Back in the opening days of HGWars I realized my HGPoints would dwindle quickly as I made my way up the level ladder. So I worked out ways to get relatively cheap HGPoints while submitting content to the site. The easiest was to port over guides and reviews. I like to have final say on what's over here--basically, I want my -better- writing to be here, if possible. Guides got schlepped over with reviews, and they got even more HG Points.

I didn't realize how lucrative screenshots could be, but when I did, it seemed unfair. Six screenshots=180 points, review=160. Wouldn't it be cheating above and beyond expedience to go with them? Wasn't the REAL intellectual work, well, writing? One of the big things that separates this site from others? And wasn't it just a bit preposterous that a lot of screenshots for, say, GameFAQs have just a title screen and not much else?

Well, yes and no. The last question was a red herring. To abuse two cliches with one stone, I realized you need blood-and-guts as well as heart-and-soul.

When overdrive mentioned in RotW that my Hard Hat Mack review could use screenshots, I started realizing, yeah, over the past few years, it had gotten easier to take screenshots in my favorite emulators. I should.

Then I realized that, if I review an obscure game, it's not cheating to put up a few screenshots, and I shouldn't force the review to prop the game up all on their own. In fact my review should have some accountability, and screenshots capture that. And you know what? I don't have the time for new-school games, but screenshots really help if I'm not in the mood for a writer's particular style at the moment. Maybe I'd do well to return the favor.

And I think screenshots are practical for good writing. I have some candidate reviews from GameFAQs I'd like to use in the team tournament. They're not contest-ready, and they need to be cut down, with imagery added.

So with only X images per game(X=8 for RPG, less for action games, 0 or 1 for text adventure) I'm forced to decide the most memorable images from an emotional and practical perspective. Not just "puzzle x worked. The plot was consistent. Vague nostalgia." And it can list out cool stuff so that my review doesn't have to wander that way.

My current strategy doesn't involve praying for levels on HGWars. So my quest for HG Points went beyond just winning.

Perhaps I should have thought of things this way before: screenshots are more than just gross advertising, and even if they are advertising, it's to convince other people to enjoy the games I have, not to waste money. Choosing the screenshots has already led me to what I really want to express in reviews. Or they establish something I haven't been able to say yet, or make something clear that I took for granted the reader would know. It becomes like drawing diagrams for a chemistry or physics problem: there's that subset of snobs who say "pictures are for babies," or who are sure they could solve problem X without a diagram. But they probably got there with diagrams, and I've found them helpful there. Why not here? And if a screenshot or two gets rejected, that usually points to something I might be able to tighten up in what I remember.

Perhaps this is obvious for many of you. But it's refreshing to have this sort of big boost that opens things up for me. It's too easy to get set in my ways and say "If there was anything that'd help me a lot, wouldn't I have been smart enough to notice it?" It's very nice to have that contradicted, even if I feel a little silly how obvious it must be now.