30th

So, this one was kinda fun. The rambly bit at the front is a real love-it-or-hate-it affair and the powers that be on site decided they hated it. This was quickly downgraded to a user review and then, upon my request, moved to the secondary account. The timing of its releases is either perfect of terrible, what with all the drama revolving around reviewing thanks to Gamespot and CNet’s shenanigans, but the review was written long before these events mostly at work on the new blog forums which I have converted into a digital notepad or sorts. Hourglass is simply a dull game that’s only shot on innovation is tied in with the gimmicky system it has been released on. Someone needed to tell the world!

Felix linked it to the GameFaqs message board where it was quickly deleted for trolling. I did likewise with a review of his (Sex Vixens from Space) which was nuked for spamming.